Stereo before there was stereo: 1950s Cook Binaural records
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- čas přidán 28. 03. 2018
- A look at and listen to Emory Cook's crazy binaural LPs, which brought stereo sound to vinyl records five years before Columbia and other major record labels introduced stereo records in the format that is still used today.
- Věda a technologie
Hi, I am Bob and the owner of the Cook (actually LIVINGSTON) Binaural Tone Arm you speak about. It can be seen in its entirety here: czcams.com/video/PgbO_OFVaQc/video.html
I have an extensive collection of these rare Binaural records, along with related literature gathered from the audio fairs. I started this collection in the 50's and still enjoy listening to these records. I have upgraded my turntable to a direct drive and will try to upload some more videos of different binaural records in the near future. It will be on my satellite you tube website
shown on your left with the vintage television set (NOT "harristeeter1").
what r links to your earliest stereo?
@@janpaullubek7954The link above on my first CZcams channel. harristeeter1
czcams.com/users/harristeeter1
I just wanted to say that I enjoy your videos. A hidden gem on CZcams... criminally under-subscribed for sure. Nothing wasted on fluff or flashiness, just matter-of-fact nuggets of varying interests, that we can definitely relate to, presented clearly and passionately. Don't ever change.
Corey Badeaux Best VWestlfe comment ever.
Mr. VWestlife may be undersubscribed, but LGR and I think Techmoan both subscribe here, so that is saying a lot.
Same.
I'll throw in my hat agreeing with this too. No fluff and flashiness is really that sets this channel apart. And like someone else commented. People like TechMoan and LGR and many other more popular youtubers are subscribed to him.
i mean... fax.
I am a very old man from frozen Patagonia, Argentina, and you made me happy again with your videos. I am deaf from one ear and almost deaf from the other even so, this amazing recordings almost made me feel stereo again in decades!!!. I thank you. Cheers!!
Cook was also a pioneer in another way, he designed his own, improved record presses, AND came up with an idea to make records at the point of sale! Sold some in Jamaica which enabled the early flowering of what was to become Reggae. They could record locally, get Cook to male a master, send it back to them, and press records from it when asked for.
Sounds really great with headphones. .
It sounds epic.
Damn, that *was* amazing! I had never heard of this format before until now!
Very cool. It’s almost hyper-real because of the separation of the microphones.
I know this isn't Binaural, in the same way the term is used now. It's pretty damn close, though.
This freaked my cat out, which freaked me out. Awesome video though! 👍
Mine too! She ran right out of the room. :)
My dog covered his face. He just doesn't appreciate good stereo separation.
Jon Traverz LOL, yep! 😆
I had a friend who had a pair of JVC biphonic head phones with microphones on each ear cup. We went to a showing of Star Wars and recorded the audience sounds. When played back through the headphones, it sounded like you were in the theater again. I listened to your test recording on my stereo and it was pretty amazing. Never knew about Emory Cook, now I have to check him out.
Steven Smyth I hope you/your friend kept that recording!
That sounds awesome!
Did you/your friend keep that recording?
I truly hope your friend still has that recording and could possible share it with us.
I remember as a kid using two tape recorders to do a similar stereo effect. Even though the tapes were played back in the same machine which recorded them, the recordings still drifted apart over a few minutes.
I remember using two tape recorders for the same thing, only I didn't use a tape on each machine. I placed the recorders side by side, one back-to-front WRT the other, and twisted a single tape through 180 degrees between them. I then used the lead recorder to drag the tape through both machines. Worked pretty well, and I could even fudge a stereo effect by dubbing a mono signal from one to the other and changing the record volume up and down. Sounded good on car chases recorded from TV!
Bruce Goatly very cool, I sub'd 🎯
I knew a guy who got excited about Sony's consumer portable DAT recorder. This guy had no stereo of his own, but upon hearing about DAT technology he became obsessed and eventually saved up enough to buy one. This was no small feat because the player/recorders were very expensive and this guy was about 20 years old. Even more surprising than the fact that a poor young person with no HiFi wanted to spend a small fortune on a highly specialized piece of audio equipment was the fact that this person was homeless and had no apparent job! Some of these details did not come to light until later.
He eventually did get his portable DAT rig and politely requested some recording time on my stereo. Amazingly, when he got to my apartment where I had a mediocre Sony turntable with a respectable Ortofon Concorde cartridge and rather good quality Realistic brand (Radio Shack) 35 Watt power channel receiver, he came with his own vinyl records!
I fully expected him to go through my records to pick some hit songs or perhaps an album to "transfer" (pirate) to DAT. That might have been the plan originally, but by the time he showed up he had learned/realized that viny records wear out a little with each play and he wanted the best possible source for his recordings. To my amazement he brought 3 or 4 albums, some of which were Pink Floyd, some brand new, and at least one that was used but in excellent condition.
He didn't pick and choose tracks at all. He simply recorded all sides of all albums to DAT cartridges.
Months later I saw him and asked how the DAT player was working. I was definitely envious of that DAT player. He reported with consternation that the DAT worked perfectly, but that he had come to realize that nothing he could obtain commercially could fully utilize the potential of the player and that he had embarked on a quest to make his own "truly high quality" recordings.
He had ordered better headphones and some highly regarded binaural microphones from a catalog and was hopeful that he could eventually get some really good recordings of live concerts.
Fast forward a year - I saw him again and he had the DAT unit with him. I asked about it and he demonstrated. He had very nice headphones (I don't remember what kind now) and played me some of his prizes recordings: some live concert tracks, and RAILROAD SOUNDS!! He also had frog sounds and some other sound effects.
I think it's funny that people gravitate to train sounds when a new high quality audio recording format comes along. From one decade to the next, trains retain their appeal, particularly for demonstrating surround effects in an audio system.
The demo was pretty darn cool. I have quite a large, albeit older Yamaha stereo sound system connected to my computer. When the ships horn went off.. Pure immersion! I could feel the blast in my chest! Nicely done.
Thanks for the experience.
The stereo separation with the Cook records are amazing. I am no audiophile but I can tell a pretty big difference in "traditional stereo" that we have now and Cook's records despite my hearing impairment
That's because he is only using two microphones and is not applying any dynamic compression. Unlike the processed junk balancing that modern pop (or pap, depending on your opinion of today's noise) has in order to make the stuff playable on radio stations that have to sound good in cars, factories and so on. Wide dynamic and uncompressed range with the highest fidelity sound was better in the past as it was recorded better and without any constraints. Today, people buy cheap junk to play their music on because the wife says so or because no-one has ever heard proper hi-fi and how good it can make older recordings sound. Those record companies who do make the effort in catching sounds in high quality sound are easily noticed on good gear. They're the ones which sound alive, much in the way this test does. We have had high-fidelity stereo sound for sixty years on a wide commercial basis and it's inventor was in England. 1931 to be precise. Not an American invention at all. It was devised by the man who pioneered RADAR.
Colombia always seemed to have the finest stereo sound.
Plenty of people only had crappy gear in the past too!
@@britishcomposers What are you? Racist?
This is due to the fact that the signal is not stereophonic. The two channels have no temporal correlation, due to the reading system, which cannot, by definition, keep the two channels temporally connected from the beginning to the end of the record. One of the two channels will always be delayed or ahead of the other. In stereophony, it is essential to have two channels perfectly aligned in time, and not only that, the phase of the signals must be respected. In this case, we cannot even remotely talk about phase, even less about stereophony. This is binaural sound, and it is wide because it cannot reproduce any sound in the middle of the two channels, but only at the sides of the two channels.
I have a copy of that Columbia binaural record. It is Fascinating to hear.
I also have one Cook binaural, but no workable way to play it correctly.
Cook donated all of his stuff to the Smithsonian.
You can get copies of his recordings from Smithsonian Folkways,
either as burned-on-demand CD-Rs or as downloads.
I ordered a CD of Rail Dynamics and found that about half of it was backwards.
At my request, they investigated the situation, respliced the tape so that all of it is now correct,
and sent me a copy of that at no extra charge.
Wow! Learned something interesting just now. I would love to see how those original binaural records were mastered and how the cutting lathe was set up. Very ingenious and fascinating.
Thanks for posting this.
That is so cool. The separation is unreal for an LP.
I remember as a teenager being played some 1960s stereo test records. One particular surround sound test always sticks in my memory, where a sound moved towards you, through you and then right to the back of our long room, before returning back towards you and into the speakers where it started from. I've never experienced anything quite like it since, and I have tried and experienced a number of sophisticated modern setups, some of which were very cutting edge for the time a few years ago.
This is a great video. I had the honor to work with Emory at Cook Labs in Norwalk, Connecticut in the late 70's. What an amazing man and it's great to see he is remembered so highly with such fondness and respect. He fully deserves it, and without a doubt he is STILL the smartest man I have even encountered in my 70 years.
that was amazing, I felt like I was in a movie from that time and I was lost in the place where ships start their trips. Very reallistic, good video
Not even 15 years later they we're making quadraphonic records! Even though they were more of a curiousity.
Warren S. I wonder if anyone tried to invent an quadphonic record with four tone arms from this era
+dandanthetaximan Which is better?
John Riopel lol, nah, but you usually had to have some bulky ass converter anyways. It was a curriosity, even though I think qiad actually worked better than some of the 1st Dolby surround.
Don't forget that when you double up the arm heads, you reduce the playing time to less than half.
I have a vintage german stereo that can play quadraphonic records , does i need a special cartige or just have to found a quadraphonic recorded record ?
The stereo effect on this video was impressive !
Great video! The stereo separation is incredible on headphones. I've read about these Cook records but I've never found one. I did bought buy a copy of "Listening In Depth" at a thrift store a long time ago and still have it. I didn't know it was one of the first stereo albums released. But after 60 years it still a great sounding demo album.
what an interesting piece of history. The stereo effect was impressive.
That was extraordinary!!! Thank you SO MUCH for sharing that recording... and if you ever feel like posting any more of the tracks as "extras" on your channel, I'd sure listen!!!
That guy was brilliant. I really enjoyed this video. Fascinating really. Thanks for the video.
excellent piece of editing & history, very well done.
This is just insane! What a wonderful piece of history.
My dad had a copy of "Voice of the Sea," though his was just a standard monaural pressing. It was on red vinyl and the B-side was "Surf." Thanks for bringing this back as a personal nostalgia item for me, and for giving me the chance to hear it in stereo!
Certainly a very unusual technology, but very effective, gives more of a feeling of actually being there than the stereophonic sound we ended up with... :)
The stereo separation is impressive but so is the fidelity. That really did not sound like a recording from that time period. Very cool. I might have to look for the Rail Dynamics record. I didn't hear any pops in this, did you have to clean it up or was it really this clean straight from the record?
I used some click/pop filtering when editing the audio tracks together, but it didn't need much of it.
I think the fact that the two channels are recorded separately provides 100% clean separation, as in, as clean as it may have been on the tape. With the 45/45 system you can only get so much separation (generally between 15 to 30-ish dBs during playback). On an additional note, given that the two tracks are completely in sync, you also don't get any phase issue during cutting because it's double mono, that also means you can cut it louder, which might be why it sounds so quiet.
I picked up Cook's Rail Dynamics album on vinyl and just now got around to uploading the first half of it.
It is a mono record but interestingly enough, sounds like it's stereo.
czcams.com/video/iVhNjsRFWhs/video.html
@@Deluxeta I kinda agree with you. Since left and right are placed on different tracks, the stereo-ness is a lot cleaner. And phase error can also be lessened more.
This is amazing
That was really cool to listen to. Thanks for the upload.
This is amazing, really. The recording you played at ~09:50 was amazing, especially considering the time. It seems like he had some great ideas; I'd listen to this kind of stuff all the time.
This is the perfect example of why I will never ever give this channel up. Thank you, Kevin.
Great video.... I really love old tech and this is a very rare and interesting one.
Thanks for recording and "decoding" that LP!
This is absolutely fantastic! Thank you very much for sharing this video!
Brilliant video. Totally intersting and a format I was not aware of, and I know a LOT of wierd audio stuff so thanks for brightening my world for the better. Many many thanks for posting
Beautiful! Gonna use that last ship horn as my phone's ring tone! LOL.
What a great discovery this video is. I will be checking out more from you.
Fantastic video! Thanks for this.
Hearing that recording was just out of this world. Thanks for sharing
Enjoyed the history lesson! I listened on headphones and the synch'd video was great!
Wow! That recording at the end is crazy! Your history lesson was baller too! Love your vids.
That was great! That's probably the best stereo separation I've gotten out of my stereo in a while!
The was very interesting video. Thanks for posting.
Aligning a cartridge on a regular turntable is difficult enough, but trying to set up one of those two headed tonearms must have been a freakin' nighmare!
Wow!! So I was around records and record players since as far back as I can remember, and this is the first I've ever seen this! Thank you for showing me something new to me!
I had no idea such a thing existed. Thank you so much for showing this.
Can't believe I have not seen this, quite interesting.
Well this was fascinating! I'd never seen seen stereo being achieved this way before. Amazing what ideas they came up with back in the day.
You're right! Emory Cook was the guy who created his earliest experiment called binaural sound, which would later became stereo by 1957. That same year, Disneyland released the 3-LP set of the soundtrack to "Fantasia" with Leopold Strokowski conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra. One of the cuts from the triple album is the "Sorcerer's Apprentice", and Mickey Mouse was in the film. If you want hear it long before Emory Cook came in, take a good listen.
czcams.com/video/H-3MJ0yib70/video.html
@@Musicradio77Network There was a lot going on in the early 1930s. In the US Stokowski made experimental two-channel discs in 1931 and 1932. At roughly the same time Alan Blumlein was doing pioneering work in the UK. He came up with the 45/45 method of encoding two channels in a single groove, the method still used today.
These are the highest fidelity recordings you can have from that era, has as much separation and dynamic range as a CD, and the system was clearly superior to the stereo standard we all know for vinyl records.
The system could maybe have been perfected to a more user friendly and less bulky form, maybe in the form of 2 tracks next to each other, looking like 2 spiral lines the one inside the other, and a system with a two needle single cartridge, so that spacing and tracking of both needles is always the same, the needles need posibly to be stagered a bit to get all bits on top of the 2 needles can be fitted inside that single cartridge.
Some more info about Emory Cook:
Emory Cook was quite thoughtful of the future of his recordings and his label that released them. In 1990, he donated everything involved with it (masters, documents, equipment, etc.) to the Smithsonian. One result is Smithsonian Folkways (the museum's label, itself formed when Moses Asch donated his Folkways label to the Smithsonian in 1987) re-releasing quite a few of Cook Labs' albums on CD and cassette (and an occasional LP re-release, IINM).
The picture of him at 1:42 shows him standing next to his "Microfusion" record molding presses. In addition to his stereo recordings and their binaural LP releases, Cook also developed the Microfusion process, which he used to press his label's records.
Microfusion was different from conventional vinyl record pressing in that it used a very fine micrograined vinyl powder (almost like toner powder for copiers/laser printers) for the raw material, rather than coarse vinyl pellets melted down initially to hockeypuck-sized "shots" or "biscuits" which are then heated and pressed into a finished record. I believe the Microfusion presses ran at a lower temperature, and had shorter molding time. This resulted in a less-complex manufacturing process that Cook envisioned of marketing to smaller record labels or record stores themselves to make their own short-run custom pressings of vinyl, in addition to being of a much higher quality than conventional vinyl pressings with far less surface noise, due to the melting of the powdered vinyl micropellets "filling" in the heated mold more thoroughly.
Cook Labs had a set up a sister label in Trinidad, because of his interest of the music there, that solely used the Microfusion presses to press the many 45s that the Trinidadian division of Cook released. I guess Cook sold the Trinidadian division to another party early on, and as a result, the Trinidadian Cook Labs records and masters are not part of the Smithsonian collection, since they were out of Emory's hands after selling them.
According to the Smithsonian's website, one of the Cook Labs collection's artifacts is a bag of powdered Microfusion vinyl powder used for the process.
folklife.si.edu/archives-and-resources/cook-labs-records
It's amazing how much different it sounds vs. a "normal" stereo recording. The separation is superb. It sounds like you're really standing there. Very cool -- thanks for making this. I had no idea this technology had ever existed -- this is the first time I've ever heard of it.
basically, that track at the end is ASMR before there was ASMR
They had a dummy head with mics on either side like we do that now for asmr thats so interesting to me
You make excellent videos VWestlife!
This is extremely interesting! Last December, I attended the Keystone Record Collector's (monthly) show, in Lancaster. I noticed a "Cook" recording label, with a US Governmental issued record from the Aberdeen Proving Grounds, circa '55. I now wish that I had pulled the record from its sleeve; what a surprise that would have been!
I have two Crosley "Coloradio's" on the bench, for capacitors, and safety upgrades, and three more coming after these two are complete.
As old as that record wa, it played so clean, and the dynamic range for a recording that old was impressive.
That is normal for the period. High-fidelity magnetic master tape recordings from the early Ampex system era from 1954 onwards were always highly capable because of the high standards they set. No compression for starters, unlike today's pop. All that one needed was the highest quality playback equipment with loudspeakers that were not designed to appease a nagging wife's sizeist issues, (eg; LARGE, to shift more air). Hi-fi has been this good when done correctly for over 60-years and the LP record when pressed well and recorded well still beats digital when using the right playback gear, (nothing that's sold in a shopping mall for starters comes even close to the best gear). For example: audiofederation.com/audiophiles-guide/high-end-audio-turntables
@@britishcomposers Even the Rega P1 will win the LP vs. CD competition in a direct A/B comparison. It runs a bit fast so it doesn't stay in sync, but here in the US the U-Turn Orbit Plus runs precisely at 33 1/3 rpm and thus allows the A/B comparison for an entire track. With my Nagaoka MP-150 the instruments with sharp leading edges (drums, piano, guitar) sound markedly more realistic on LP. Tone quality and stereo separation are quite similar (HiFi News measured the MP-150 channel separation at 33 dB), and it rarely produces any audible distortion.
Great video! Thank you!
Interesting and informative video Kevin.
*WOW!!!* Ingenious! Crazy, but ingenious!
I remember when we got our first stereo record player back in the early 60s. It was fabulous. It still is fabulous because I still have it along with most of the records and it still works. Sounds terrific. I play it only on special occasions with special people who truly enjoy the way good music sounds.
Thank you for this. I'd never heard of it, and it's so cool and impractical!
I think that is amazing. I listened on headphones. I never knew that there was stereo before magnetic tape.
@@FamicomLass I believe he was referring to the 1930s Bell Labs experimental stereo discs.
Multichannel film tracks had been in use since the 1930s. However the sound engineers of the time felt it was only an intermediate stage that would be downmixed for better balance on the final mono release. Sadly a lot of the originals were either tossed or forgotten on a shelf somewhere. A small number have resurfaced since the 1990s allowing the binaural tracks to be reconstructed.
Great video!!!!Thank you!!!!😍😍😍
Wow the 'Stereo' separation is so wide. Has anyone recorded these records onto a digital format yet?? Thanks for the video.
The entire first side of the "Voice of the Sea" record is available (in stereo) here: czcams.com/video/BlwUKC_Z1Y4/video.html
Well... that's exactly what's been done in this video! ;)
Yes, Orim, VWest just did, duh! Opes, Bilis beat me to it.
Hey, why "stereo" in quotes? Is it not actually stereo, according to you?
need that 32bit flac
It has gone now unfortunately.
That is awesome! I've heard of this but I've never actually seen a video of it being demonstrated. I'm surprised at how well the Technics turntable kept the exact speed; even the most minuscule pitch shift that no one would normally notice would throw the phasing off wildly, especially if music were being played.
Incredible!! Fantastic!
I listened on my surround sound! When they blew the horn i actually jumped! I can't believe it was recorded over 60 years ago! Lol thank you so much!
Just because the early tonearms used 6 grams tracking weight does not mean that it won't damage records. It certainly won't destroy them, but in time it will cause groove damage. That's why many used records from that era have that distorted sound towards the end of a side.
*All* record players will cause groove damage over time. But RCA Victor's Studiomatic record changer tracked at 5.5 grams and they claimed you could play a record 3000 times on it and it'd still sound great: czcams.com/video/AJCFReHiqhI/video.html
Excellent,, as always. And some great history 🎯📡🎼🎧🎹🚀🍺🍸
Great video. Emory Cook's Calypso recordings, which are all still available on Smithsonian Folkways, are great performances and have amazing fidelity.
That may be a good idea for a future video - offbeat subjects for records (e.g. recording locomotive sounds).
so many strange and interesting audio technologies. thanks for sharing this.
That was one of the coolest recordings I've ever heard
Thanks for that, absolutely fascinating 👏😀
I love this channel
Listining to this on my 7.1 surround sound system makes it sound very impressive.
At this way you got 100% channel separation. Great idea from Mr.Cook
Great information loved the video
Excellent video. Your recorded demo sounded amazing with headphones. Cook made some incredible recordings for the day. it would be great if you could post a full recording.
You can hear it here: czcams.com/video/BlwUKC_Z1Y4/video.html
That adds a new dimension to "being there". When you consider that most of the people (and virtually all of the machines) you hear on this recording are no longer with us, it makes the recordings seem so close.
Really interesting
Wow!! Awesome find!
I heard it through my home studio monitors. Holly Molly, superb.
Thanks for this... enlightening !!!
That was truly amazing, it sounded like I was really there when I closed my eyes and imagined being transported back to that time long ago.
wow, even trough headphones sound really great
The Bell Labs recordings you include were done a year after Alan Blumlein made the first single-groove stereo recordings at EMI in the UK. Bell had made some experimental records of Stokowski in 1932, but they used an even more eccentric method than the Cook records, with separate left and right grooves right next to each other - it must have been very hit-and-miss putting a twin-stylus tone-arm onto a disk so the stereo was the right way round every time :) Blumlein made a patent application for his stereo system in 1931: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Blumlein
Some of Blumlein's earliest recordings were made at Abbey Road studios: czcams.com/video/KD3HBbtN9ak/video.html
Thanks for the info and links.
Well done sir. These American record companies' fake claims to stereo. The Gramophone magazine editor blasted them for these libelous remarks back in the fifties. Blumlein even filed patents for surround sound and there's a test film soundtrack from the thirties demonstrating this 'ambience' channel; as copied by the early Dolby-Stereo system in the 70's which wasn't much different from the four-track magnetic system, as used upon the commencement of Cinemascope film presentation in 1954 under 20th Century Fox..
I'm always left wondering what other technical innovations Blumlein would have come up with if he had survived the war.
Quite. I think he and Isaac Schoenberg would have given us 625-line television much earlier than the 60's possibly. It was their work on television camera advancement (Marconi/EMI system) that toppled the primitive Baird system which had to develop film while filming live in the Alexandra Palace BBC studios in the thirties.
Modern stereo grooves have to share the same space. I wonder if this technology could be resurrected so that each channel had it's own DEEP groove like the Cook system to get more punch. Some of the original pressings of Led Zeppelin II had extra deep cut grooves, but they found some people's styli were jumping off the record during "Whole lotta love" and they had to recall them, start from scratch (pardon the pun) and turn back the cutting lathe. Those original pressings are worth big money now for anyone with properly tracked carts. Somebody should experiment with this twin needle system to get way more depth. I'm sure a company that makes $100,000 turntables could dream something like this up for the audiophile who has tried everything else.
WOW! That is Amazing! What we take for granted today was leading technology back then! Imagine what will it be in another 60 to 65 years in the future and what people will be thinking about the Digital format files we use now? Great Video By the way!!
That so great what great video.
Very interesting! Thanks
Great video
Excellent! I do own a copy of one of the Cook Laboratories Binaural LPs. Thanks for the video! 👍👍
that's really amazing!
A real 100% separated stereo 2 channel ... and sounds great!
Amazing!
Very interesting never knew or even heard of this awesome
Weird but very cool record. You mentioned recording then splitting up the two audio channels. I do video game audio rips of my games and when I first started ripping songs from games I had to manually sync up two channels of the track for it to come out right. Later on I found the right setting in my ripping program and that is no longer needed.
A surprisingly good video!
wonderful sounds from the past!
Fantastic!
wonderful sound
That's incredible!!!
Amazing !!
Fascinating stuff