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home recording 1932 EKco Radiocorder update
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- čas přidán 15. 08. 2024
- This video supplants an an earlier, flawed one. It's at • home recording ca.193... , if you decide to need to see it.
On Monday 4th May 2020, I uploaded a video which purported to demonstrate a 1931/32 home recording device. It was the Ekco ‘Radiocorder’, made by the E K Cole company, based at Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England.
Unfortunately, my presence of mind must have deserted me, for I made several serious, nay catastrophic, mistakes in my presentation.
This video seeks to repair the damage, and present the machine properly.
It was, in fact, a comment from Enriko Kalesky (for which many thanks!) that alerted me to the problem.
Here then, is a re-working of the original video, in which the recorder is seen - or rather heard - working far better than before.
Forwards & backwards links are being made, so that both videos may be seen - if you don’t find it all too boring, that is!
Best regards and thanks for all your kind comments; sorry that I can’t answer each one individually.
Cheers,
Norman.
My grandfather bought one of these EKCO radiocorder devices in 1932 and proceeded to cut a large number of records featuring himself, friends and family as well as a number of BBC radio transmissions including royal messages, news broadcasts, dance bands, organ recitals, radio comedy and talks. I discovered the discs in 2016 in my parent's loft (no radiocorder) and have been recovering the sounds over the last few years (when I have time).
The BBC broadcasts can be heard at this link to my website greenbank-records.com/1930s-recordings#/samples/
I also have some videos on my channel presenting some of the more personal recordings he made at home including visits from his sister (from Alexandria in Egypt), his brother (a mathematics professor at Exeter) and an old friend (from Melbourne, Australia). Another recording made with his young nephews and niece after the outbreak of the 2nd Italo-Ethiopian War is a humorous satirical attack on fascism.
Thank you for recovering and demonstrating the device. I always suspected that the recording quality was never that good. Your recording example matches the best that I have been able to recover.
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Please accept my apologies for not replying sooner. Congratulations! Your Archive is extremely valuable & the audio quality is very good. If you have not already done so, the British Library would certainly welcome the audio files, if you were prepared to donate them. In addition, people with recording devices, always tended to use them for recording Important Events. The recordings of 'ordinary people talking' were held to be inconsequential. The opposite is the case! Famous politicians making impresssive speeches abound - comparatively. What is woefully lacking, is the speech & conversations of ordinary citizens. So if you hold an archive of this informal type of recordings - family birthday parties, Christmas gatherings &c., THEY are absolutely priceless, and should be prerserved at all costs - and placed in a formal archive, like the British Library. Best wishes & many thanks for writing. Take care, Norman.
Amazing quality really. Just makes me wonder what recordings are out there festering in boxes waiting to be found. We really have so little in the way of 'off air' recordings from the early 1930's. Well done, most interesting. Cheers.
czcams.com/video/7rPDWOdAM5Y/video.html&feature=emb_logo
Norman, what a gracious video! The quality of that little recorder simply astounds me. For its age, it is a gem.
Thanks for your videos, you're keeping 78 rpm alive. Cheers, Tom
Norman, definitely a noticable difference in the sound quality from the first recording to the second. It is hard to believe that those tiny little rubber parts make such a difference! Keep well.
I appreciate the graciousness Mr. Field, but don't disparage the first video; I learned a great deal from BOTH videos! Thank you for the continuing education!
wishing you all the best in these troubling times stay well we need your knowledge.
Totally amazing!
Norman - what a joy suddenly to come across you talking to me (and everyone else) after all these years! Good to see you looking well. Best regards...
That's very kind of you, dear chap! Hoping that you're holding out OK, against this ruddy plague? OK here so far! Let's hope we meet up again in the not too distant future. In the meantime, take care, & Best regards from Norman.
Norman...I want to thank you for a most interesting and entertaining channel.. please keep up the grand work and brilliant videos ...they are keeping me sane during this time ...stay safe and thanks again
I was wondering if You could use some recorder heads to play a Record! VERY Interesting indeed! You are a genius!! I am trying to redo a Van Epps 500 ohm, I have a up transformer that I got quite a shock from when testing it!! I LOVE the Record You have "You`re Getting To Be A Habit With Me", Your aluminum disc sounds GREAT! after Your redo, Bicycle innertube damper! I LOVE it!!
Thanks! All we need to carry on is some really soft annealed aluminium sheet, dead flat & with a mirror finish. As yet, haven't found any! 8^) Cheers, & have a nice Christmas & above all, Keep Safe!! Norman.
Both videos are great Norman. The second one sure does sound better listening through headphones it's hugely noticeable. Cheers Paul
the world is waiting for new inventions and you deal with antiques
Thank you for all of your wonderful videos
Great as usual, thanks Norman.
Truly great work! I am going to try rebuilding a horse shoe pickup! Keep up the good work and spirits make 78s more fun! HAHAHAHA
Hello Norman, an interesting development. My question remains, could you also make a sound recording on plastic glass (of those rectangular plastic transparent plates) and how would that sound?
Not bad for a recording using clockwork and a pin. Must have been magical back in the day....if you could afford it. Oh...I'll have a double if you insist...cheers!!
I am going to give My Van Epps recording head a try with a 500 ohm transformer, If it still does not satisfy, would it effect the sound quality to reduce the winding to 8 ohm`s? It is a rather ridged recorder!
Have also come across hardened rubber damping & pivots & found valve rubber ideal. On my Collaro RC1 however, they seem to have used a form of black rubber on the pivot, which shows no sign of decay. Also, each pole piece has a black rubber buffer, adjustable by a tiny screw, which centres the armature & determines the level of damping. These buffers also, show no sign of decay. Any idea what kind of rubber was used & when it was introduced please? Enjoyed your demonstration of the Radiocorder. Thanks for posting.
Hi. Norman. I cant answer any way of contacting you but just to say that in your website showing old pickuo arms and heads, the arm with the 3 miniature Garrard heads was made by BSR for Decca fimor their early FFRR heads identical fitting ti the Garrards. Kind regards. Peter
Dear Peter - sorry delay. Thanks for writing, and have updated the web page using the info. you kindly supplied. I hope I've got it right! normanfield.com/index.php/electric-4/ .Again thanks, Norman.
@@bixanorak
Hi. Norman. The Arm was made by BSR not the Garrard heads.
Sorry for the confusion.
Regards. Peter.
@@petersol296 Ah! Yes - thank you... I thought I had got something slightly wrong there. 🤔 So, the heads are indeed Garrard as labelled; but the 'Garrard' arm was made by BSR. And the Decca 'ffrr' heads (which they made themselves) used the same 3-pin plug-in configuration? Hope this is OK but thanks so much for your help! Cheers, Norman.
Hello Norman, I was thinking of my late father while watching your last video. He would have found your videos fascinating, as I do. He actually worked at the Ekco factory before, and after the war. I live less than a mile from its original location in Southend-on-Sea and though the factory closed decades ago, their 'Ekco Social Club' survives! A painting of E. K. Cole still hangs on the wall. Until very recently, the Ekco Club was home to Southend Jazz Club where I played frequently on Monday nights with various bands, and musicians you'd probably know. Cheers! Tim
Nice to hear from you, Tim! Hope things are going OK for you & yours in these very strange times - it's OK here. Great to learn of your connection with Ekco - Cole would have been a near contemporary of a chap who started into making radios in Brum around the same time, under the name Telsen. They grew enormously fast in an unprecedented radio boom period, but unlike Ekco, could not weather the Great Depression. Glad that Ekco still survives, even only as name. Marvellous also that the social club survives too - I think the Standard-Triumph social cub still exists in Coventry. Well - there can't be any playing going on, & it may be some time before it starts again. I wonder if you've been doing any 'playing from home'? Somebody sent me a link to a video of Andy Schumm doing an entire band himself... I knew he was good, but 'what the heck' as Bix used to say. 8^) Michael McQuaid & Co have been doing some small groups too - you'll have seen them, I dare say. Actually I owe Michal an email, so I'll stop rambling & just wish you and yours all the best, and take care of yourselves! Cheers, Norman.
@@bixanorak Yes, Andy Schumm's video was astonishing. If I'd only heard the audio (with a bit of added 78rpm crackle!) , I think I'd have been fooled. Re. Michael McQuaid; yes, a fine musician indeed. I've played with him a few times. Great arranger, too. Take care. Tim
Hello Norman. What happened with the video of the phase inverter?? Just when I searched it to replicate, disappeared. Thank you.
Hi there - Don't worry; it will be back! I took it down, because it had some comments that said 'Wanna be Friends?' or something like that, and somebody had posted a comment saying that those 'Wanna be friends' comments were malware - and if you clicked on them, something bad would happen. Well; to be on the safe side, I deleted the video - and the comments with it. BUT, it will be going back up soon, & will include a short explanation (or a link) to show how to make the little inverter circuit. Maybe just two or three days, i hope, & it will be back up. Mis mejores deseos para usted y su familia - adios, Norman.
Great job! Have you ever been thinking of making such rubber damping components yourself of soft and elastic silicon mould? The shape of the cutting angles of a stylus are very important. Aluminium needs another form or cutting tools than other materials, but the most important is that the cutting surfaces of the stylus are as blackpolished as only possible, no matter if a steel engraving stylus or a ruby or sapphire stylus is used. Best regards from Switzerland, bluearcturus
Thanks for writing! Silicone plastic is marvellous stuff & I do use it, for instance, I stripped silicone insulation from quite thick heat-resistant wire, and it made excellent damping for an armature in a MSS cutting head. I didn't know you could cast or mould it though! Your suggestion is excellent - I'll look it up right away. Many thaks! Cheers, Norman.
Of course! Silicon mould is a very useful workshop aid for different kind of things. There are many silicon mould resins available in different grade of softness/hardness. Some collectors even copy records themselves, using these silicon moulds. Watch Don Wilson for example: czcams.com/video/VA5r5_-oewA/video.html he's doing great stuff on his channel, copying Edison cylinders, and Diamond discs and other very interesting features. In the record cutting and playback heads, I was thinking that making such rubber damping components would be very handy to make yourself with such silicon mould! Maybe this could be done in the head itself, by pouring a very small amount of silicon resin into the cutting head itself, while the iron anchor is fixed in the wanted middle position. The excess mould could be easily trimmed off with a sharp knife. In the early days, the technicians were experimentating with the cutting heads and different kinds of rubber damping to reach a equal full frequency response. The damping material in a cutting and a playback head is crucial for a good frequency response. Have a nice day and good luck with more experiments! Best regards, Martin
In my last comment I forgot to mention that it could be extremely useful and handy to have a tension gauge available. When you have replaced the rubber damping parts in a cutting/playback head, with a tension gauge you can measure the actual physical resistance of the rubber parts. With time and experience then you will be able to judge if a damping part should be softer or harder, which one is giving better playback result. Maybe in a cutting head the rubber parts should be a little bit harder than in a playback head as the cutting action needs more strength than a playback action. But I can be wrong, of course. Maybe you look on ebay for a "Correx" Swiss "tension gauge", these are sometimes available for a reasonable price.
I know it's non of my business but was the bar serving a dry sherry or was that a Whisky, I'm only inquiring for scientific reasons your understand. The glass I refer to was in the earlier bit :)
My dear chap, thanks. I normally drink red wine, but the stress of lockdown has re-awakened a taste for Scotch & water, though only as 'the first taste of the day'. Take care! Cheers, Norman.
Thanks Norman, as I was watching your excellent upload I was imbibing a glass of the red vino. Thanks and you take care too, my very best wishes and cheers :)
Hi Norman
Great channel and I love your experiments and so on your knowledge is amazing - Its like being with a fav Uncle
Ive done a bit about you on my channel so pop over to my channel and have a look !
Warm regards
Richard
I'm not sure how much of the crackle and pop in the aluminum recording was in the original material that you recorded on the disk and how much was from this recording session, but there is no doubt that the machine did a credible recording for a home recording device.
Virtually all the 'snap, crackle, pop' was due to spot corrosion on the disc. If mirror-finish thin & soft aluminium is available today, we ciuld make some nice sound recordings oin it! Cheers, Norman.
Norman could you please tell me the title of the count Basie song was? Thanks
Mac
Sorry, Mac - should have included details. 'Topsy' by Count Basie, New York, 9th August 1937. Hear it in modern (=sterile) quality at : czcams.com/video/Zl7CITge_5A/video.html . Cheers, Norman.
Norman Field thank you so much