New voices, old technology: bringing wax cylinders back
The NFSA and the Stiff Gins break new ground by recording contemporary music on 19th century wax cylinder technology.
Two women sing into a large brass horn
The Stiff Gins: Kaleena Briggs and Nardi Simpson record on the Edison Standard D model phonograph
In early 2013 the Indigenous musical duo Stiff Gins (Nardi Simpson and Kaleena Briggs) approached the NFSA’s Senior Curator of Indigenous Collections, Peter White, asking about the possibility of recording a wax cylinder. Nardi Simpson and Kaleena Briggs had come across the cylinder recordings made by Tasmanian Aboriginal woman Fanny Cochrane Smith in the early years of last century and they were intrigued by the idea of making such a recording as part of the developmental work for a new show.
Now, all NFSA technicians had to do was learn how to make it all work. There is no handbook for this 19th century technology. The NFSA archives equipment as well as recordings, and after some research it was decided that we could use one of our Edison Standard D model phonographs as a recording machine. This machine dates from around 1908, has a clockwork spring-powered motor and was fitted with a reproducer head that could play back both 2- and 4-minute cylinders. However, a recorder head instead of the reproducer was required and there were none in the collection. Luckily, a 2-minute version was found from a supplier in the US and blank cylinders were sourced from Paul Morris in the UK.
Audio technician Gerry O’Neill with Edison Standard D model phonograph
Then the equipment was set up in the recording studio for some testing. Recording on such equipment is a purely mechanical process, with no electricity involved. The performer sings or plays down a metal horn and the energy of that sound is concentrated onto a thin circular mica disc in the recorder head. The vibrations of the disc move a thin glass rod which cuts the spiral groove in the cylinder.
We tried out two different conical horns and decided that the longer (120cm) produced better sounding recording that the shorter (100cm) one. The distance of the performer from the horn is also critical and we found that the performer has to be able to hear a reverberant echo coming back out of the horn for there to be enough mechanical energy to cut the groove.
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Post time: Jul-18-2017