Victrola Favorites: double album of remastered shellac rarities

Posted by Cory Doctorow, May 27, 2008 4:52 AM | permalink

Hollow Earth Radio writes,

Jeffrey Taylor and Robert Mills of the Seattle experimental music group, Climax Golden Twins, are great compilers of music of a bygone era and far away places. They collect REALLY GREAT 78 rpm shellac records and record them on a real victrola with a microphone, for a smooth and much better tone than other transferred 78 compilations. This is world music (including america) from the 20's, 30's, and 40's. They previously released these on cassette and now have made a 'best of' two CD set called Victrola Favorites that comes in an extremely handsome 144 page hard cover book full of 78 curio, covers, and needle box pictures.
You can listen to audio samples at the label's (Dust-to-Digital) website. The entire two-disk set will be aired on Wednesday at 9 pm (again Thursday at 10am) on Hollow Earth Radio, and Jeffrey Taylor will be interviewed about the process of putting this together.

Link, Link to Victrola Favorites on Amazon (Thanks, Hollow Earth Radio!)

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Discussion

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#1 posted by wgmleslie , May 27, 2008 5:01 AM

I used to wince watching the Furniture Guys, because they would take old 78's, whack them with a hammer and dissolve them in solvent for the shellac.

I know it's bug-goo, but the audio data encoded on them must be worth bit more than furniture coating.

Don't get me started on the Edison cylinders.

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#2 posted by bunnyman2112

, May 27, 2008 6:04 AM

This is a wonderful set! However, the CDs are enclosed in the book covers and are damn near impossible to get out without snapping the CDs to bits. After much careful twisting, I was able to remove them, then put them in CD envelopes...

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#3 posted by drblack , May 27, 2008 6:25 AM

Fantastic! I am so happy that there are people in the world who are preserving such important parts of our culture.
I am curious why they use a microphone though?
It would add a lot of air. I would try to rig up a direct to high sample rate digital and record onto some type II cassettes to preserve the analog as well. I have never owned a Victrola but I do own a few modern turntables which have adapters for playing old 78s and have RCA outputs .

I can understand them keeping it vintage, but perhaps they could do both.

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#4 posted by oxymoron69 , May 27, 2008 6:36 AM

Torrent link anyone?

I don't have $45, but i'd like to throw some super old mp3's like this in my collection and mess with folks.

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#5 posted by Enochrewt , May 27, 2008 6:48 AM

This is the type of stuff I go digging at the Salvation Army music bins/garage sales for. A good session with music like this reminds you of how the craft and art of making music is on the decline.

#4: Last time I checked BB wasn't a warez/pirate site. Completely tasteless on your part, for shame.