Re: [ARSCLIST] Lacquer brands

[Michael Biel <mbiel@xxxxxxxxx>]

From: Bob Olhsson <olh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> When I started cutting in the mid 1960s, there were three brands in
> common use here in the U.S. They were Reeves Soundcraft, AudioDisc
> and Transco. From time to time people offered the Pyral disks that
> were imported from France. (My understanding is that they had invented
> the process and licensed it to Presto and Audio Devices in the U.S.)


I have never been able to find any proof that Pyral was first. 
Licensing is highly unlikely because there are no patent notices on any
lacquer discs, although there were on the uncoated discs that preceeded
this technology.  Embossing a groove on bare metal had been patented in
the teens.  Cutting a groove was long in public domain, and techniques
for coating metal with a lacquer plastic were standard industrial
technologies.  Faceted cutting styli were eventually patented, but that
is not the disc.  Cecil Watts' widow's bio "Dust Bug Cecil" gives the
details but NO DATES of his development of the MSS disc, and I have
never found any data from that era with accurate dates of the
introduction of the Pyral disc.  On the other hand, Presto started
advertising their disc and professional machine in October 1934 and I
have seen discs from that month and possibly as early as July 34.  They
obviously had been working on the disc and machine long before October
1934.  Presto was run by Morris Gruber and George Saliba, and Saliba had
written widely on recording techniques back to 1930, and Presto marketed
a simple machine back then which embossed on uncoated aluminum.  But I
have several very thin coated discs from a Danish company with dates
from April 1934, and there might have been some coated discs in Europe
in 1933 including the glass based ones that needed to be baked.  If
someone has any accurate dated literature, articles, and/or discs from
Europe in the early 30s I would love to know about it.  

Mike Biel  mbiel@xxxxxxxxx


There were four grades:

1. Master which was single sided with a single hole. These were
virtually perfect with no visible bubbles on the good side. 10" was used
for 7" 45s, 12" for ten inch LPs and 14" for 12" masters.

2. Double face. These had an additional drive hole for lathes not having
a vacuum chuck. They were very good on both sides although with
blemishes and bubbles around the edges. We used 10" and 12"

3. Single face. The same as above only some had obvious imperfections on
the bad side.

4. I don't remember what they were called. Recently people call them dub
plates. They were/are inexpensive and thinner disks used for promotional
copies, publisher demos, etc.

Here's a link to the surviving US manufacturer:

www.apollomasters.com/story.html



Bob Olhsson Audio Mastery, Nashville TN
Mastering, Audio for Picture, Mix Evaluation and Quality Control
Over 40 years making people sound better than they ever imagined!
615.385.8051 http://www.hyperback.com http://www.thewombforums.com