Difficulty with recording equipment

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timtimtim

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I recently acquired some old recording equipment where the signal is recorded as a wiggly groove on a wax cylinder. I am having some problems trying to record multitrack music on this medium because the groove basicaly only accomodates one audio channel. Also I find the playback quality is not too good: the frequency response is only about 200Hz to 2kHz and the signal to noise ratio is only 30dB. Is there any way I can improve my system?
 
It is all to do with the room acoustics, how do you expect to be able to record accurately in a non treated room?

You need to use the correct brand of wax cylinder. Also don't forget to record at a gain of +3 as this is not rubbish digital fangled gear. You also need a hifi horn monitor and in this case a Neumann model: MYHorn-iSbiGger horn microphone to capture the sound.

Alan.
 
timtimtim said:
I am having some problems trying to record multitrack music on this medium because the groove basicaly only accomodates one audio channel.
Click to expand...

You need one machine per track, with the axles joined to keep them synced.

To mix play them all back into another similar machine. You can obstruct the horns of the tracks that are too loud to balance the mix. It should sound awesome.
 
I've given my studio the "full wax treatment", covered all walls and ceiling with high grade wax because I know that to get the maximum quality out of a wax recording you need to go all the way with wax and make the whole room a totaly waxy environment, which reverberates with the wax of the cylinder to give a really harmonious acoustical resonance.
I've tried Edison Bell cylinders and Marconi cylinders but they all sound much the same, but I'll keep experimenting.
I'll take a look at the Neuman monitor.
 
OK that's lucky because the package I bought was 8 wax recorders, and I should be able to link them up so they run in sync. The only problem I forsee is the output of the players may not be loud enough to copy onto the final mix track? But I hope that if I can find a really big horn it may pick up enough sound from the other horns to produce a good mix volume.
 
Check the date on the package of wax to make sure it's not sticky.
 
lower the temperature of your room. We're talking wax cylinders here. The elastic modulus is non-linear and it might get too brittle at some point. so you won't see much improvement lower than 15c.

but at 15c, it should sound really suh-weet. :D
 
Are we talking about bee's wax or paraffin wax?

You need to set the lathe bias trim tension gimbals properly with the 12 ounce counter weight suspension diaphragm.

Cheers! :)
 
Maybe that's where I'm going wrong? I like to record in a nice warm studio, but recently I have noticed that the wax is getting a bit soft, and often while I'm really getting into a good bit of guitar I feel an ominous drip drip on my neck, and realise that the whole ceiling is melting, and the cylinder I'm recording onto is no longer a cylinder, but more closely resembles a pool of shapeless and liquid wax. This is a problem. How do you other wax recording dudes manage to lay down tracks while maintaining the mechanical coherence of the recording medium?
 
Look for the sticky post on "sticky melt syndrome". A lot of good information there. All is not lost if you have some cylinders that are experiencing SMS. You can put them through a process to stabilize them. They need to be in a controlled temperature chamber, dont use your freezer! The temp needs to be maintained at exactly 16.768 degrees F, for 8 hours.

Also, you can gain another 1.34dB of dynamic range by using only genuine RCA cactus needles.
 
I recommend the old Ampex GW2 (Grand Wax +2) for for a whopping 32 dB S/N ratio! That's more than you need for today's mastering standards. And also pizza... lots of pizza makes for the best recordings. For synchronizing of wax cylinders you'll need highly skilled synchronizing mice for each cylinder. Day Two of mouse synchronizing is usually much better than Day One... hopefully.

 
Multi-track?

Sure, all you need is a gang of multiple needles on multiple diaphrams and a wax cylinder about 6 feet long.

What's your problem???
 
timtimtim said:
OK that's lucky because the package I bought was 8 wax recorders, and I should be able to link them up so they run in sync. The only problem I forsee is the output of the players may not be loud enough to copy onto the final mix track? But I hope that if I can find a really big horn it may pick up enough sound from the other horns to produce a good mix volume.
Click to expand...

If you need to, don't be afraid to patch coincident sources into the master wax cylinder during mixdown. Easiest way to do this is to yell the part that's weak into the master horn during mastering. If it is an instrument part you can't duplicate well by voice just hire somebody who does impersonations or something.

Look in the Yellow Pages under "Expander".
 
I dream of a wax cylinder!

Consider yourself lucky. I'm still recording with chisel and stone.
 
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