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Old 26th Dec 2019, 4:33 pm   #1
martin.m
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Default Is this 78 rpm record a re-issue?

While sorting out my 78rpm records, I came across this one by the legendary Bix Beiderbecke. It is on a label that Parlophone used in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Bix died in 1931 so is this record a re-issue? If so how did they do it when there were no master tapes? Did they just use the old stampers with new labesl? The record plays very well with minimum surface noise. Not what you would expect from a 1930s recording. There is probably a simple answer that eludes me at the moment.
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Old 26th Dec 2019, 5:16 pm   #2
Ted Kendall
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Default Re: Is this 78 rpm record a re-issue?

Most of the Rhythm Style series were pressed from duplicate mothers obtained from the originating label. Curiously enough, 10" records were by this time nearer 9 7/8" and if I remember right, one or two originals started too close to the edge for a decent run-in and were therefore dubbed.

The question of master tapes did not arise until around 1948 - before this, most 78s were cut drect to wax, although the major American labels, with the exception of RCA, began using slow-speed acetates for session recording from 1939.

It is a curiosity of 78 collecting that reissues can actually sound better than the original because of improved metalwork and pressing materials, although it is the original issues that command the highest prices. For example, Louis Armstrong's West End Blues probably sounds best on the Rhythm Style reissue, and the early Django Reinhardt Ultraphone masters were best presented on the late-1950s Oriole pressings.

Some startlingly good recordings were made on 78s from the dawn of electrical recording in 1925. Even though the WE system had a modest frequency range, it was flat, with low distortion, throughout that range. The quality bottlenecks were the reproducing pickups and the pressing compounds necessary to survive their attentions for a decent number of playings.

Last edited by Ted Kendall; 26th Dec 2019 at 5:33 pm.
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Old 26th Dec 2019, 5:38 pm   #3
dave walsh
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Default Re: Is this 78 rpm record a re-issue?

I really appreciate that info Ted as I have accumulated quite a number of the Rythm Style series myself but the points that you and martin.m make had never even occurred to me

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Old 26th Dec 2019, 7:39 pm   #4
martin.m
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Default Re: Is this 78 rpm record a re-issue?

Thank you Ted. You are clearly an expert on this subject. I had never considered the possibility that a re-issue could have been recorded from another record.
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Old 26th Dec 2019, 7:56 pm   #5
Ted Kendall
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Default Re: Is this 78 rpm record a re-issue?

Given that the pickups of the day weren't too good, record companies avoided dubbing masters if they could (apart from RCA in the 1940s) - the usual reason was that the original had failed the wear test and had to be reduced in level. Any sort of editing, such as compiling extracts from a live performance by Max Miller, was done by dubbing from multiple turntables, a procedure last used at Decca to make masters for the first LPs from 78 metal. The no-mistakes-please nature of this work made it extremely tedious - John Culshaw, the Decca producer, claimed that ever afterwards he had an urge to shout "Drop!" at the side-change points if he happened to hear in a concert one of the works he supervised on these sessions.
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Old 27th Dec 2019, 6:24 pm   #6
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Default Re: Is this 78 rpm record a re-issue?

Parlophone first issued this 78 in October 1939 from recordings made by Okeh in 1927. Whether your copy was actually pressed in 1939 or later is harder to determine.
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