Recording on 100-Year-Old Equipment

hey we made it cameras are already rolling whoa that should pick up pretty good yeah you have multiple horns yeah i got a lot of different horns for different purposes that's the blank records that we're going to be recording on this is our recording length these are different diaphragms these are actually made out of glass so that's behind the needle yeah we're recording fairly loud things so we're using a thick glass the one i have is original it's from edison's new york studio whoa yeah so when was this made uh somewhere between 1903 and 1920. is this just all wax it's made out of metal soap it's an aluminum soap does anyone use it as soap it won't lather okay so when we do the full band would it make sense for this to cover the full band and then jeff to be singing into this yes oh we're going to start with something easy yep yeah i'm going to get really metal how much audio do these hold these hold two minutes two minutes it really likes a room 80 degrees we're not at 80 degrees no we're very we're very cold yeah does that change like does that make it that makes it noisier noisier it all affects humidity barometric pressure because it's a barometer yeah you're recording with a barometer basically this is the headphones so like earbuds earbuds from the 1800s what's interesting about it is that it really puts into perspective just what sound is whatever goes in that's what comes up yeah if you're totally new to sound at the absolute basis of it sound is just a vibration and those vibrations in the air go through the horn and in this case there's a piece of wax there that's spinning and there's a needle that vibrates and puts those vibrations into the wax and then you can play it back through a huge horn to amplify it and this machine is as simple as recording sound gets i would imagine it sounds like we're listening to the ghosts we are yeah yeah we are listening to ghosts yeah hey hey nice to see you hey hi i i'm excited to see how a full band is going to work yeah nobody knows yeah i mean i feel like it's not i had a 1791 stradivarius viola in here and it's not as cool as that yeah i thought it was stranger you want the wax warm that's why i got this light here check one two check i know this is gross but when we record we want to always keep spit in that and they did that originally it's in the notes i guess it's uh this is a lot cheaper than my heart's actually pounding i'm like really nervous okay okay wow there's so much more pressure when you're recording into wax uh hey everybody like i'm just now so used to like you know recording with computers and if you mess up you just do it again like that's definitely not what's happening okay i can see your voice i think i can see where i'm yelling over there [Laughter] is this the first time you're recording wex uh in in the studio yes never had one in the studio before the coolest thing i've ever seen this is all multi-touch uh anything i can do with the mouse or keyboard you can do here so we basically have the oldest recording and the newest recording yeah exactly so the wax cylinders can only record two minutes at a time so only short songs and so i remember that i have a song called short song so it seemed appropriate yeah so there's no dynamics at all i just have to play as loud as possible and directly into the horn yeah are we just going to go for it or is it oh is the camera is ready okay here we go all right one two one [Music] okay one two [Music] [Laughter] sorry and so am i but i'm going to blame it on jeff okay can we keep going it looks like we still have some more time on there yeah all right so are you ready to go yes yes all right one two okay okay one two [Music] so [Music] if also the headstock is like right in your face because i missed one note but i don't think i'm going to be able to punch it back in yeah you nailed it that it's going a little slow wow yeah it's there yeah and i've got like a hundred years of ear waxing that's safe that's really quiet let's try it again with picks right up to it as loud as we can possibly they really didn't do much of any guitar recording at all yeah in the early days yeah yeah it's got to be like that and even pretty close in the horn as possible all right yeah yeah ready yep one two [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] cool you got the wax cylinder you'd send this to fluff in the mail and uh [Laughter] gotta mix and master it so we wanted to do a track with singing in it but i don't really sing very much anymore but i know a guy makes old timey tunes um he's a little bit out there but you know we'll give him a try yeah and then that makes the wax able to connect electricity i'm trying to get a vocal mic close enough to the horn hopefully we'll catch some beard noise i'm gonna play a song about my dear old uncle who never bothers to call me [Music] if my uncle was a philanthropist i would know [Music] cause he's never called me before i've got an uncle down in new orleans he's never texted or called or anything if my uncle was a philanthropist i wouldn't know [Applause] [Applause] yeah awesome work you got it yeah oh you're heading out i'll send you the bill it'll be locked all right yep cool thanks bye yeah yeah here's nico will be playing the bass for us wow this is incredible we've already been recording with it a lot today the biggest problem has always been volume so i think us being super super loud is actually really good well that's good yeah because so far i don't know how to play soft yeah [Music] you tell they're playing loudly it's still not that loud yeah yeah and this is probably like horns directly too you know okay this is cool yeah all right now we're going to try a metal band drums need to be as far away as possible and jeff's just going to be right on the horn you've never recorded a metal band before with a wax cylinder [Music] this first time with metal with uh a live recording we're ready to go there's so much more pressure when you're recording uh hey everybody thanks so much for watching this video uh next up we're gonna try to record a metal band using this equipment we'll see how that goes uh you can subscribe to see the metal video coming out here's the other songs on their own patreon helps us make stuff like this thanks for watching and don't forget to smash that like button [Applause]

Channel: Rob Scallon

Views: 5,025,575

Keywords: rob scallon, wax cylinder, music recording, 100 year old, 100-year-old, equipment, recording equipment, history, wax, wax recording, guitar, guitar music, music, instrument, instrumental, sound, sound recording, acoustic guitar, edison, recording studio, thomas edison, band, musicians, 1800's, recording history, phonograph, gramophone, technology, vinyl, recording technology, vlog, Scallon, performance, acoustic, first recording, first sound, horn, recording, wax cylinder recording, metal, folk, singing

Id: 1n2b0NdL6_E

Length: 10min 4sec (604 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 15 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

They Might Be Giants did a few recordings at the Edison lab.