Media Archive
Sounds
Evan Roberts Cylinder
A heavily damaged cylinder was recently scanned using the non-contact method. This cylinder is held by The National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales, and contains the voice of Evan Roberts, a famous Welsh preacher. The cylinder was broken and in very poor surface condition, but had been reconstructed by an American dentist. It has since been played back by a stylus system. In addition, the sound has been recovered using the non-contact method. Below are the stylus and optical transfers of the same recording.
(More information about the Evan Roberts cylinder)
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Stylus Reproduction of Evan Roberts Cylinder (some noise reduction has been applied)
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Non-contact reproduction of Evan Roberts Cylinder (no noise reduction applied)
Mass Produced Cylinders
Below are examples of the recovered sound from various cylinder recordings, measured via the non-contact method. It should be noted that no noise reduction or correct equalisation has been applied to these examples. In all cases, the raw groove displacement signal has been band-pass filtered in the audible range of interest. Stylus transfers of two cylinders were kindly produced by Will Prentice of the British Library Sound Archive (BLSA).
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“Beautiful Birds Sing On”, 1905 (9022: Edison Gold Moulded Record)
(Stylus transfer)
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“Lonesome”, 1909 (1184: Indestructible Record)
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“My Wild Irish Rose”, 1910 (567: Edison Amberol)
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”The Preacher and the Bear”, 1913 (1560: Edison Blue Amberol)
Other stylus transfers of these cylinders can be found by searching here.
Test Cylinder
Sinewave reproduction from the non-contact and stylus reproducition methods can be found here.
Tinfoil
An interview with BLSA and The Sound Archive Project, including tinfoil replay (mp3 podcast)
Images
- A fragment of tinfoil with 24 grooves, produced on Edison's Phonograph.
- Surface measurement of cylinder, showing damage to grooves.
Video
- Producing the Test cylinder (requires Quicktime 7)
- Scanning tinfoil recording using Air bearing system (5MB, Right click and "Save Target as")
- Stylus transfer of wax cylinder, carried out by Will Prentice at British Library Sound Archive (6MB, Right click and "Save Target as")