“Always Gallant Polka” by Charles Daab 1913

[melvind]

I think this transfer turned out pretty well. The earlier Blue Amberols that were recorded directly do sound much better than the later dubbed from Diamond Disc records which make up the bulk of them. Not everyone likes Xylophone records, but this is a good one I think. And the Xylophone sounds terrific on early records.

 

 

[PatheLogical]

Nice, Dan! What process are you using to make your cylinder transfers? This one sounds very good! I had no idea that book (The Xylophone In Acoustic Recordings 1877-1929 --- or any other book on the subject, for that matter) by William L. Cahn existed! Keep 'em coming!

[melvind]

Hi Bob, I use a no longer produced item called the Act II.

 

It contains a Stanton 500 cartridge wired for Vertical pickup. It came with both a 2 minute and 4 minute stylus, however I changed the 4 minute stylus out for a new old stock 3 mil stanton 500 stylus. I was finding that many 4 minute cylinders that played well on an Edison machine would distort using the 4 minute stylus. The 3 mil stylus is working much better.

 

I have the Act II installed in an Edison Standard 2/4 minute machine that seems to work quite well.

 

Other than that, I transfer using Audacity and a preamp just like I transfer disc records. It is not as good as some of the more recent much more expensive machines to transfer cylinder records. But, it does fairly well on high quality cylinders. I think there might be some Act II reproducers out there that might be for sale. I found mine doing some searching and finally getting ahold of the original maker that had one spare he agreed to sell me.