Wax Cylinder Audio Archive

[kb0nes]

Not sure if this is well known to people, I just saw it today.

Apparently UC Santa Barbara library has made a large effort at transcribing and archiving thousands of vintage wax cylinder recordings. If this type of thing is interesting check it out here:

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/index.php

The archive is easily searchable. They have an interesting "About" page that details the project and the methods that I found interesting too.

 

[miele_ge]

thanks for posting this....

Very cool indeed.  

 

 

[rp2813]

I'm glad they're doing this, but back in my record and phonograph collecting days, I didn't care for much of what was recorded on cylinders or thick Edison discs so never owned an Edison phonograph of any kind. 

 

When I first started out, you could get 78s and cylinders for a dime apiece in most thrift stores, and at certain ones, they were half that.

 

[ken]

Very cool. I have my great grandparents Edison cylinder Victrola. Been listening to some recordings on the site that I have. But what was very interesting was listening to speeches by Teddy Roosevelt. First time hearing his voice. I had read in the past he had a higher pitched voice which it is. He had that same unique accent as FDR did.

 

[tomturbomatic]

The Library is doing something with scanning old cylinders and discs and capturing the sound in bits and bytes without damaging them. Back in the late 70s and 80s, I did purchase orders for lots of cylinders, wax and foil, for our Recorded Sound Section. One brand that I remember, besides Edison was Amberola. When I went to Thomas Edison's winter home in Ft. Myers, I saw stacks of the cylinders in that section of the museum.

 

[jeff_adelphi]

Juke-Box,

Here's a wax cylinder juke-box. It's in the collection at "House on the Rock" in Spring Green, Wisconsin.