THE ORIGINAL MEDIUM
Before a recording became a download, it was an object someone held, played and kept.
What is a shellac record?
The familiar term describes a manufactured mixture, not a disc made entirely from pure shellac. Many coarse-groove records combined mineral powders with binding materials containing shellac resin. Formulations varied. The resulting discs can be brittle, even when their chemistry is relatively stable. [1]
How sound entered the groove
During the acoustic recording era, performers directed sound toward a recording horn. Its diaphragm moved a stylus, which traced the vibrations into a rotating recording blank. Microphones and electrical amplification were not part of that process. The Library of Congress places this era broadly between the 1890s and 1925. [2]
Columbia and Victor introduced electrical recording in 1925. That change concerns how sound was captured; the material of the record and its later playback history are separate parts of the story. [3]
Read the label as evidence
A label can supply names, titles and catalog identifiers. It belongs to a particular pressing, however, and its design should not automatically be assigned the recording session's date. Compare it with other copies, catalogs and session records. Examine this example in its historical context.
When an album was a book of records
Longer works could occupy several 78-rpm discs collected in bound sleeves. Columbia introduced its microgroove LP in 1948, allowing much longer continuous listening and changing what an album could contain. Earlier performances later appeared on new formats, often with new packaging. [4]
What survives in a digital transfer?
A transfer is evidence of a particular surviving copy and the choices used to play and capture it. For this collection, we will identify the source pressing when known and describe documented restoration steps. We will not claim that every noise has been removed, or that a processed file reproduces exactly what an original listener heard.