Homegrown Two - The Edison Sessions

On Saturday, June 2, Georgianne and I had the pleasure of taking part in an Edison wax cylinder recording session on the grounds of the Thomas Edison National Historic Park in West Orange, NJ. The machine used for the session was over a hundred years old, using technology from the late nineteenth century. This acoustic recording technology was the industry standard up until the electric microphone was invented in 1925. The sonic vibrations were picked up by a large horn with a diaphragm attached to a needle at the narrow end. The sound waves cause the diaphragm to vibrate as the needle engraves a groove on a wax cylinder being turned by a wind-up motor. As the recording was taking place, the recording engineer, museum curator Jerry Fabris, was constantly blowing wax debris away from the engraver. The recording time limit was two minutes. We recorded three tracks; one solo banjo and vocal track that didn't come out due to a defect in the cylinder, and two tracks with guitar, banjo-uke, harmonica, and vocals. Here is the digitized version of our take on the ever popular Doctor Humphrey Bates and the Possum Hunters classic "How Many Biscuits."

All the other bands that took part in the session were loud instrumental brass bands who were able to be picked up while performing about six to ten feet away from the sound gathering horn. Because we played quieter stringed instruments, we had to move right up to the horn. I actually stuck my head into the horn while singing. Now we have first hand experience that taught us why the golden age of string band recording took place in the mid to late 1920s, after the invention of the electric microphone made it possible to record vocals and stringed instruments with improved fidelity.