RCA Book

[PRR]

RCA's Master Reference Book For Disc Recording 1940
http://www.tangible-technology.com/schematics/RCA/RecEng/
45 MB PDF

 

[Winston OBoogie]

Most excellent, thank you.

 

[matriachamplification]

Very nice! Thank you for sharing.

 

[ruffrecords]

Who is Ray A. Rayburn?

Cheers

Ian

 

[emrr]

Who is Ray A. Rayburn?

Cheers

Ian

The guy who put the PDF together.  The large auction of audio equipment last month was his stuff. 

 

[ruffrecords]

The guy who put the PDF together.  The large auction of audio equipment last month was his stuff.

So on what basis does he claim copyright?

Cheers

Ian

 

[JohnRoberts]

Odd that Ray would try to copyright somebody else's IP... I don't think it works that way, but might stop somebody from reprinting it.

Remarkable treasure trove of audio knowledge... (Thank you for sharing).

We sometimes forget how together the ancients were about a lot of stuff.

My dad (RIP) was a recording engineer for RCA in NYC in the 50s so was likely familiar with that reference.

JR

 

[emrr]

A lot of guys who spend a lot of money on original IP documents will watermark their scans like that.  Otherwise it ends up on a million sites with all claiming to have been the source. 

 

[JohnRoberts]

A lot of guys who spend a lot of money on original IP documents will watermark their scans like that.  Otherwise it ends up on a million sites with all claiming to have been the source.

Understood, I am just questioning using a copyright notice. That isn't exactly a watermark, which should be harder to remove/conceal. 

Perhaps a lawyer could argue that his assembling the manuals and specifications into a single document is a new creative work deserving protection, but lawyers will argue anything for money. Doubt it would scare away any serious copycats, and duplication can be considered fair use under copyright law...  Copyrights can be transferred but some expire after 50 years so that stuff may be public domain already.

Whatever I appreciate seeing the old documents, and being reminded how much the ancients had already figured out.

JR 

 

[PRR]

There is copyright in a photo, or a scan.

He sure can't claim copyright in RCA's work; I doubt he is. RCA could object to his scans on several grounds, all weak at this point in time, and RCA isn't a thing anymore.

 

[emrr]

here's where it originally lives:

http://rayrayburn.com/rca/RCA_manual.pdf

http://www.hollywoodsapphiregroup.com/rcabook.php

Thanks to Doug Jones for the conversion of this historic book into pdf form.  This is the internal use only book that covers all the equipment used to produce sound recordings at RCA Studios worldwide as of February 1940. Only 15 copies of this book were ever made. This copy was issued to the studio in Hollywood, CA, and may be the only copy left in existance. It came into my possession when I worked for RCA Records in NYC and they threw it out in the trash. 

http://www.soundfirst.com/technical.html

 

[ruffrecords]

http://www.soundfirst.com/technical.html

Fascinating site. Thanks for posting.

Cheers

Ian

 

[JohnRoberts]

here's where it originally lives:

It came into my possession when I worked for RCA Records in NYC and they threw it out in the trash. 

My dad worked for RCA records in NYC as a recording engineer in the 1950s.... maybe he threw it out?   

JR

 

[midwayfair]

Hey, some well documented junk from the 40s!



Thanks, PRR.

I like the shock mount on pg 42.

 

[boji]

Woah that attenuator panel (pg 284)  is no joke!  Thanks PRR.

Edit: Also, re tube gear, someone needs to bring back the rectangle hole in the front just big enough to see and replace tubes.

 

[matriachamplification]

What a brilliant history behind the recovery of this script.

I can actually hear the "yoink" as he pulled the book from the trash