Blue Amberol Records

thumb|Top of a Blue Amberol Record cylinder

Blue Amberol Records was the trademark name for cylinder records manufactured by Thomas A. Edison, Inc. in the US for the amberola device from 1912 to 1929. They replaced the 4-minute black wax Amberol cylinders introduced in 1908, which had replaced the 2-minute wax cylinders that had been the standard format since the late 1880s. Blue Amberols can play for as long as 4 minutes and 45 seconds and have a surface layer of the "indestructible" plastic celluloid, which Edison tinted a trademark blue color. Edison brand phonographs designed to play Amberol cylinders were named Amberolas.

History

Edison wax Amberols

The four-minute Amberol cylinder made its debut in 1908. Amberols were made of a fragile, black, wax-like compound which was harder than the original 1902 black wax. This Amberol wax was also used for 2-minute standard records from 1908 until the Blue Amberol appeared in 1912. The introduction of the Amberol started a resurgence of interest in cylinder records, but problems soon became apparent. Amberols crack rather easily and could break during playback. Amberols often shattered when they broke, unlike some kinds of 2-minute wax cylinders that would simply crack into a few pieces. Another problem was that wax Amberols wore out too quickly. Some Amberols mistracked or played with a wavering pitch due to uneven shrinkage during the manufacturing process.

Edison Blue Amberols

thumb|Lid of packagingBy 1912, the shortcomings of the wax Amberol were obvious. Edison, who did not want to pay royalties to Thomas B. Lambert for his celluloid cylinder patent, eventually bought it and changed production over to a thin but tough blue-tinted celluloid reinforced with a plaster of Paris core. The introduction of these "Blue Amberols" helped to hike cylinder sales. The early Blue Amberol releases offered excellent audio quality for their era — better, in fact, than later issues, because from January 1915 onward Thomas A. Edison, Inc., which had been concentrating its efforts on improving the quality of Diamond Disc phonograph records, began to release cylinders which were acoustically dubbed from Diamond Discs. The dubbing technique used was non-electronic (the disc phonograph horn played into the cylinder recording horn) until December 1927, when electronic dubbing was introduced. This resulted in a somewhat hollow "dead" sound on the cylinders compared to the original discs. On many dubbed cylinders, when the cylinder's own 160 rpm surface noise is low enough, 80 rpm disc surface noise can be heard starting up shortly before the music begins.

thumb|Various phonograph cylinders. The Blue Amberol is second from left

Beyond the main popular and sacred music series, which began with record number 1501 in 1912 and ended with record number 5719 in 1929, Edison offered a special line of prestigious Concert Blue Amberols of opera arias, light classical pieces, and other "cultured" music performed by "name" artists, later supplanted by the distinctively tinted Royal Purple Amberol cylinders. A set of special wax Amberols or Blue Amberols identified by the letters A through H, rather than the more usual numbers, were given away with 4-minute conversion kits sold for updating some earlier 2-minute phonographs. There were Blue Amberol instructional records to accompany the Edison School Phonograph, ICS language courses, Blue Amberols for Morse code training, Blue Amberols for the French and German markets, special 2-minute Blue Amberols for the rural Mexican market, and 6-inch-long (15 cm) dictation instruction cylinders for the Ediphone that were essentially long Blue Amberols and remained in production for many years after the demise of the cylinder format as an entertainment medium.

thumb|left|"Amberola 75" phonograph

Technical

thumb|Close-up of the mechanism of an Amberola, manufactured circa 1915

Edison Blue Amberols are made of celluloid on a molded plaster core. The celluloid surface is able to withstand hundreds of playings with only a moderate increase in surface noise if played on a well-maintained machine with a stylus in good condition.

The "Amberol" plastic is on a plaster of Paris core. This core is proving to be problematic for the long-term survival of Blue Amberol Records, as the plaster often tends to expand over the decades, especially if exposed to moisture or kept in humid conditions. In moderate cases, swollen plaster can make the record not fit properly on the phonograph mandrel (this can be fairly easily remedied by gently reaming out the plaster to restore the correct inner diameter) or can warp the cylinder out of round, making it not play properly. In worse cases, the expanding plaster will crack or split the plastic playing surface, rendering the record unusable. Freezing causes any moisture in the plaster to expand but makes the celluloid contract, a combination which can cause the celluloid to split lengthwise very abruptly.

The Blue Amberol plastic is nitrocellulose and therefore flammable. Being an organic plastic, celluloid is subject to chemical decomposition, but acute deterioration, as seen in nitrate film reels, has so far rarely if ever been observed in Blue Amberols or other (e.g., Lambert, Albany Indestructible, and US Everlasting) celluloid cylinders.

References

External links

Edison Blue Amberol cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.
Civilisations
First musical recordings made in Puerto Rico found - (news site on YouTube - in Spanish)