Absolutely NOT. general Electric had no part in RCA nor NBC after 1929. During the early usages of the chimes they had more than three notes -- first 7, then 5, and finally 3. The first 3 note chime melody in late 1931 was C-A-F. Most of the stories about the beginnings of the chimes were written without access to actual recordings. They are still rare, but they do not match up with most of the stories. Check out the Chimes Museum, NBCChimes.Info

Wasn't the chime deliberately tuned to G E C to stand for General Electric Co. the originator of NBC ?

Did they ever do their 'homework'? Or was it forgotten the moment this meeting was over. Both gentlemen seemed like they wanted to get out of there for the night...

What a little gem of forgotten music history! Great clip!

Recognized Kurt Nauck, whose list I always win a few records from and have visited several times. I doubt if anyone remembers the record collector who got me started, R. E. M. Gottlieb (1909-1987), who lived in Waco, TX and began his own collection in 1925 when his mother, a housekeeper for Baylor University, gave him a phonograph and records left behind by a student and with which he began collecting.

Never heard anybody think that Milton Berle was scary.

Not really -- he is completely recognizable as Milton Berle in the type of costume he used long before Herbert Khaury became Tiny Tim. No similarity at all.

Any follow up?

@mjb784533 I never saw any evidence that they used these electromechanical machines past 1950. There was an all-electronic chime machine built by J. L. Hathaway of the NBC engineering department around 1940 and used by the NBC radio network that could be adjusted for speed.

@Superskunk1954 Do you still have the machine? Would you be willing to make a video of it? You mentioned "servos." What part of the machine are you referring to?

From the transcriptions of NBC programs I've heard, 'mjb', the chimes WERE "more leisurely paced" from the '30s through the '50s {"G......E......C"}. In the '50s, as you've noted, they were "faster", as heard above.

@fromthesidelines Yes, NBC continued to use the machine into the 60s until they stupidly decided that the chimes was too old fashioned, like the Peacock. In the 50s they sometimes increased the rotational speed of the mechanism to speed up the chimes to take less time. Of course, this machine came into use in the 1930s, and prior to that time the chimes were hand-struck, and were different from what we remember. See the info on the NBC Chimes Museum web site.

That sounds like the chimes NBC used in the '50s {"Enjoy another visit with 'FIBBER McGEE AND MOLLY'- tonight, on the NBC Radio Network." [chimes]}.

THAT GUY IS FREAKIN SCARY

@altfactor This is not meant to be like Toscanini at all. Toscanini never had a handkerchief in his pocket and wore a full bow tie, not a string tie. This costume is just a clowning of a formal tail coat tux.

@Zefrenm I have done a lot of research on all types of recording including this. The video you reference will tell you correctly all about the light-ray microphone which was called the Pallotrope, and Brunswick/Polydor's use has nothing to do with sound-on-film recording. In fact, the WGY films were not made with this microphone, but by connection to a radio receiver. The wavering pitch on the film is from design defects in the playback machine which they are correcting.

@Zefrenm No, this makes no sense at all. The Brunswick Light Ray recordings only used the mirror microphone, but otherwise are regular electrical disc recordings. If an optical sound head is focused on too wide a field, you would hear a muffled recording with no high frequencies. The pitch problems are pure wow and flutter from a wavering speed of the film itself. It would be like putting a Brunswick record off-center on the turntable or turning it by hand.

In this opening gag about the brith of the NBC chimes, Milton Berle was dressed to look a bit like a younger Arturo Toscanni, who for years conducted NBC's in-house symphony orchestra

Since the 78 rpm records of the Light Ray process dont process the wow, i sepect it's because the playback lens is taking too infomation at once, The flim is a outline of sound waves so if lens is focused on too wide a field the sound produced will be an average sounds from of a few mili secs before and after one pecticular moment of sound is on the flim. Think of infinity tracks of sound playback a few milisec apart from each other than averaged out resulting in wow and a crude high pass fliter

you should check out Froggmoni's youtube page about it ubnder the title (Burswick LIGHT RAY recordings & Deutsche Grammophon 1926

There also was an annual award of a gold medal for Good Diction On The Radio sponsored by the American Acadamy of Arts and Letters which was actively promoting the use of radio to teach all Americans how to speak. David Ross won the first award followed by Alwyn Bach, both of whom had fake sweet accents. Info of the convention at FOTR.com and there also will be a talk and demo on the Pallophotophone on Sat morning Oct 23, 2010.

(Part 2) There also was an annual award of a gold medal for Good Diction On The Radio sponsored by the American Acadamy of Arts and Letters which was actively promoting the use of radio to teach all Americans how to speak. David Ross won the first award followed by Alwyn Bach, both of whom had fake sweet accents. Info of the convention at FOTR.com and there also will be a talk and demo on the Pallophotophone on Sat morning Oct 23, 2010.

@CassetteMaster Funny you should ask. I am going to be doing a presentation on the subject of Announcing Styles of the 1920s next month (October 22, 2010) at the Friends of Old Time Radio. Announcing was still evolving at the time. Some had regional accents, some declaimed like old time stump speakers, but some tried to be syrupy sweet with pseudo-sophistocated accents. CBS emulated sweetness of David Ross & Frank Knight, NBC Blue Milton Cross, and NBC Red Graham McNamee who was bland.

I wonder if people on radio were taught to speak that way. (the interesting accent they had on that broadcast) Any ideas?

@phrige 80, but who's counting! Actually he is more of a computer person. He has never done any audio restoration before.

I was also astonished to hear that the voices suffered little from the wow, but there IS instability in the voices if you listen carefully. The announcer on the B.A. Rolfe Lucky Strike Dance Orchestra program -- who might be Westbrook Van Voorhis -- does not fare as well with the wow as these voices did. We do hope the museum will soon get a grant and be able to retransfer and release the recordings.

Despite speed instability, voices are shockingly lifelike. More, please!

proof of the power and value that recorded sound can deliver.vinyl records were my first love!

I am privileged to have one on display in my basement. One reed (center drum, note E) was missing when I acquired the machine, but there doesn't seem to be any effect on the electronic signature. Many thanks to everyone that posted information such as this video; without these hints, I doubt I could have restored the unit to functional status. The servos can be tricky.

I doubt it -- I've never seen one there. Actually, there is no institution by that name anymore, it gave up the rouse that it was a museum and now calls itself "The Paley Center for the Media" and specializes in fund raising. It does not collect artifacts, so a machine like this -- especially one that represented Paley's arch-enemy -- is out of its league. It doesn't even collect original recordings, it only has dubs and returns the borrowed originals. Many other places have better collections.

Isn't a Rangertone Chimes set on display at the Museum Of Television And Radio in New York??

Powerful stuff, thank you for sharing that story.

It's good to put a face with some of the names. I am familiar with Kurt N. and Tim Brooks.

What a record can do .....!

Wow how good is that Thanks Doug Richard

Many thanks for these very interesting clips. Will the full movie be made available via DVD? Again... THANK YOU! Doug --

Thanks! Nice to actually see the faces of these well known collectors, discographers, sound engineers! Cheers, etc. Doug --

A-m-a-z-i-n-g! Very moving! THANK YOU! Doug --

Good stuff! Thank you! Doug --

Thanks... again! Cheers, etc. Doug --

Thanks.... very much! Cheers, etc. Doug --