The Exhibitor (Nov 1939-May 1940)

BM-6 Jitterbugs and Philharmonic Orchestras Would Seem To Have Little Connection With Good Sound But The Following Article Will Prove To Every Reader They Do The Public Knows Whut It Wants To Hear By Lewis Sanford Mentlik 'T'ODAY, it seems, everyone and his maiden aunt are sound conscious. High school students and jitterbugs are wont to sit home and turn on the radio or listen to swing recordings on their phonographs. They know when the tone and reproduction are bad. By the same token, their elders may be listening to the Philharmonic Orchestra, a dramatic program, or the same modern music as their children. They, too, expect more than a mere approximation of the original sound. To the exhibitor who thinks the world is his simply because he has sound equpment which gives out with noises and sounds of any sort, the lead paragraph may serve as somewhat of a shot in the arm. It’s in the cards that you no longer can drive to work in a 1914 Haynes. And when offering movie-goers sound pictures, the exhibitors can no longer get away with having Clark Gable reciting his lines as if he were an anemic frog. E were out in Camden, New Jersey, ** not so long ago. On the third floor of Building Number 7 (there are 12,000 employes working in 50-odd buildings) of the Radio Corporation of America properties, we visited Max C. Batsel, chief engineer of the RCA Photophone Division. We talked with the slight, 45-yearold gentleman for a short while and learned a number of facts which we pass on at this point. Although sound reproduction in theatres has definitely not reached a point of perfection, it has reached a state where any Division’s Cahill Manager of the entire RCA Photophone division is W. C. Cahill. improvements in the performance of the equipment now available will have to be slight affairs. Mr. Batsel, one of the tops among sound engineers, can’t think of any radical changes in the equipment now available which can be expected in the future. There may be, he opines, some supplementary equipment to keep pace with more modern recording methods. As a matter of fact, sound recording is more advanced today than the reproduction Because of that, engineers find it necessary to make minor distortions on the sound track so that it can be co-ordinated with the projection equipment. Despite talking pictures’ lack of perfection, some theatres are offering their patrons the nearest thing to perfect reproduction they’ve heard. People have Engineering’s Batsel Chief engineer of the RCA Photophone division is Max C. Batsel become educated enough to realize that when sound is bad it is no fault of the recording. There’s something wrong with the projection equipment and if it isn’t serviced or changed in a hurry, they’ll see their next picture show around the corner where the various tonal effects are carried as faithfully as possible directly to the audience. RCA, sound pioneer and manufacturer of the famous Photophone system, recently sent out a bulletin stating that as of January 1, 1939, 12,278 theatres in the United States were “using obsolete, inadequate, sound equipment from five to 10 years old.” If those figures are correct, and we have no reason to doubt their veracity, then the following statement might be the answer to bad grosses in a lot of spots: “Seventy percent of the THE EXHIBITOR Theatre Sales’ Snook As manager of RCA Photophone sales to theatres is H. B. Snook. theatres doing business were employing antiquated sound equipment.” Because of RCA’s important position in the development of both sound recording and reproduction and the ever-increasing importance of good reproduction, it would not be a bad idea to trace the miraculously swift growth of sound reproduction for films. E. T. Jones, manager, Photophone advertising, was a great help in getting these facts together and any direct quotations used are either his or Mr. Cahill’s, manager, Photophone division. A BOUT a dozen years ago, RCA engin1 1 eers, already famous in the sound field, went to work on getting sound on film ready for practical use. Once it was “perfected,” the Hollywood revolution took place. The entire star set-up underwent radical changes; producers outdid each other in constructing sound stages and installing recording equipment; and exhibitors began leasing reproducing apparatus, while the more obsolete houses just upped and closed their doors forever. The theatre equipment in those days wasn’t what one would call too good. The motor generators and batteries being utilized went out of gear as often as they were in working order. At that time, a flutter or “wow” was ever-present in the recording. RCA research men developed a “magnetic drive recorder” which soon eliminated that objection. The improved recording was such that the old reproducing equipment turned out to be incapable of faithfully carrying the sound to the audiences. “High Fidelity” January 17, 1940