Sound motion pictures : from the laboratory to their presentation (1929)

2oo SOUND MOTION PICTURES pleted two stages with full auxiliaries and is planning additional stages as I write. The Paramount organization has completed four sound stages that are fully equipped, as well as two recording buildings. First National, United Artists, Universal Pictures Corporation, Christie Film Company, Hal Roach Studios, and others have extended their facilities along similar lines. Figure 4, page 201, shows the recording studio of the Christie Film Company and is a typical and simplified plan of the Western Electric System. The Radio Corporation has equipped its own studios in New York, as well as the studios of its affiliated companies — R. K. O. Pictrues, Pathe Exchange, Mack Sennett Studios, Educational Film Exchange, World Wide Pictures — with its sound equipment. So much for the national distribution of the device. II. Systems and Equipment The rest of this chapter will be devoted to description of the system in use in the studios of the companies mentioned above and will be concerned especially with the equipments known as the Western Electric System and the R. C. A. System of Recording. All of the new studios are designed with the basic purpose of making them soundproof. They generally consist of reinforced concrete materials, although in some instances satisfactory results have been obtained by the use of other substances. In this way there have been obviated two of the most important dangers to studio recording: foreign noises and room echoes. The soundproofing is accomplished either by using very thick masonry walls, or by building a double wall with air space and sound-absorbing materials within. In some instances the floors of the studios are covered with