BETTER SOUND FOR TALKIE PATRONS.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXV, Issue 18913, 26 June 1931, Page 13

BETTER SOUND FOR TALKIE PATRONS.

INTERESTING TALK BY MR W. McCUTCHEON. A new system for the recording of talking pictures, which accomplishes the most perfect reproduction of the human voice since their inception, was revealed to electrical engineers and fym executives in Timaru recently, when Mr W. McCutcheon, assistant managing director of the Western Electric Company, installed the Western Electric noiseless recording system in the New Regent Theatre. After expressing great pleasure in the acoustic properties of the new theatre, and the excellent construction out, Mr McCutcheon gave some esting details of what the new noiseless recording accomplishes.

“Motion picture audiences are well aware of the hissing or scratching sound which becomes audible as soon as the sound apparatus is switched on,” said Mr McCutcheon. “In other words, during the silent introductory title oi a picture everything is quiet. Just before the recorded portions of the film start, listeners are warned of the coming sound by the scraping noise from the screen. While in good recording this ground noise is not particularly offensive, it nevertheless means that any whispers or low-level sounds on the film must be raised artificially to a relatively high volume if not to be masked by the noise of the system itself. During normal dialogue or music the presence of the ground noises fades to relative unimportance, and, of course, during loud dialogue or heavy passages of music it is completely covered up. It is therefore, a question of making ‘silence’ silent. “The new recording device eliminates all mechanical extraneous noises from the screen, and increases volume range to a point where clear-cut rendition of the faintest and loudest of sounds is possible. The new invention demands a higher standard of developing and printing of films than the already exacting technique of sound pictures. The reproducing equipment, in theatres will likewise require more careful grooming and maintenance if it is to handle noiselessly recorded pictures in this new way.”