Blue Amberol Records

Blue Amberol Records was the trademark name for cylinder records manufactured by Thomas A. Edison, Inc. in the US from 1912 to 1929. They replaced the 4-minute black wax Amberol cylinders introduced in 1908, which in turn 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".

The four-minute "Amberol" cylinder made its début in 1908. Amberols were made of a brittle, 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.

By 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 bring cylinder sales up. The early Blue Amberol releases offered excellent audio quality for their era — better, in fact, than that of 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.

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