Ever wondered how OTR
was recorded in the 1940's & 1950's?

Recently I a received an e-mail from Hubert, a friend of RUSC asking if we had any technical information regarding the making of these old programs. He went on to ask: If the original program was live what was the process of recording in the 1940's and 50's.

Well Hubert you got me wondering too! I am not always a great fan of wikipedia but my search to your question led me to their website and the following answer:

Recording media 

War of the Worlds radio broadcast by Orson Welles was on electrical transcription disk.

When radio stations first began recording programs, they recorded onto records called "electrical transcription disks" (ET).

Originally, these disks varied in both size and composition although, they were typically bare aluminum. However, by the mid-1930s, sixteen-inch aluminum-based disks coated with cellulose nitrate lacquer and playing at a speed of 33 1/3 RPM became the standard. (These had been invented in 1932 by RCA Victor.) These disks were recorded using the "hill and dale" process, in contrast to the side-to-side recording method used by commercial recording studios. Disks could store fifteen minutes of a show on each side, allowing a thirty-minute program to be stored on one side of two separate disks. The disks would deteriorate rapidly on each playing, allowing only a few playbacks before being destroyed.

During WORLD WAR II, aluminum became a necessary material for the war effort. This caused alternatives to aluminum to be used for electrical transcription disks, since aluminum was hard to come by. As a result, glass became the most common material used for disks between the years of 1942 and 1945.

Magnetic wire recording

In the late 1940s, wire recording became a medium for recording radio programs, since it was less expensive to make recordings with and did not have the strict time limits of electrical transcription disks. In addition, the fidelity of these recordings was comparable to the 78s of the time.

Reel-to-reel tape recording

Magnetic wire recording was replaced by the introduction of the reel-to-reel audiotape in the early 1950s. Tape had several advantages over earlier recording methods. It could achieve higher fidelity than both electrical transcription disks and magnetic wire. In addition, it could be edited easier using a process known as splicing. Bing Crosby became the first major proponent of this medium for radio and was the first to use it for his radio show, when he used it for a demonstration program in 1947.

And so thanks to these pioneering recording techniques we now have many great wonderful episodes of old-time-radio to listen to and enjoy today!

Happy listening my friends,