sentence-transformers/squad huggingface dataset:
Passage: Early recordings were made entirely acoustically, the sound being collected by a horn and piped to a diaphragm, which vibrated the cutting stylus. Sensitivity and frequency range were poor, and frequency response was very irregular, giving acoustic recordings an instantly recognizable tonal quality. A singer practically had to put his or her face in the recording horn. Lower-pitched orchestral instruments such as cellos and double basses were often doubled (or replaced) by louder wind instruments, such as tubas. Standard violins in orchestral ensembles were commonly replaced by Stroh violins, which became popular with recording studios.

Question: What were two drawback of early recordings?

Question: How would one make to early recordings?

Question: What types of violins worked best with early recordings?

Question: What instruments did not record well?

Question: How was the frequency response in early recordings?
Passage: Contrary to popular belief, if placed properly and prepared-for, drums could be effectively used and heard on even the earliest jazz and military band recordings. The loudest instruments such as the drums and trumpets were positioned the farthest away from the collecting horn. Lillian Hardin Armstrong, a member of King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, which recorded at Gennett Records in 1923, remembered that at first Oliver and his young second trumpet, Louis Armstrong, stood next to each other and Oliver's horn could not be heard. "They put Louis about fifteen feet over in the corner, looking all sad." For fading instrumental parts in and out while recording, some performers were placed on a moveable platform, which could draw the performer(s) nearer or further away as required.[citation needed]

Question: What tool was used to improve sound quality in early recordings for special effects?

Question: Where were loud instruments best placed for good sound quality?

Question: How far away has a trumpeter been known to stand?

Question: Were drums heard on early jazz recordings?

Question: What was the item called that recorded the sounds?
Passage: During the first half of the 1920s, engineers at Western Electric, as well as independent inventors such as Orlando Marsh, developed technology for capturing sound with a microphone, amplifying it with vacuum tubes, then using the amplified signal to drive an electromagnetic recording head. Western Electric's innovations resulted in a greatly expanded and more even frequency response, creating a dramatically fuller, clearer and more natural-sounding recording. Distant or less strong sounds that were impossible to record by the old methods could now be captured. Volume was now limited only by the groove spacing on the record and the limitations of the intended playback device. Victor and Columbia licensed the new electrical system from Western Electric and began issuing electrically recorded discs in 1925. The first classical recording was of Chopin impromptus and Schubert's Litanei by Alfred Cortot for Victor.

Question: What was an early took used to amplify sounds?

Question: What company was vital in progression of quality sound recordings?

Question: How early were electrically recorded discs made available for purchase?

Question: What was new about the way Western Electrics method of capturing sound?

Question: How could the sounds produced by Western Electric be described?
Passage: Electrical recording preceded electrical home reproduction because of the initial high cost of the new system. In 1925, the Victor company introduced the Victor Orthophonic Victrola, an acoustical record player that was specifically designed to play electrically recorded discs, as part of a line that also included electrically reproducing Electrolas. The acoustical Orthophonics ranged in price from US$95 to US$300, depending on cabinetry; by comparison, the cheapest Electrola cost US$650, the price of a new Ford automobile in an era when clerical jobs paid about $20 a week.

Question: What was a drawback of early home recording systems?

Question: What was the initial cost range of early recording devices?

Question: What year was the Victor Orthophonic Victrola released?

Question: What was the typical weekly pay of a worker in 1925?

Question: What options were available that effected the cost of the Victor Orthophonic Victorla?
Passage: The earliest disc records (1889–1894) were made of various materials including hard rubber. Around 1895, a shellac-based compound was introduced and became standard. Exact formulas for this compound varied by manufacturer and over the course of time, but it was typically composed of about one-third shellac and about two-thirds mineral filler, which meant finely pulverized rock, usually slate and limestone, with an admixture of cotton fibers to add tensile strength, carbon black for color (without this, it tended to be a "dirty" gray or brown color that most record companies considered unattractive), and a very small amount of a lubricant to facilitate mold release during manufacture. Some makers, notably Columbia Records, used a laminated construction with a core disc of coarser material or fiber. The production of shellac records continued until the end of the 78 rpm format (i.e., the late 1950s in most developed countries, but well into the 1960s in some other places), but increasingly less abrasive formulations were used during its declining years and very late examples in truly like-new condition can have as low noise levels as vinyl.

Question: What materials were discs made of in 1889-1894?

Question: What was the standard material for discs around 1895?

Question: What company was known for laminate construction of discs?

Question: What material give the vinyl records their known black color?

Question: What material is used in order to release the vinyl records from their molds?
Passage: Flexible or so-called "unbreakable" records made of unusual materials were introduced by a number of manufacturers at various times during the 78 rpm era. In the UK, Nicole records, made of celluloid or a similar substance coated onto a cardboard core disc, were produced for a few years beginning in 1904, but they suffered from an exceptionally high level of surface noise. In the United States, Columbia Records introduced flexible, fiber-cored "Marconi Velvet Tone Record" pressings in 1907, but the advantages and longevity of their relatively noiseless surfaces depended on the scrupulous use of special gold-plated Marconi Needles and the product was not a success. Thin, flexible plastic records such as the German Phonycord and the British Filmophone and Goodson records appeared around 1930 but also did not last long. The contemporary French Pathé Cellodiscs, made of a very thin black plastic, which uncannily resembles the vinyl "sound sheet" magazine inserts of the 1965–1985 era, were similarly short-lived. In the US, Hit of the Week records, made of a patented translucent plastic called Durium coated on a heavy brown paper base, were introduced in early 1930. A new issue came out every week and they were sold at newsstands like a weekly magazine. Although inexpensive and commercially successful at first, they soon fell victim to the Great Depression and production in the US ended in 1932. Related Durium records continued to be made somewhat later in the UK and elsewhere, and as remarkably late as 1950 in Italy, where the name "Durium" survived far into the LP era as a trademark on ordinary vinyl records. Despite all these attempts at innovation, shellac compounds continued to be used for the overwhelming majority of commercial 78 rpm records during the lifetime of the format.

Question: What was a major downfall of the success of Durium records?

Question: What year were Durium records no longer released in the US?

Question: What are most 78 rpm records made of?

Question: What was a common problem found in early flexible records?

Question: What was the thin translucent plastic most successfully used to make discs called?
Passage: In 1931, RCA Victor introduced their vinyl-based Victrolac compound as a material for some unusual-format and special-purpose records. By the end of the 1930s vinyl's advantages of light weight, relative unbreakability and low surface noise had made it the material of choice for prerecorded radio programming and other critical applications. When it came to ordinary 78 rpm records, however, the much higher cost of the raw material, as well as its vulnerability to the heavy pickups and crudely mass-produced steel needles still commonly used in home record players, made its general substitution for shellac impractical at that time. During the Second World War, the United States Armed Forces produced thousands of 12-inch vinyl 78 rpm V-Discs for use by the troops overseas. After the war, the wider use of vinyl became more practical as new record players with relatively lightweight crystal pickups and precision-ground styli made of sapphire or an exotic osmium alloy proliferated. In late 1945, RCA Victor began offering special transparent red vinyl De Luxe pressings of some classical 78s, at a de luxe price. Later, Decca Records introduced vinyl Deccalite 78s, while other record companies came up with vinyl concoctions such as Metrolite, Merco Plastic and Sav-o-flex, but these were mainly used to produce "unbreakable" children's records and special thin vinyl DJ pressings for shipment to radio stations.

Question: What material was used by RCA Victor for special purpose records?

Question: What was Metrolite and Sav-o-flex materials primarily used for?

Question: What year was the Victrolac compound released?

Question: What were advantages of vinyl in the 1930's?

Question: What was a downfall of ordinary 78 rpm vinyls in household house?
Passage: In the 1890s, the recording formats of the earliest (toy) discs were mainly 12.5 cm (nominally five inches) in diameter; by the mid-1890s, the discs were usually 7 in (nominally 17.5 cm) in diameter. By 1910 the 10-inch (25.4 cm) record was by far the most popular standard, holding about three minutes of music or other entertainment on a side. From 1903 onwards, 12-inch records (30.5 cm) were also sold commercially, mostly of classical music or operatic selections, with four to five minutes of music per side. Victor, Brunswick and Columbia also issued 12-inch popular medleys, usually spotlighting a Broadway show score. However, other sizes did appear. Eight-inch discs with a 2-inch-diameter (51 mm) label became popular for about a decade in Britain, but they cannot be played in full on most modern record players because the tone arm cannot play far enough in toward the center without modification of the equipment.

Question: What was the most popular sized disc by 1910?

Question: How long could a recording be on a 10 inch disc in the 1903?

Question: How small were the earliest discs released?

Question: What was one requirement issue with discs popular in Britain?

Question: Which disc could hold about three minutes of recording on either side?
Passage: The playing time of a phonograph record depended on the turntable speed and the groove spacing. At the beginning of the 20th century, the early discs played for two minutes, the same as early cylinder records. The 12-inch disc, introduced by Victor in 1903, increased the playing time to three and a half minutes. Because a 10-inch 78 rpm record could hold about three minutes of sound per side and the 10-inch size was the standard size for popular music, almost all popular recordings were limited to around three minutes in length. For example, when King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, including Louis Armstrong on his first recordings, recorded 13 sides at Gennett Records in Richmond, Indiana, in 1923, one side was 2:09 and four sides were 2:52–2:59.

Question: What factors would effect playing time of a phonograph?

Question: What was the playing time common in the early 20th century?

Question: How many recordings did Kind Oliver's Creole Jazz band require?

Question: What was the normal size disc for popular music?

Question: What was the recording time available on a 12 inch disc?
Passage: In January 1938, Milt Gabler started recording for his new label, Commodore Records, and to allow for longer continuous performances, he recorded some 12-inch records. Eddie Condon explained: "Gabler realized that a jam session needs room for development." The first two 12-inch recordings did not take advantage of the extra length: "Carnegie Drag" was 3:15; "Carnegie Jump", 2:41. But at the second session, on April 30, the two 12-inch recordings were longer: "Embraceable You" was 4:05; "Serenade to a Shylock", 4:32. Another way around the time limitation was to issue a selection on both sides of a single record. Vaudeville stars Gallagher and Shean recorded "Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Shean", written by Irving and Jack Kaufman, as two sides of a 10-inch 78 in 1922 for Cameo. An obvious workaround for longer recordings was to release a set of records. An early multi-record release was in 1903, when HMV in England made the first complete recording of an opera, Verdi's Ernani, on 40 single-sided discs. In 1940, Commodore released Eddie Condon and his Band's recording of "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" in four parts, issued on both sides of two 12-inch 78s. This limitation on the duration of recordings persisted from 1910 until the invention of the LP record, in 1948. In popular music, this time limitation of about 3:30 on a 10-inch 78 rpm record meant that singers usually did not release long pieces on record. One exception is Frank Sinatra's recording of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Soliloquy", from Carousel, made on May 28, 1946. Because it ran 7:57, longer than both sides of a standard 78 rpm 10-inch record, it was released on Columbia's Masterwork label (the classical division) as two sides of a 12-inch record. The same was true of John Raitt's performance of the song on the original cast album of Carousel, which had been issued on a 78-rpm album set by American Decca in 1945.

Question: On which label did Frank Sinatra release his recording of Soliloquy?

Question: What was a typical recording time of a song in 1948?

Question: What was a way musicians got sounds such short recording times?

Question: How many sides of a disc commonly held a recording?
Passage: German record company Odeon is often said to have pioneered the album in 1909 when it released the Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky on 4 double-sided discs in a specially designed package. (It is not indicated what size the records are.) However, Deutsche Grammophon had produced an album for its complete recording of the opera Carmen in the previous year. The practice of issuing albums does not seem to have been widely taken up by other record companies for many years; however, HMV provided an album, with a pictorial cover, for the 1917 recording of The Mikado (Gilbert & Sullivan).

Question: What was unique about Odeon's 1909 release of the Nutcracker Suite?

Question: What was one of the first releases with a photo on the cover?

Question: When were albums said to be pioneered?

Question: What was one of the very first albums released?
Passage: By about 1910,[note 1] bound collections of empty sleeves with a paperboard or leather cover, similar to a photograph album, were sold as record albums that customers could use to store their records (the term "record album" was printed on some covers). These albums came in both 10-inch and 12-inch sizes. The covers of these bound books were wider and taller than the records inside, allowing the record album to be placed on a shelf upright, like a book, suspending the fragile records above the shelf and protecting them.

Question: When could record album covers first be found?

Question: What were early record album covers made of?

Question: What sizes were record album covers available in?

Question: How were record album covers intended to be stored?

Question: What was the purpose of record album covers?
Passage: In the 1930s, record companies began issuing collections of 78 rpm records by one performer or of one type of music in specially assembled albums, typically with artwork on the front cover and liner notes on the back or inside cover. Most albums included three or four records, with two sides each, making six or eight tunes per album. When the 12-inch vinyl LP era began in 1949, the single record often had the same or similar number of tunes as a typical album of 78s, and was still often referred to as an "album".

Question: When were albums as we currently know them widely released?

Question: What is typically found on the front cover of an album?

Question: How may records were commonly found in an album?

Question: When did the vinyl LP records Era begin?

Question: How many songs did most albums contain?
Passage: For collectable or nostalgia purposes, or for the benefit of higher-quality audio playback provided by the 78 rpm speed with newer vinyl records and their lightweight stylus pickups, a small number of 78 rpm records have been released since the major labels ceased production. One of the first attempts at this was in the 1950s, when inventor Ewing Dunbar Nunn founded the label Audiophile Records, which released, in addition to standard 33 1/3 rpm LPs, 78 rpm-mastered albums that were microgroove and pressed on vinyl (as opposed to traditional 78s, with their shellac composition and wider 3-mil sized grooves). This was done by the label mainly to take advantage of the wider audio frequency response that faster speeds like 78 rpm can provide for vinyl microgroove records, hence the label's name (obviously catering to the audiophiles of the 1950s "hi-fi" era, when stereo gear could provide a much wider range of audio than before). Also in the late 1950s, Bell Records released a few budget-priced 7" microgrooved records at 78 rpm.

Question: What are reasons for recent releases of 78 rpm speed vinyls?

Question: What is a benefit of newer releases of 78 rpm speed vinyls?

Question: Who released 7" microgrooved records in the 1950s?

Question: What benefits to vinyl have been found in the 1950s?

Question: Who founded Audiophile Records?
Passage: In 1968, Reprise planned to release a series of 78 rpm singles from their artists on their label at the time, called the Reprise Speed Series. Only one disc actually saw release, Randy Newman's I Think It's Going to Rain Today, a track from his self-titled debut album (with The Beehive State on the flipside). Reprise did not proceed further with the series due to a lack of sales for the single, and a lack of general interest in the concept. Guitarist & vocalist Leon Redbone released a promotional 78 rpm record in 1978 featuring two songs (Alabama Jubilee and Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone) from his Champagne Charlie album. In 1980 Stiff Records in the United Kingdom issued a 78 by Joe "King" Carrasco containing the songs Buena (Spanish for "good," with the alternate spelling "Bueno" on the label) and Tuff Enuff. Underground comic cartoonist and 78 rpm record collector Robert Crumb released three discs with his Cheap Suit Serenaders in the 1980s.

Question: In what year did Reprise plan to release a series of 78 rpm singles?

Question: Which disc did Reprise release in 78 rpm format?

Question: What two songs were featured on the 1978 release by Leon Redbone in 78 rpm format?

Question: What record company released recordings of 'Buena' and 'Tuff Enuff' in 1980?

Question: Why did Reprise only release one 78 rpm vinyl?
Passage: In the 1990s Rhino Records issued a series of boxed sets of 78 rpm reissues of early rock and roll hits, intended for owners of vintage jukeboxes. This was a disaster because Rhino did not warn customers that their records were made of vinyl, and that the vintage 78 RPM juke boxes were designed with heavy tone arms and steel needles to play the hard shellac records of their time. This failure to warn customers gave the Rhino 78 records a bad reputation,[citation needed] as they were destroyed by old juke boxes and old record players but played very well on newer 78-capable turntables with modern lightweight tone arms and jewel needles.

Question: When was the release by Rhino Records of 78 rpm for jukebox owners?

Question: What was the result of the use of this release of 78 rpm vinyl when used in vintage jukeboxes?

Question: What was needed to successfully play the newer released 79 rpm vinyl?

Question: For whom was the 1990 release of 78 rpm intended?

Question: How did the 1990 release of 78 rpm effect Rhino Records?
Passage: In 1931, RCA Victor launched the first commercially available vinyl long-playing record, marketed as program-transcription discs. These revolutionary discs were designed for playback at 33 1⁄3 rpm and pressed on a 30 cm diameter flexible plastic disc, with a duration of about ten minutes playing time per side. RCA Victor's early introduction of a long-play disc was a commercial failure for several reasons including the lack of affordable, reliable consumer playback equipment and consumer wariness during the Great Depression. Because of financial hardships that plagued the recording industry during that period (and RCA's own parched revenues), Victor's long-playing records were discontinued by early 1933.

Question: What was the playing time of program-transcription discs?

Question: How successful was RCA Victor's program-transcription discs?

Question: When did RCA Victor release long play discs?

Question: Who released the first commercial long play discs?

Question: By when were long play records discontinued?
Passage: Vinyl's lower surface noise level than shellac was not forgotten, nor was its durability. In the late 1930s, radio commercials and pre-recorded radio programs being sent to disc jockeys started being stamped in vinyl, so they would not break in the mail. In the mid-1940s, special DJ copies of records started being made of vinyl also, for the same reason. These were all 78 rpm. During and after World War II, when shellac supplies were extremely limited, some 78 rpm records were pressed in vinyl instead of shellac, particularly the six-minute 12-inch (30 cm) 78 rpm records produced by V-Disc for distribution to United States troops in World War II. In the 1940s, radio transcriptions, which were usually on 16-inch records, but sometimes 12-inch, were always made of vinyl, but cut at 33 1⁄3 rpm. Shorter transcriptions were often cut at 78 rpm.

Question: What was a benefit of using vinyl over shellac?

Question: By the mid 1940s what was the primary material records were made of?

Question: What was a factor in shellac availability?

Question: Which material was more durable, shellac or vinyl?

Question: What material were most mailed records made of?
Passage: Beginning in 1939, Dr. Peter Goldmark and his staff at Columbia Records and at CBS Laboratories undertook efforts to address problems of recording and playing back narrow grooves and developing an inexpensive, reliable consumer playback system. It took about eight years of study, except when it was suspended because of World War II. Finally, the 12-inch (30 cm) Long Play (LP) 33 1⁄3 rpm microgroove record album was introduced by the Columbia Record Company at a New York press conference on June 18, 1948.

Question: What caused a delay in the production of high quality records?

Question: Who released the 12 inch LP?

Question: On what date was the 12 inch LP released?

Question: In what city was the 12 in LP released?

Question: How long did it take Columbia to produce a consumer friendly long play record?