- Hippie Torrales
- Tuesday, February 14, 2023
The Birth Of Music Duplication!
Here is a bit of interesting history. The first recording duplicator (bootlegger to some ) was a gentleman by the name of Frank L Capps from Springfield, Illinois. He worked for the Bell Company. The next paragraph is from Victor Emerson giving a talk at the Wardolf-Astoria in NY 1912.
" I want to say, by way of diversion, that this duplicating machine was originally invented by Frank Capps. He used to go in a shop parlor, in Chicago, borrow a record, take it home and duplicate it, and would return the other record, but in another color! That looked suspicious to us and we traced him up, and found him climbing telegraph poles near Pretoria, Illinois! We bought him out and started him manufacturing duplicating machines for us."
Now the New Jersey phonograph Co. which is where Victor first worked, was located at 758 Broad St. in Newark, NJ. I found this quote interesting but wanted to follow up. Its seems some folk believe that the duplicating machine was actually first invented for the Columbia Phonograph Co. by Mr. Capps, so I did some more searching and found a 1940 interview by Isabel Capps Rainey (she was his daughter) and it seems Victor Emerson was right. next quote is from Frank L Capps interview by Mrs Rainey.
"The phonograph industry was in its infancy at that time. It was the day of wax cylinders, of enormous tin horns and of the expensive business of having to recall the artist to make an original recording whenever a second or third copy was desired.
Capps, still working in the Bell research laboratories, put his mind to work on this problem. Again he and his lathe went to work. The result was a duplicating machine that effectively eliminated this previously awkward and expensive process and made copies a simple matter.
Characteristically he did not attempt to make a fortune or seek publicity with this invention, although he undoubtedly could have.
"Didn't you patent it?" I asked him.
"Oh, yes,
** he replied, casually, almost
disinterestedly.
"But--didn't you make any money out of it?" I persisted.
Well," said he, "the United States Phonograph Company in Newark offered me double the salary I was making with the Telephone Company if I would build duplicating machines for them. If you double your salary every once in a while you are doing all right, aren't you?"
And that is a bit of history on the duplicating machine.