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Webster Chicago Wire Recorder

DSD-13

DSD-13

Active Member
Messing around with my webster chicago wire recorder.

I had one sitting under my bed for some time, bought from eBay as serviced. Many electronic components had been replaced, but it was not mechanically sound. It was tangling up reels and has very uneven playback speed.

I had to adjust the bailer, reel tension, height and do some metal repair on the takeup reel.

Now it works a treat, very even spooling and no more tangling or high wow/flutter.

I have also added audio wires directly to the magnetic head out for digitization, so I am capturing the signals directly from the head and not after it went through the tube amplifier.


Did a recording via the line in with this as the source:

Today was exciting, because I never got the line in to work until now. Will the quality be much better than recording via the mic? Will I be moving from making cassette mixtapes to using steel WIRE from now on?

Playback:

The answer is obviously no... but I gave it my best shot. There seem to be no freq response beyond 6Khz.


With the recorded I got tons of reels with home, church and radio recordings from the 1940s to 50s. They are going to be mighty interesting to digitize for my channel.

Preserving the distant memories people once thought to be valued enough to record is my goal.

Enjoy these two audio files captured from the recorder, the mentioned song and a short snippet of a radio broadcast:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folde...Nj?usp=sharing

It is very humbling experience to realise that I am probably the first person in 70 years to listen to these recordings, and sad in a way.

I wonder what their lives were like outside of the vignettes we get to experience now.
 
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Way beyond cool,bud - especially having "back in the day" wire to play with . Try a modern mic, perhaps a high-output crystal or such. Rubber or foam rubber bits in the original are likely rock-hard or dust. Good luck, sounds like fun to me!:)
 
I messed with several in my teen years, Webster made a lot of those, and Silvertone included them, by Crescent afaik, with table radios and consoles.
I still have a spool I recorded off the radio after JFK was assinated.
 
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I played with one when I was about eight years old. It was built into a small mono console. The reels has radio broadcasts recorded on them.
 
Catmanboo said:
Way beyond cool,bud - especially having "back in the day" wire to play with . Try a modern mic, perhaps a high-output crystal or such. Rubber or foam rubber bits in the original are likely rock-hard or dust. Good luck, sounds like fun to me!:)
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The mic I got with it actually works really well. I didn't use the mic for my own recording though, I used a line in for that. So this is the best it is going to get with this recorder.

I may be able to record better by feeding the sound directly into the head... but I don't want to risk burning it out. They are pretty much impossible to source without buying an entire machine.
 
Pio1980 said:
I messed with several in my teen years, Webster made a lot of those, and Silvertone included them with table radios and consoles.
I still have a spool I recorded off the radio after JFK was assinated.
Click to expand...
That sounds really interesting. I think wire recorders were already on their way out by then?

I can digitize your spools if you want, they could be mighty interesting for my channel and I'll send you the audio as well. I love old-timey radio.
 
DSD-13 said:
The mic I got with it actually works really well. I didn't use the mic for my own recording though, I used a line in for that. So this is the best it is going to get with this recorder.

I may be able to record better by feeding the sound directly into the head... but I don't want to risk burning it out. They are pretty much impossible to source without buying an entire machine.
Click to expand...
Highly doubtful any line-out-level would hurt anything. That thing likely uses a higher-level than that to magnetize steel wire.
 
DSD-13 said:
The mic I got with it actually works really well. I didn't use the mic for my own recording though, I used a line in for that. So this is the best it is going to get with this recorder.

I may be able to record better by feeding the sound directly into the head... but I don't want to risk burning it out. They are pretty much impossible to source without buying an entire machine.
Click to expand...
Both my last Websters had heads so worn they couldn't run wire without pinching and breaking it.
 
DSD-13 said:
That sounds really interesting. I think wire recorders were already on their way out by then?

I can digitize your spools if you want, they could be mighty interesting for my channel and I'll send you the audio as well. I love old-timey radio.
Click to expand...
Thnx, I'd be interested in that. You could add it to your collection.
 
Do wire recorders have a bias oscillator like tape machines do? If not, I wonder if maybe there would be some improvement in frequency response by adding it. If your computer had a sufficiently good sound card you could probably mix it right into the source rather than doing it with hardware. Just need to mix in some amount of signal above 20khz as a bias signal, and then filter it back out on the playback side.
 
I think they had a bias/erase oscillator.
Magnetic recorders afaik really need a bias oscillator to have linear characteristics, tho some earlier tape machines did not like the Brush Soundmirror. The little inexpensive 3 inch spool drive machines likewise didn't, using a pivoted permanent magnet for erase.
 
Getting a new one that is in decent shape could mean a +300 dollar price tag (Very rarely do any show up as "working" or "Serviced", and then an other 130-/+ dollar price tag for shipping to the netherlands!
I really rather not risk it, not when I have only one unit that would be quite expensive to replace for something that is just a fun hobby and for curiosity.

From what I read the earliest Webster models did not have a bias circuit, later ones did. I have not verfied with my scope if the curcuit in mine works at it should. The freq response I get from my own recordings seem to be around what is on other pre-recorded reels too. Up to 6 maybe 7Khz.

According to this website: https://www.smecc.org/wire_recorder_care_&_repair.htm Webster models used a 40Khz bias tone.

I got a Presonus 1810c Studio, not sure if it can output that. The specs say it can record and playback at 192
 
40kc sounds reasonable as a bias frequency. Seems thats in the ballpark of what most tape decks use as well.

also extremely likely there are both material and electronic limits to what is possible. Without seeing a schematic its hard to guess if they electronically limited the frequency response, but its very possible they did. Also likely that even if you removed any limiting, the wire just can't support it anyway.
 
guessing that upper transformer is the oscillator coil. Seems like between that and the two caps it would create a feedback at a particular resonant frequency. Probably about as simple as it gets to get the most out of the minimum of parts.
 
And here is the first official result. It's always a bit of experimenting with the format in the beginning, I think I did a nice job.


Let me know what you think!
 
I recently discovered a wire recording on a Chicago reel of my parents wedding in 1950. How can I get someone to recuperate the sound for me and put it on some common media?
 
jdmorrisw said:
I recently discovered a wire recording on a Chicago reel of my parents wedding in 1950. How can I get someone to recuperate the sound for me and put it on some common media?
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Hi jdmorris,

I can do it for you! You would have to ship to the Netherlands.

Otherwise there are places in the US that can do it for you I am sure.
 
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