RADIO SINGER IN CELLOPHANE BELL (Dec, 1933)
RADIO SINGER IN CELLOPHANE BELL
To put the voice of a coloratura soprano on the air with fidelity, broadcasting engineers have devised a cellophane “bell” within which the singer stands. Covering her down to the waistline, the transparent envelop is said to do for the human voice what a mute does for a cornet or violin, and the singer can render her highest notes without fear of causing unpleasant vibrations in the microphone. The latter is placed outside the bell in the position shown in the photograph. By this novel expedient, a problem that has baffled broadcasters for years is believed to have been solved, and the results are expected to become apparent in the improved quality of the voices that radio listeners will hear in their home sets. It is expected that experiments will show other uses for the cellophane bell.
Although a couple of years later there would be tragedy when someone asked thoughtlessly “do you have the time” and a lighter-wristwatch ignited the whole contraption.
Sadly the world would never again want to use the “HindenBooth”
This is a classified meeting isn’t it?
Shouldn’t we be using the ‘Cone of Silence’?
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You know who else is a coloratura soprano?
Kristin Chenoweth.
Glinda in the original Broadway run of Wicked and currently on Pushing Daisies as Olive Snook.
Thanks Wikipedia!
Amusing… around the same time, opto-coupled limiters came up. 30 years later, when the Scorpions where still a highschool band, they won a day in a “recording studio” which turned out to be the basement of a simple tape amateur with a simple Grundig reel-to-reel and a single microphone. Klaus Meine had to sing in an old empty washing powder package out of cardboard to keep the dynamics under control in a similar fashion.