What does a musician with a background in tinkering with electronics DO when presented with an immense opportunity to do something larger than himself for musicians and music?

Well…one of the things I did was become an inventor (and/or engineer, or designer…often all three!). As musicians and recording engineers, we already knew how to get good sound…in the studio and live, we knew how to record and we knew how to make wonderful recordings - but with Victor Talking Machine Co/Victrola® we had the opportunity to bring that music directly into homes and have influence over HOW it was heard.

I have been fortunate to exist in an era of extremely valuable research and development available at low cost, and the expertise and opportunity of being part of the Victor Laboratory helping to create products (and improvements to products) that are now on MILLIONS of turntables/gramophones/record players, speakers, and more - and it is to this team that I owe a great debt of gratitude for their dedication and innovation.

Today, our company has moved onto more modern music technologies than our humble beginnings in the ‘talking machine industry’ of the 2010s (though we STILL produce a line of Victrola® Home Audio). You can find associated companies producing retro electronics bearing the Victrola® and Victor® brands as a result of these earlier efforts - which in turn has helped to sell millions of records - producing millions of dollars of badly needed income for musicians across the industry in an era where ‘big tech’ has largely destroyed the value of recorded music to many musicians.

Meanwhile, The Victor Company (VMI) is still actively engaged in research and development of increasingly advanced sound technology through Victrola®, Electrola®, VMI®, and HMV® brands - our goal being to create technologies that people love; so we can continue to invest in musicians, artists, and projects through Victor Records Group/Victor Entertainment - our flagship operation at VMI.

DESIGNS, ENGINEERING & PATENTS

From an early age, having been born in Camden, NJ, the legendary tails of invention and engineering that evolved from the city through Victor Talking Machine Co. (or, just Victor, if you will) and later RCA-Victor - created a bedrock foundation for me in the interest in all things technology. Though it seems sort of antiquated to say, from an early age I enjoyed taking apart computers, learning how to assemble tape machines, and even - the family ‘Victrola®’ record player in our home - a device that, in the 1990s could be found in the garbage pile of almost every Camden County/Philadelphia area home - due to the fact that this was the era many grandparents that had worked at Victor producing these machines - passed onto the next phase of life.

From Victor and Camden evolved the home entertainment and music industries that we know and love today - and I was always interested in being part of them from an early age.

Learning record engineering started early from spending time in local recordings studios and even building my own for music creation. From here, it wasn’t a hard leap from ‘pro audio’ to ‘home audio’ design and engineering when what was known as LAIR (Licensed American Independent Recording Co.), acquired and merged itself with the remaining assets of VICTOR - birthing the modern Victor Musical Industries.

Combining my skills with those of my incredible team, we formed the Victor Laboratories to develop home audio products and improve sound quality in the home - while reviving the Victrola® brand (and Victor®) brands in the market. Our goal at that time was to help restore the ‘Talking Machine’ to homes everywhere - and in 2010 - this was a PIPE dream. But luck struck! and vinyl/record player took off - and we soon found ourselves overwhelmed with the return of one of America’s great pastimes.

I preface all of this to say; during that time, Victor Laboratories and our associates created a number of improvements to consumer turntable technology, home audio technology, and even an entirely new process for making records…things which we are proud to say eventually became standardized across the rebudding phonograph industry - even in non-Victor/Victrola products.

Following a restructure in 2020-2022, and a 2023 divestment of part of the company’s home audio product line, we graduated from focusing on just the ‘talking machine’ to technologies that Victor pioneered as a result of that invention in 1887-1896.

Today, as a result of our expansive time spent helping rebuild the vinyl/record player home entertainment industry with our products, Victor Laboratories is able to focus on projects like research and development of SOUND based artificial intelligence technology while having expanded greatly into development of the HMV® brand of creative technology products. With all of this, we haven’t stopped our desire to innovate with our Victrola® line - and all of our efforts are made with the continuing mission of supporting musicians, music fans, and creatives of all kinds with our designs and innovations.

All of that said: here is a listing of a few of the engineering/design projects i’ve been involved with - along with our team - at Victor Laboratories division of Victor:

Method For Electrical Pressing Of Phonograph Records PAF: #62548177 (2017)

Victor®/Victrola® Acoustic Cabinet Design (Models 2011 and on)

Improved Frequency Response For Audio Playback From Ceramic Cartridges For Phonographs (2012)

Improvements To Bluetooth Audio Compression Design For Low Voltage Amplification Systems In Phonographs (2018)

Changeable HeadStack Design For Conversion Of Consumer Phonographs To Magnetic Cartridge (2016)

Redesigned, Lighter Weight, Consumer Phonograph Tone Arm (2018)

Improved Moving Magnetic Cartridge

Frequency Response Improvements Via Bluetooth Programming On Home Audio/Personal Audio Devices

Vertical, Magnet-Less Phonograph Design (2017)

Solar Powered Portable Phonograph with Bluetooth (2018)

Levitating, Magnetically Driven non belt/direct Drive Turntable (2019)

6L6 and 12AX7 Tube Improvements In Modern Manufacturing (2018)

V.A.S.T (Victor Advanced Sound Technology) A.I. Development Of Audio Restoration Tools

HMV® by Victor V-BOI Recording Studio Microphone Designs and Improvements On Condenser and Ribbon Microphones. HMV® by Victor Selectavision XL Series SmartTV Design, HMV® V-Machine Computers.

And many, many, many, many more over a decade+ and continuing

The point?

Fate? hard work? dumb luck? determination? happenstance? smart thinking? dumb thinking? circumstance? a combination of these things or none of the above? For a kid that barely graduated high school (did I mention i’m a musician…) I consider myself very fortunate to have been one of many that helped lead the great 2010s vinyl/home audio comeback - not because of what it is - but because of what it represents; the expansion of the music industry in an era where musicians truly are in need of it.

There are millions more smiles and notes running through the air because of our efforts - and for ME? thats all that has ever mattered with music, my career, and Victor.

Eldridge Johnson, the co-founder and longest running president of Victor Talking Machine Co. once said that after his first 10-15 years at the company from 1896 on that innovations in the field of the record player (Victrola®) were naturally rarer and rarer as the concept of audio in the home became more and more standardized - effectively what he was saying was; inventing things became more difficult as a result of them already existing in a no longer ‘new field’. For us? the modern era of turntable/record player is no longer new - creating a problem; what happens should the industry once again abandon the format?

History tells us that the complacency of Victor during the post world war I period led to a blind spot for the company that then dominated the global music industry - they were late to RADIO technology - and it forced their hand when RCA and Victor were forced to merge in 1929.

Taking a page out of the history books; In 2022 - we made the decision to continue Victor’s R&D efforts into increasingly modern sound technology products - expanding further into personal audio, Artificial Intelligence Sound research, and more - with the aim of always remaining ahead of the curve to best suit our musicians, musical projects, and artists - the primary goal of Victor Musical Industries.