Direct-to-Disk Recorders

One of Rudy Van Gelder’s first semi-professional disk recording units was the portable Rek-O-Kut RC-20, which he brought with him to college in the early 1940s. The unit pictured below is fitted with an Astatic M-41 magnetic cutterhead.

Moving in to the late 1940s and early ‘50s, Van Gelder continued to record direct to disk at his parents’ Hackensack home. As evidenced by the following photos, he was using two disk recorders side by side as well as a pair of transcription turntables at the time. Rudy’s brother, Leon, helped him build a suction mechanism to pick up the discarded lacquer from the surface of the disk with a vacuum in the basement of the house (Skea, 2002).