Did Fred Van Eps make a fortune playing the banjo?

[thereallyniceman]

Can YOU become wealthy by playing the banjo?

 

Fred Van Eps, as we know, was one of the world’s greatest banjo players performing and recording from the early 1900s to the late 1920s. After this time Fred was less in demand as a performer but found other things to do.

 

The recording process had always intrigued Fred and his interest led him to become a member of the “Audio Engineering Society”. 

 

 

 

In the early 1940s Fred established his own sound recording laboratory near Plainfield. He had made recordings on his cylinder machines in the early 1890s and started to pursue advanced recording techniques. One of those was a vacuum system for record cutting lathes that was able to more completely suck off the threads and chips that were created by the cutting head as it laid the groove into the acetate master.

 

 

 

He made it both efficient and quiet, as in the time before recording tape the cutting lathe was usually just on the other side of the glass from the artists and most records were done directly to disc.

 

Later created and patented a new method for cutting the eccentric inner groove of a disc that was used to activate automatic record changers!  So your old auto-changer record deck in your bedroom swapped records thanks to a design by FVE !!!

 

 

Both devices were adapted by the recording industry, and his patents made him very wealthy during the 1940s and 50s. Van Eps also created some new optic processes that allowed for special photographic effects that could be used both for art and cinema. He later noted that his laboratory business:

 

"has been a great success. I've done so well that if I should live to be 108 I'll still have more money than I'm likely to spend."

 

So, the answer to the question at the top of the page is:

 

 NO .... Get a “proper" job! 

 

:-)