Scully Recording Instruments

During his employment at Columbia, Scully was put in charge of the company's experimental laboratories and improved the design of the Dictaphone.

The original Scully lathe was a mechanical, weight-driven device that utilized three weights (the largest being 100 pounds) attached to pulleys connected to a turntable which revolves under a stationary cutting head.

[3] From 1925 to 1929, Scully Recording Instruments experienced booming demand from the motion picture industry as it adopted new electronic sound recording technologies to transition from silent films to "talkies," but orders for new disc cutting lathes halted following the stock market crash.

The company exported recording lathes to England, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, Mexico Chile, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, and even Russia.

[5] In 1961, recognizing the limited market for professional disc cutting lathes and facing increased competition from Neumann, whose disc cutting lathes were no longer restricted from being imported to the United States,[5] Scully Recording Instruments entered the tape recorder market.

The first of these machines was custom built for Apostolic Studios in Manhattan and was used by Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention for the album Uncle Meat.

Despite the narrower track width, Tom Scholz of Boston, later bought one of these machines and was thrilled with its sound quality.

[12] A total of approximately 600 Scully recording lathes were built, and it is estimated that less than 40 still exist, with only twenty-one of those still functional, making them extremely rare.

[14] In 1975, Tom Scholz purchased a used Scully 12-track machine for home demos and the initial recordings that would become the debut album by Boston.