HISTORY OF SOUND
TECHNOLOGY
Acoustic Era 1877 – 1925
The 1st Recording
 Dec. 6, 1877: Thomas Edison is the first
to record sound: Mary Had A Little
Lamb.
Early Phonograph
Mechanical sound reproduction.
Alexander Graham Bell
Mid 1880s
Develops the graphophone
Emile Berliner
1887
Patents the gramophone precursor to vinyl records
Late 1880s
Dickinson develops the
kinetograph
Silent Film Era
1902 - 1926
Tube Technology
Lee De Forest invents the vacuum
tube (1906)
The Electronic Era
1925 - 1982
Don Juan
1926
First film to include music on an
amplified sound track.
Sound on Film
May, 1927
Fox produces newsreels known as
Movietone News, which is shown
prior to feature films in theaters.
1928
Neumann Microphones
Stereophonic Recording &
Advances in Film Sound
1933: King Kong was released by
RKO and made film sound history.
Stereophonic recordings
Leopold Stokowski and Alan
Blumlein were two pioneers in the
field of stereo recording.
The First Magnetic Tape
Recording:1935
1940
Walt Disney’s Fantasia
Hi Fi Era
1948
1948
Birth of the LP
1949
The “single” is born
RCA develops the 7” 45 RPM
single.
1951
The portable tape recorder
Stefan Kudelski builds the first
Nagra portable field tape recorder.
1952
Widescreen Film formats
Film industry develops wide
formats to compete against the
new TV industry.
1953
Cinemascope
The Robe debuted as the first
Cinemascope film.
1953
Sun Studios
Considered the “Mecca” of modern
rock recording.
Early Digital Technology
1957: The first computer
generated sound
Modern Synthesizers
1966: Robert Moog releases first
production model of the Moog
synthesizer
1975: The synclavier, developed
by composer Jon Appleton and
engineers Sydney Alonso &
Cameron Jones
1965
Dolby Type-A
Adopted by film industry in early
to mid 70’s to make movies sound
better.
1976
Dolby Stereo
A star is Born is the first Dolby
stereo movie.
The Digital Era
1982 - ???
1982: The first Compact Audio
Discs (CDs) are marketed by Sony.
1983
Return of the Jedi
Introduces THX: A standard developed
by George Lucas for theater sound
systems.
1986
Dolby SR
Dolby’s 2nd generation
professional recording system (for
analog recordings).
1987
Rise of the DAT
The 1st Digital Audio Tape players
are introduced.
1992
Dolby Digital
Batman Returns is the 1st movie
in Dolby Digital
1993
SDDS
Last Action Hero is the 1st film
released in this new format (Sony
Dynamic Digital Sound).
Mid 90’s - Present
DAW’s
Digital Audio Workstations slowly
overtake analog to become the
new industry standard for
recording and editing.