Recording Technology
History and Impact
Acknowledgements

Many of the images and sound files used in
this Powerpoint Presentation are from The
Sound Recording Technology History Site
housed at Rutgers University. The contents of
this site are all copyright 1998-2003 by David
Morton

http://www.recording-history.org/HTML/start.htm
The Cultural Impact of
Recorded Music

“The real significance of the early phonograph was
that it transformed the way people listened to music.
Where once music was a unique, live performance,
experienced in a public place with a group, now it
was heard privately in the home and it was possible
to hear the same "performance" over and over.
According to this argument, the listening experience
was cheapened.”
David Morton
The Sound Recording Technology History Site
Early History
Making and listening
to music has
always been a
fundamental
human need.
Before the
invention of
recording you
could only hear
music if someone
was prepared to
play or sing it.
Vermeer’s
The Music
Lesson
Early History
Breughal’s
Peasant
Wedding
Early History

In the Middle Ages, the
wheel was the first
mechanism used to
record sound, with pegs
positioned to strike
chimes, certain keys, or
bells when rotated.

A famous automata with sound was a
mechanical duck developed by Jacques de
Vaucanson in 1745. The duck flapped its
wings, raised up on its legs, stretched its
neck, and quacked. Oh, and digested food!
Early Recording Devices

Being able to record sounds
was always a dream of
inventors. Although musical
boxes and barrel organs
allowed people to hear music
without anyone having to
play, the sound was very
limited
.
Early Recording Devices
Barrel Orchestrion by
Klepetar in Prague
about 1860-- an early
computer.
Scott’s Phonoautograph,
1857, traced sound waves on
a carbonized cylinder with a
stylus attached to a
diaphragm that vibrated
from spoken sounds--did not
record the sound itself, only
a graphical image of sound.
Acoustical Recording
Technology




Edison Phonograph-- late
1880's
Not originally intended for
music
Phonograph used tin foil or
wax cylinders recorded by
speaking into a megaphone
”Mixing" was done by
placement of musicians
“Mary Had a Little Lamb”
Thomas Alva Edison
1878-- Edison was granted patent 200,521 for a phonograph he
developed in 1877 which used cylinders wrapped with tin foil. It had 2-3
min. capacity.
Early Phonograph
Early Phonograph
A sheet of thick tinfoil,
wrapped around cylinder
"C" is indented by a
stylus attached to
diaphragm "A." This
hand-cranked machine
was of the type used to
demonstrate the
principle. Production
models had provisions
for keeping the speed
constant and other
improvements.
Early Phonograph
A
C
Close Up of Grooves

Phonograph recording on tinfoil.
Edison, The Man
starring Spencer Tracy

“Mary Had a Little Lamb”
Two-minute wax cylinders
Edison’s Music Room 1890-93
Early Recording

“Liberty March” by
Edison Concert Band,
recorded in 1897
with a 13 horn
system.
Tonight’s Top Ten

In 1878, shortly after inventing his
phonograph, Thomas Edison
created a "top ten list" of uses of
the phonograph. Number ten read:
"Connection with the telephone, so as
make that instrument an auxiliary in
the transmission of permanent and
invaluable records, instead of being
the recipient of momentary and
fleeting communication."
Consumerism Wins Out
Wax and shellac discs

The first phonographs
had one disadvantage the recordings could not
be duplicated. In 1894,
Emile Berliner modified
the phonograph to use a
disc rather than a
cylinder.
Emile Berliner about 1890
Wax and shellac discs

This allowed
mass production
of records by
stamping them
out into a hard
rubber material.

Berliner’s disc
recorder
Wax and shellac discs

Cylinder records
competed with the
flat discs for a
number of years,
but by the time of
the First World
War, the disc
record had become
the standard.
Electromagnetic Recording

Until 1925, all records
were made by
performing into a horn,
which limited the range
and type of music, so
the idea of using an
electrical signal from a
microphone to drive an
electromagnetic disc
recording device was
developed.
Electromagnetic Recording
1925 - first electricallyrecorded discs and
Orthophonic phonographs
went on sale, using
Western Electric system
developed at AT&T's Bell
Labs over the previous 10
years. It is now possible to
record whole orchestras
and symphonies and even
sound motion pictures
Amplification--1920's

Electromagnetic recording became possible because of
the development of amplification techniques.




Circuits were developed for radio industry: Amps and
Microphones
By using the microphone, recordings of public performances
became much easier.
Bing Crosby was first to use the microphone as an "instrument"he sang INTO the mic: more intimate than "acoustic" singing
But Master recordings still went to disk in the same
manner as before
Magnetic Tape

Magnetic recording, which is today used for video and audio tape, was
first introduced around 1899-1900 by the Danish inventor Valdemar
Poulsen. In 1900, Poulsen patented the Telegraphone, a device to
record sound on a steel wire or tape. He later designed a model to
answer the telephone automatically and record a message.
Magnetic Tape
1932 - BASF of I.G. Farben joined with
AEG of Telefunken to develop magnetic
tape recording using Pfleumer patent; by
1934, BASF is able to manufacture reels
of plastic-based tape.

Fritz Pfleumer, ca. 1928
(1940 - David Sarnoff of RCA
installed first secret recording
devices in the White House.)
Reel to Reel
Effects Devices
Tape recorders led to effects devices-
Flanging -> whooshing, swirling sound
Developed by John Lennon by alternately pressing the tape flangers on two
machines

Chorus -> slight detuning of the signal to create a full
shimmering sound

Reverb-> simulates reverberation of various sizes of
rooms

Delay -> repeats original sound at regular intervals,
gradually fading away

Echo -> repeats original sound at irregular intervals
Les Paul

Les Paul ‘s performing
career started at the age of
13 and by the early 1950s
he was the greatest jazz
guitarist of his generation.
As an inventor, Mr. Paul's
breakthrough creation of
the solid-body electric
guitar paved the way for
electric music and made
the sound of rock and roll
possible.
Les Paul

In 1953 while performing with
Bing Crosby, he perfected the
first muli-track recording
machine, allowing separate lines
of instrumental music and
vocals to be blended together.
His many recording innovations-including sound-on-sound,
overdubbing, reverb effects, and
multi-tracking--greatly
accelerated the advancement of
studio recording.
Cassettes
Digital Recording

Digital audio began in the telephone industry,
where it was used to digitize telephone
conversations and, in effect, compress them
so that more conversations could be handled
on existing lines.
Digital Recording

In 1971, Heitaro Nakajima joined
Sony. He was struck with the idea
of digitizing sound when trying to
improve the sound quality of FM
broadcasts. Nakajima thought that
by using digital technology, which
had only been used in computers
and long-distance telephone
transmission, the quality of
recorded sound could be
improved.
Digital Tape

1976 - The first 16-bit digital recording in the US was
made at the Santa Fe Opera on a handmade
Soundstream digital tape recorder developed by Dr.
Thomas G. Stockham.

1987--Digital Audio Tape (DAT) recorders and players
were introduced.
CDs

1982 - first digital audio 5-inch CD discs marketed,
merging the consumer music industry with the computer
revolution.
CDs

The compact disc as
sold to the public for
$15 is made of plastic
coated with a layer of
aluminum and
protected with a final
layer of lacquer,
costing less than $1 to
manufacture. The
maximum playing time
is 74 minutes.
Labeling
Surface
Protective
Layer
Reflective Layer
Recording
Layer
Polycarbonate
Substrate
CDs

The CD was not an immediate hit, and it took nearly a
decade for it to displace the audio cassette, but in the
1990s it became the most popular home format.
Other Digital Devices
1997 - MP3.com was
founded in November by
Michael Robertson with
3,000 songs available for
free download. In the
next 12 months, it
became the #1 music
site on the Internet with
3 million hits monthly.
Digital Recording Studio
1998 - Jonell
Polansky
produced the
first 24-bit 48track digital
recording
session at
Ocean Way on
Nashville's
Music Row
Portable Digital Recorders

E.G., the Boss BR-8 is
an eight track digital
recorder. It was one of
the first to offer a built
in zip disk drive for easy
storage and transfer
with computers.
Really Portable


Recorders were once
the size of an entire
room. Now they fit in
your hand.
The recording quality
was once very poor.
Now they are nearly the
same quality as
professional studios.
Multi-Track Recording with
Effects and Processing
•
Axigally Animal Crackers

Basic Drum Track

add: Synthesizer

add: Bass and Guitars

add: Vocals
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Final Mix: All Tracks with “effects”