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Caden Lindblom
Mr. Poindexter
Honors English 9
2/23/16
The History Of Audio Recording

The ability to record and replay sounds is one of the most important technological
innovations in history. Sound recording has countless methods, with new ones still
being developed today. By recording a sound, you can potentially make music,
communicate, create art, tell stories, and countless other things. It is definitely an
amazing invention, and a vital contributor to communication as we know it.

The first recording of sound was in 1878 by Thomas Edison on a crude phonograph
and features a man singing a couple of songs. It was recorded onto a sheet of tin foil
and transferred onto a cylinder. While it sounded horrible, it was a huge breakthrough
that spawned the entire field of recording. Nowadays, all you have to do is open your
phone or computer and you can record almost anything.

The first popular method of audio recording and playback was the cylinder
phonograph. Cylinder phonographs utilized a cylinder of some sort, usually wax or
metal. To record on it, you spoke into a tube-like microphone. The vibrations caused by
your voice would move a diaphragm with a needle attached to it. The needle would
press against the cylinder, engraving grooves into it. To replay the sound, you used an

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almost identical setup, except the needle was always in contact with the cylinder. During
this time, microphones and speakers were basically the same thing but the microphone
was used as an input, and the speaker was used as an output. The movements caused
by the needle dragging along the grooves would vibrate the diaphragm, making sound
in a similar fashion to a drum. Obviously, this sounded less than optimal, but it was all
there was in the late 19th century! The phonograph machines and wax cylinders were
sold for $20 in 1889 (roughly $526 now).

Next up in the evolution of sound recording were disc phonographs. Disc

phonographs were similar to cylinder phonographs in that they had a needle attached to
a diaphragm and operated with the same principles when it came to recording and
playback. The discs used in disk phonographs were flat and made of wax, acetate,
vinyl, or metal instead of cylinders. Using this method, a listener could have two sides of
sound to play. The discs were made of a much lighter and durable material that was
easier to manufacture and could be easily reproduced. The disc phonograph is most
commonly credited to inventor Emile Berliner, who commercially introduced it to the
U.S. in 1889. The disc format quickly destroyed the market for wax cylinder
phonographs, and the modern version of a disc phonograph, the turntable, is still
popular to this day.

Possibly the greatest innovation in recording history is the invention and

development of electrical recording systems. In any electronic recording system, the
sounds are first picked up with a microphone. The modern microphone was developed

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in the 1920s, and was used as a sort of generator for electric current, which was then
amplified by an amplifier (which at the time, would have been a triode vacuum tube
based amplifier). The current from the amplifier would then move a stylus, similar to
earlier recording devices, and cut grooves into the discs. The invention of microphones
eliminated many of the problems that earlier, horn-equipped phonographs had, such as
unwanted resonances, vibration, and feedback. Microphones also offered much better
sound quality and dynamic range.

Magnetic tape was another important format in recording history. Magnetic tape was
most known by the cassette format, which gained popularity in the late 70s, and was
eventually replaced by CDs and mp3s in the 90s. Magnetic tape worked by using an
amplified electrical audio signal to generate analogous variations of the magnetic field
produced by a tape head, which impressed corresponding variations of magnetization
on the moving tape. In playback mode, the signal path was reversed, the tape head
acting as a miniature electric generator as the varyingly magnetized tape passed over it.
This resulted in varying audio quality between tape sizes, but greater portability and
ease of use, as long as the tape didn't become tangled or break. Magnetic tape is still
popular in recording studios today because of its timeless sound and analog warmth.
Digital recording is the most popular audio format today. Digital recording is done by
translating sound into electrical pulses that are amplified and used to drive a speaker to
produce sound. The first popular digital format was the CD (Compact Disc) which was a
silver disc using a laser to read microscopic bumps and grooves that were translated
into electric current. Now, digital files such as mp3s are the most popular way of

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listening to sound and are essentially free to make and reproduce. Although
compressed audio files such as mp3s are not known for their quality, they are superior
in many ways. You can take a digital audio file anywhere, listen to it, and give to your
friend in an instant.

In summary, the invention of audio recording is one of the most important inventions
in history. From the invention of tin-foil cylinders to the modern mp3, recorded sounds
allow our world to communicate, entertain, learn quickly and be more efficient.

Bibliography

"Phonodisc." (PSAP). Web. 09 Mar. 2016.

"1878 First-ever Captured Edison Audio Recording Unveiled | Fox News." Fox News.
FOX News Network, 2012. Web. 09 Mar. 2016.

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<http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/10/25/1878-first-ever-captured-edison-audiorecording-unveiled.html>.

"Overview History of the Technologies for Recording Music and Sound." Historical
Review of the History of Technologies for Recording Music. Web. 09 Mar. 2016.
<http://www.recording-history.org/HTML/musictech1.php>.

"CHARM." A Brief History of Recording to Ca. 1950. Web. 09 Mar. 2016.

<http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/history/p20_4_1.html>.

"Sound Recording History." Sound Recording History. Web. 09 Mar. 2016.

<http://sounds.bl.uk/sound-recording-history>.