History of Recording - Coursework Example

Recording and recording arts: History of Recording The history of recording s back many centuries ago, when man developed theinterest of recording and replaying the music of the surrounding environment or manmade sounds and music, but there were no particular equipment to do so. Thus in the course of human attempt to achieve sound recording, many attempts were made using diaphragms, cones and wooden objects, but all of these attempts kept failing1. In fact, the breakthrough in recording did not come as a result of the development of an instrument particularly targeted at recording sounds, but rather through the development of scientific equipment that were used to study sound waves. Thus, the first popular breakthrough in the history of sound recording dates back to the invention made in 1857, by a French named Leon Scott, who first discovered the Phonoautograph2. This was a device meant to study the sound waves in their process of passing though the air and could not replay the sounds back. The other limitation associated with this device as invented by Leon Scott is that it lacked the sensitivity to the traces of sound with enough details, in addition to the recordings being too short, at approximately less than a second long3. These limitations led to another invention that came later in 1874, when another ancient scientist, Alexander Graham Bell, came up with a biomechanical Phonoautograph, which would apply the human ear system to record sound4. Nevertheless, this invention also had a similar limitation like the on e by Scott, since it could not play back the recorded sounds. The problem of sound technology therefore shifted from that of recoding sound to that of playing back the recorded sounds. This mystery was resolved amicably by Thomas Edison in 1877, where he developed the fist device that became known as the phonograph, which could recorded and then playback the recorded sounds at the same time5. The Edison’s phonograph was the first to succeed in both recording and replaying sounds, and it consisted of a thick tinfoil wrapped a cylinder on which sounds were recorded, which was then wrapped connected to a stylus that led to a diaphragm6. This device was first connected to the telephone which Thomas Edison had been working with, but later improvements led to the development of the phonograph such that it could record sounds directly from the air, as opposed to obtaining the sounds from the telephone. Therefore, the Edison tinfoil phonograph was the first of the sound recording devices to obtain a patent in 1878, with his phonograph that had a 2-3 minutes recording capacity7. Thus, with the development of the phonograph, both the problem of recording sound and replaying sounds were resolved. The future inventions, innovations and technologies in the field of sound recording would now focus on improving on the different aspects of sounding recording and replaying, such as increasing the speed of recording, as well as the extension of the recording time period. The subsequent improvements on the Edison’s phonograph led to the invention of a more improved version by another American scientist, Emile Berliner, which became known as a gramophone, whose difference from the phonograph was that it recorded sounds on the inside of a disc8. This was a different approach and improvement from the Edison’s earlier invention, which recorded sounds on the outside of the cylinder. The other difference between the phonograph and the gramophone is that the gramophone recorded the sound waves horizontally as opposed to the vertical recording of the phonograph, which then enhanced both the sound speed and the sound range9. The major difference is that the gramophone made it easier to make more copies of the recorded sound, compared to the phonograph, whose speed of making a copy was slow and the mechanism increasingly destroyed the original sound. The years following this development would comprise of attempts to sell the gramophone and phonograph inventions to companies that sold records and phonographs, while also wrangling with obtaining patenting. Companies dealing with the sale of phonographs and records would subsequently emerge. The North American Phonograph Company was the initial popular company in the recorded sound industry, out of which the Columbia Records emerged in 1888, after breaking away from and establishing itself as an independent company10. The company initially sought to sell gramophones, but it would become even more successful and popular in the sale of music, becoming the first company to ever develop music record catalog in 189011. Additionally, considering the difficulties that the gramophone inventors had in patenting and selling their right to companies involved in the sale of music machines, a more innovative mode of entertainment would arise in 1890. Instead of using the gramophone for recording sounds and music, the gramophone was innovated to produce mass entertainment though making a coin-operated phonogram that later became the first ‘juke box’12. The primitive juke box would become so much popular in the USA, such that it would divert the music recording attention for which the gramophones were first develop to implement, into a form of public amusement with a great fanatical following. Thus, while gramophones diverted their attention to other forms of public entertainment, the phonographs increasingly became popular for music recording, and thus the Columbia Records and the North American Phonograph Company continued with the art of music recording, with the later developing and opening the first purposed build recording studio in 189013. Therefore, by 1895, the art of recording music had become well established, and the only thing that was remaining was the improvement in the efficiency and speed of recording. The replacement of the vulcanite discs with the shellac discs would come in 1897, when the commercialization of music first began to become a profitable business14. Consequently, the mass production f recorded music in cylinders and discs became a popular source of wealth for most of the innovators and inventers in the sound recording industry. The music recording through gramophones was improved such that it was now possible to make hundreds of copies of recorded music using the improved gramophones with similar sound quality as the original, compared to the phonographic recorded music, which would record few copies which increasingly lost the sound value compared to the original copy, as more copies of the music continued to be produced. The increased speed of recording music saw several performers being required to enter into a marathon of music recording, where the performed would repeat their performances one after the other many times. This lead to the replacement of the etched plate technology that was originally used in recording music with the use of thick wax blank in 1901, as a way of enhancing both the efficiency and the speed of recording music15. This had become necessary because the business of music records sale was becoming increasingly popular and booming. The fact that the speed of recording music had improved so much so that a music recording required several performers to be in the recording studios at a time led to another advancement that sought to slow down the speed of recording music. The initial speed of recording cylinders was 78r per minute, which was then reduced by a half and later even further to 16r per minute16. This reduction in the rate of recording sounds effectively gave rise to the recorded radio broadcasting The phonographs and the gramophones were majorly powered by hand wound clock motors, which was developed by Eldridge Johnson in 1896, which made increasingly easier to produce music records, due to the enhanced speed s of the phonographs and the gramophones17. Nevertheless, the popularity of the cylinders was increasingly waning, while the recorded discs we5e increasingly becoming popular as the modes of presenting recorded music among the public. Nevertheless, even with the improvements and advancements in the sound recording industry, the legal battles were increasingly becoming serious. The different players in the industry continued to fight over patenting certain improvements, which would enable them to reap more financial gains than the competitors, granted the exclusive use of the improvements and advancements they were seeking. In this respect, there were numerous developments and improvements in the sound recording mechanisms and machines that occurred in the course of the first early decades of the twentieth-century, which were not clearly documented or attributed to any single inventor or innovator. However, despite all these advancements, Edison had continued to persist with his cylinder machine, but the competition from the discs was become even stronger. The expansion in the size and capacity of the discs was increasingly being done, so that a single disc could carry within it the capacity for several recorded music. Therefore, the first 12 inch diameter disc record was produced in 190318. The beginning of the twentieth century would see the transformation in the sound recording stop focusing on the kind of machine that were being used, into the mode of recording the sounds. Therefore, it is at around this time, notably starting 1902, that mechanical sound recording using phonographs and gramophones would increasingly fade, giving rise to electronic recording, which became more popular in the early twentieth century19. The first signs that the music recording would transform from the mechanical into electronic form was observed early in 1904, when the first diode thermionic valve was invented, and shortly after it was followed by a triode, giving indications that electrical recording of music sound was now becoming a possibility20. The first electronic sound recording was done in 1920, when the moulding process for cylinder recordings, which in turn opened up the gateway for mass production of music and sound recordings21. This was the first and major breakthrough towards overcoming the limitations associated with the production of saleable records, where under the mechanical production, only a couple of hundreds of saleable record copies could be produced. The other major transformation that was introduced by the electronic recording technology is that the sound quality also improved greatly. The earlier mechanical recording entailed the use of cones or horns to amplify the sound during recording22. The introduction of the electronic cutting head therefore means that the records produced by the electronic recording mechanisms was now clearer and at the same time louder23. However, the advent of the electronic recording technology meant that this limitation was now overcome, and it was now possible to control the sound quality electronically, and thus produce the quality of sound desired by the music recorders with much ease. The period between 1925 and 1930 is the duration characterized by an overshoot of electronic recording of music and sounds, with the Victor phonograph, which became the most popular equipment for producing numerous copies of records electrically24. It is also during this period that the use of cylinders for recording music became increasingly departed in favor of the cylinders, such that by the end of 1929, cylinders were not used anymore for the pour poses of music recording. Nevertheless, the actual introduction of the fully-fledged electric powered phonographs was introduced in 193025. Thus, it is the period running between the early 1930s to the late 1930s that home radios became increasingly popular, owing to the fact that the Orthophonic music records were played by the players which were powered by electronic motors and also amplified by electronic amplifiers26. The Victor phonograph was also the beginning g of huge commercialization of the music recording industry, where the advertisement campaign spent approximately $50 million in print media and an extra 17 million in brochures and catalogs27. The overall effect was that the Victor phonograph was to become synonymous with the name phonograph, and any other type of phonograph would just be called a Victor phonograph. Further, the late nineteenth century also saw the move and development of the music and sound recording towards the creation of visible as opposed to the usual groove sounds. This was preceded by the transformation of sound recording into a whole new level in 1906, when the velvet-thin and flexible shellac record was developed, which introduced less surface noise compared to the previous shellac28. This was further improved in the 1920s, with the introduction of the electronic recording advancement, introducing the recording of sound on photographic films. Scientists at the Bell Laboratories in the USA were the first to do an actual electronic recording of music29. However, the very first electronic public record would be issued in London in the same year, where the initial use of the microphone was also introduced. The recording used microphones that were similar to the microphones used in contemporary telephones. The recording was done by connecting the microphones to a recorder using wires, and then electronic amplification was applied to increase the volume of the sound30. The overall effect of this rudimental electronic recording was the production of sounds that were not clear. Despite this first instance of public electronic recording being primitive, it actually made a statement that public electronic recording was actually possible. The introduction of electronic recording then brought the greatest advancement ever in the history of sound recording that the time, by allowing performers in different studios to use microphones in turn during the music recording31. This would become a major breakthrough in the history of music recording, since it allowed the performers a better control of their voices, as opposed to the previous mechanical sound recording, which required that high projection of voice was necessary for the performers to be heard. The challenge then was when several performers were involved in recording a single record, since if one performer shouted more than the other, then, it became difficult for the voice of the other performer to heard. Additionally, the clear tone achieved through electronic microphone recording the meant that the earlier acoustic records could no longer compete with the electronically recorded ones32. Therefore, the introduction of the electronic recording, followed by the use of the microphones during recording, paved way for the end of acoustic recording, and the whole sound recording industry had to turn to electronic recording. Therefore, by around 1925, all the major sound and music recording labels had moved on to electronic recording33. The focus on combining sound with visual in the same recording would see Hollywood’s influence into the sound recording industry be felt far and wide34. The recording of sounds on photographic films meant that it was now possible to bring the visual element into the recording process, and combine it with the sound element. Thomas Edison and the Western Electric Company are some of the inventors that had focused on the development of equipment that would achieve both the visual and the sound recoding effect simultaneously. Therefore, at around the early 20s during the period when electronic recording was gaining popularity, Thomas Edison produced a phonographic system that would add sound to motion pictures35. The major problem is that the system had the problem of synchronization of sounds and the motion pictures, thus I became difficult to commercialize the system. In response to this challenge, the Western Electric Company developed a system that would add sound on an already recorded motion film in 192736. This paved way for the production of the first motion records with sounds in synch. However, there were always some technical problems that affected the quality of such records, since sound recording was done on top of an already recorded motion film. Following this advancement, a sound-on-film jazz record was produced in 1927, although its quality was very low. It is this system by the Western Electric that would pave way for the development and advancement of sound-on-film technology, which became established at around 192937. The sound-on-film technology then became the standard method of producing film in Hollywood, making the Hollywood influence on recording technology spread widely, paving way for the recording of visual music records38. The supremacy of electronic recording that enhanced the quality of records and increased the rate of recording music by different studios. Nevertheless, it would not last longer before a more advanced magnetic recording would find its way into the industry, and overtake the electronic recording as the supreme mode of recording music. Magnetic recording would emerge is the popular method of producing records in the studios, but it was rarely known to the public39. Valdemar Poulsen had introduced the system of magnetic recording earlier at around 1900, but it had not gained other popularity or commercialization until later in the 1920s, when it was found to be a viable option especially for recording sound-on-film records40. Poulsen had developed a telegraphone not as music recording equipment, but rather as recording equipment for telephone conversations and dictations. However, his invention did not get much enthusiasm in the USA, but continued to be advanced in Germany and England, until it finally became a useful system for recording sound on visual films41. The initial telegraphone was almost similar to a phonograph, involving wrapping a wire around the head of the cylinder, and then the recording head would track back the sound along the wire surface42. The major advancement in the telegraphone occurred the in the 1920s, where the oxide coated tape replaced solid-steel wires as the mediums for recording sound, meaning that it was now easier for the head of the cylinder to trace sound along the tape and produce high quality sound than it did with the steel solid wire. Therefore, all through the 1930s, the steel-band magnetic recorders were used not only by recording studios, but also by broadcasting companies such as the BBC and the German broadcasting Agency43. However, the commercialized magnetic tapes were introduced in 1928 in Germany, and they became very popular with recording studios, such that they were used over the next decade as the popular recording mediums, until at around 193544. The magnetic tape had been discovered earlier by a German named Fritz Pfleumer, who was experimenting with recording materials in 1927, and ended up settling on a paper that he coated with iron-oxide powder, and then used lacquer and glue to hold them together45. The end product was the production of the magnetic film strip, which he then patented and sold to a German recording company AEG in 1932, granting he company the rights to use his invention for commercialized and mass production46. This commercialization became the first basis of the production of the first ever magnetic tape recorder. At around the same time, the use of flat discs on recording phonographs and telegraphones was becoming popular as opposed to the traditionally used cylinders, thus by 1929, the flat discs became commonly applied and paved way for the end of use of cylinders47. Another major advancement in the history of recording that came at around the same period was the invention of the sound stereo system by Alan Blumlein in 193448. This came to defeat the challenge associated with the application of outward speakers like the two human ears49. Before this invention, there lacked directional control of the sound. This development was also followed by the development of the Lacquer coated discs in 1934, which then meant that it was possible to have instantaneous recording and broadcasting50. The Lacquer-aluminum coated discs became popular due to the fact that they offered for the possibility of long-duration recording, lasting approximately 15 to 16 minutes51. This gave the broadcasters a major opportunity to record their programs in these discs, since they would then broadcast for an entire 15 minutes, which was considered a very long duration of recording at the time. The Lacquer discs continued their application until later in the 1970s, when their popularity would then diminish, in favor of the tape recording52. The popularity of the magnetic tape recorders would grow fast, owing to its ability to record high quality sounds, while at the same time being able to record under conditions of vibration and shock, and still give out a clear record53. The AEG magnetic tape recorder would rival the quality of the broadcasting that was offered by both British and USA broadcasters, such that by the fall of the Berlin wall in 1945, the USA and England were tending towards the application of the magnetic tape. The oxide-coated magnetic tape is the basis of the modern video and audio recorders, with the only difference being that the modern tape used a mixture of iron-oxide and other materials to produce the fine thin coating54. Therefore, the rise of the magnetic tape recorders was the beginning of an even more great revolution in the history of sound recording. The introduction of the magnetic tape recorder paved way for the end of both the phonograph and the sound-to-film recorders, giving rise to the tape-recording era. Tape recording gained its highest popularity in the 1940s, most especially due to the rise of the film industry, which then required numerous and frequent editing of films, which was difficult on discs. However, tit became increasingly easier for engineers both to learn and to do editing on tapes55. Thus, tape editing became popular with the film industry, but soon the radio broadcasting industry would also adopt tape recording, such that by 1950s, all radio broadcasting was through tapes56. The magnetic consumer recorders would also appear at around the early 1940s, but the first cheap consumer tape recorders did not appear until 1948, when they became available in the market. This was also followed by the introduction of the LP records by CBS still in 1948, which then became even more popular with consumers57. Thus, by the early 1950s, sound recording had increasingly been diversified from being a preserve of the broadcasting, recording studios and record equipment manufacturers, into a home-based consumer practice, due to the availability of cheap and quality sound recorders. The tape invention had introduced a major revolution in the sound recording history, where cutting, editing and splicing to remove some sounds, fading some sounds as backgrounds to others and even combine two or r more sounds became possible with the tapes58. The 1960s are the period when innovative radio music and sound presentation techniques were becoming possible due to flexibility of editing the tape, and soon the music industry would change completely, due to the possibility of mixing music and sounds. The tape also made it possible for artists to manipulate their music, for example though the use of all manner of sound effects that would allow an artist use a behind sound to a company an original sound in a music59. The 1970s an 1980s saw the tape remain the popular medium of sound, music and video recording, with the major improvement being the recording of more and more records into a single tape, where one tape would now carry 24 different music records. The automotive record players also developed intensely in the 1980s, paving way to the 1990s, when the great revolution of digital sound recording emerged, with the introduction of the Philips CD-R in 199060. Soon after the CDs became the famous mode of music recording throughout the early 1990s, until the DVDs also emerged at around 199761. The CDs and the DVDs would only last for a little while in their popularity, before the internet and fiber-optic transmission became widespread, paving way for the rise of MP3s starting 1998, and then the MP4s by 2000, which necessitated the rise of the USB devices that are the current popular technologies for recording 62. Bibliography 1. Morton, David. Sound Recording: The Life Story of a Technology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Pr, 2006. 2. Recording-history.org. The History of Recording Technology: Overview History of the Technologies for Recording Music and Sound. http://www.recording-history.org/HTML/musictech1.php (Accessed: May 2, 2015). 3. Suisman, David. "Sound Recordings and Popular Music Histories: The Remix." Journal Of Popular Music Studies 23, no. 2 (June 2011): 112-220. 4. Emiarchivetrust.org. History of recorded music timeline. http://www.emiarchivetrust.org/about/history-of-recording/ (Accessed: May 2, 2015). 5. Krebs, Stefan. "Chasing Sound: Technology, Culture, and the Art of Studio Recording from Edison to the LP." ISIS: Journal Of The History Of Science In Society 106, no. 1 (March 2015): 156-207. 6. Audio Engineering Society. Recording Technology History. http://www.aes.org/aeshc/docs/recording.technology.history/notes.html (Accessed: May 2, 2015). 7. Chanan, Michael. Repeated Takes: A Short History of Recording and Its Effects on Music. London: Verso, 2000. 8. Mileham, R. "Sounds of history [audio recording]." Engineering & Technology (17509637) 4, no. 18 (October 24, 2009): 1-24. 9. Cowen, Ron. "Archaeologist of Sound." Science 335, no. 6066 (January 20, 2012): 218-280. Read More