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Jake Kirby
Ms.Tillery
British Literature
28 October 2011
Recording Instruments Over the Years
Recording has changed very much over the years, what was able to be done only in an
expensive studio can now be done in your own home on a Pc or Mac computer. From the first
tape recorder to cd writing and even earlier to phonographs, recording has always been used to
promote musical talent for others to enjoy.
Scientists began to experiment with sound waves in the middle ages. Bonetius, a roman
philosopher described the relation between fastness of vibration and pitch of sound at the end of
the 5th century (home.mit.bme.hu/~bako/zaozeng/chapter1.htm)
Jean Duhamel, French physician and mathematician proposed a good plan of a sound
recorder and player machine. He thought that the vibrations of air could be recorded by an elastic
membrane connected with a needle that scratches a soft material.
The first working machine was created by Thomas Alva Edison in 1877. He used
Duhamels idea of a membrane connected with a needle called a phonograph.
After 10 years, in 26 September, 1887, Emil Berliner got a patent to a new sound
recorder device, he called it the gramophone. The gramophone device records the sound on a
disc and not on a cylinder. The disc shaped sound carriers - the records - take less space than a
phonograph cylinder and discs can be easily copied by a printing-sample. With printing-sample,
hundreds of copies can be made from one record in contrast with the phonograph, where every
phonograph-cylinder was produced by a new sound-recording. The gramophone became very

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popular due to the advantage of easily made copies and slowly squeezed out the phonograph
from the market. (home.mit.bme.hu/~bako/zaozeng/chapter1.htm)
In 1920 the Bell laboratories began to make scientific research in the gramophone
subject. They exactly cleared the physical and mathematical relations of sound-recording and in
1924 they created the first electromechanical sound-recording devices. The recordings were
produced with microphone, electrical amplifier and cutting-head. These recordings contain less
noise, have higher dynamics and less distortion. The Bell laboratories created an electrical
record-player, but it was too expensive and was not so popular. The Bell laboratories made the
first stereophonic sound-recordings in 1931. (Leslie Hutchison)
In 1927 and 1928 Russian Boris Rtcheouloff and German chemist Fritz Pfleumer both
patented an improved means of recording sound using magnetized tape. These ideas incorporated
a way to record sound or pictures by causing a strip, disc, or cylinder of iron or other magnetic
material to be magnetized.
In September 1931, the RCA Victor Company unveiled the long-play record. They used a
new sound carrier for the good sound quality. It was acetylcellulose-polivinylchloride. They used
thinner sound grooves as well. The playtime was now 20 minutes and the sound of the needle
noise was softer.(Balcziack, Bill)
Recordings required a way to pick up sound via a microphone, a way to store
information, and a playing device to access the stored data. The missing piece was a device to
play back the recorded sounds.
In 1898 a Danish inventor, Valdemar Poulsen , patented the first device with the ability to play
back the recorded sounds from steel wire. He reworked Smith's design and for several years
actually manufactured the first "sonic recorders." This invention, patented in Denmark and the

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United States, was called the telegraphon, as it was to be used as an early kind of the telephone
answering machine.
The recording medium was a steel chisel and an electromagnet. He used steel wire coiled around
a cylinder reminiscent of Thomas Edison's phonograph. Poulsen's telegraphon was shown at the
1900 International Exhibition in Paris and was praised by the scientific and technical press as a
revolutionary innovation.
The British Marconi Wireless Telegraph company also bought the Stille and Bauer design and
for a number of years made tape machines for the British Broadcasting Corporation. The
Marconi-Stilles recording machines were used until the 1940s by the BBC radio service in
Canada, Australia, France, Egypt, Sweden, and Poland. (Leslie Hutchison)
By the beginning of World War II the development of the tape recorder continued to be
in a state of flux. Experiments using different types and materials for recording tapes continued,
as well as research into devices to play back the recorded sounds. Sound recording on coated-
plastic tape manufactured by AEG was improved to the point that it became impossible to
distinguish Adolf Hitler's radio addresses as a live or a recorded audio transmission. Engineers
and inventors in the United States and Britain were unable to reproduce this quality of sound
until several of the Magnetophons left Germany as war reparations in 1945. The German version
combined a magnetic tape and a device to play back the recording. Another interesting feature,
previously unknown, was that the replay head could be rotated against the direction of the tape
transport. This enabled a recording to be played back slowly without lowering the frequency of
the voice. These aspects were not available on the steel wire machines then available in the
United States.()

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The most common U.S. version used a special steel tape that was made only in Sweden, and
supplies were threatened at the onset of World War II. However, when patent rights on the
German invention were seized by the United States Alien Property Custodian Act, there were no
longer any licensing problems for U.S. companies to contend with, and the German innovations
began to be incorporated into the United States designs.
A popular singer, Bing Crosby, had experienced a significant drop in his radio popularity.
Crosby attributed his poor ratings to the inferior quality of sound recording used in taping his
programs. Crosby, familiar with the Magnetophon machine, requested that it be used to tape
record a sample program. In 1947 Bing Crosby Enterprises, enthusiastic about the improved
quality and listener satisfaction, decided to contract with Ampex to design and develop the
Magnetophon recording device. Ampex agreed to build 20 professional recording units priced at
$40,000 each, and Bing Crosby Enterprises then sold the units to the American Broadcasting
Company.
In the film world, Walt Disney Studios released the animated film Fantasia. This film used a
sound process called Fantasound, incorporating technological advances made in the field of
sound recording and sound playback. These commercial uses of the magnetic tape recording
devices allowed innovations and expansion in the movie and television-broadcasting field.
(Kutkins, Erik)
Recording has changed quite a bit from the first Phonograpgh to the modern tape recorder
and beyond that even. A Mac or Pc computer can use a DAW( digital audio workspace) to record
guitar, vocals and various instruments directly as a wav file. The DAW is a computer-based
audio recording and editing system that replicates every function of an entire recording studio—
from the audio console, equalizers, compressors, and effects units to the multi-track recorders

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and editing controllers. Various storage media are used with the DAW. The DAW is an
integrated system that includes recording, editing, and signal routing and processing, speed of
operation and flexibility are superior to similar analog equipment. The DAW also has control of
external tape machines or video recorders.
DAW’s have allowed people with very small budgets to record quality songs and share
them on YouTube, MySpace, and other social media sites. Instead of tape, digital recordings are
saved as audio files, or mp3 files. Audio files can then be uploaded to the internet or burned to a
CD. DAW’s have allowed the release of an extremely large amount of music, almost anyone can
have their music heard if they know how to use these audio workplaces. First-generation
workstations were configured around a single or networked minicomputers that handled the
digitization of audio sources. In 1988 Integrated Media Systems unveiled Digital Dyaxis, a
Macintosh-based two-track recorder that over the years expanded into a highly-popular multi-
track DAW with disk-based video playback. A year later, Digidesign launched Pro Tools, which
set high standards for reliability, flexibility, expandability and factory support, and is now in
daily use in thousands of studios around the world. In 1992 we saw a remarkable
democratization of DAWs, with the introduction of the Digital Audio Labs Card-D. The year
1994 marked a turning point. The ability for third-party software plug-ins to add specialized
functions to existing Sound Designer II and Pro Tools software, including custom EQ, reverb
and other DSP options, opened up a wealth of creative options. Waves, Jupiter Systems,
Arboretum Systems and other rose to the challenge. (Lambert, Mel) The DAW’s that emerged in
the early 70’s are still the most widely used even today.
Recording started as live sounds on a thin tape or cylinder and is now put onto the
computer as sound waves or is an arrangement of musical data that can be manipulated by

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programs to suit one’s musical tastes. Recording has developed very rapidly throughout the past
few decades thanks to computers being invented and enhanced each year.