Monday 22 March 2010

Record, Creating a Record Unit 4


Phonograph
Thomas Alva Edison discovered the idea of recording and reproducing sound between May and July 1877 whilst working on how to "play back" recorded telegraph messages and to automate speech sounds for transmission by telephone. He told the public about his invention of the first phonograph, a device for recording and replaying sound, on November 21, 1877 and he demonstrated the device for the first time on November 29 with a recording saying " Good morning. How do you do? How do you like the phonograph?" 
Edison's early phonographs recorded onto a tinfoil sheet phonograph cylinder using an up-down motion of the stylus. The tinfoil sheet was wrapped around a grooved cylinder, and the sound was recorded as indentations into the foil. Edison's early patents show that he also considered the idea that sound could be recorded as a spiral onto a disc, but Edison concentrated his efforts on cylinders.


Home Phonograph


One of the early home phonograph was called the Model A also known as the 'Suitcase' Home Model because of its four suitcase style clamps, which helped people to carry the phonograph by its lid handle. The 'suitcase' Home, is the only model to have its name on the lid rather than the lower case, as in the later models.
One example of the Edison Home Model A has the most recent patent date of May 31, 1898 and went on sale originally in December 1896. It was manufactured until 1901.


The Gramophone


On November 8 1887, Emile Berliner, a German immigrant working in Washington D.C., patented a successful system of sound recording. He was the first inventor to record on flat dicks or records rather than recording on cylinders.
The first records were made of glass, later zinc, and finally plastic. A spiral groove with sound information was etched into the flat record. The record was rotated on the gramophone. The "arm" of the gramophone held a needle that read the grooves in the record by vibration and transmitting the information to the gramophone speaker.


The Shellac record player


Berliner discovered that a mixture of shellac (a secretion from the lac beetle) and slate dust produced an extremely hard wearing but very brittle surface and from this the 78rpm disc was developed. 


Modern Record Player


Turntables became popular after World War II. At first they were crank-operated, but were later mechanized and powered by a rotating belt or motor drive. Around the same time, records began to be manufactured using vinyl.


Open Reel Tape Recorder


Reel-to-reel, open reel tape recording is where the recording medium is held on a reel, rather than in a cassette. To do this the supply reel or feed reel containing the tape is put onto a spindle, then the end of the tape pulled out of the reel by hand, threaded through mechanical guides and a tape head assembly, and attached by friction to the hub of a second empty takeup reel. This is the same as in film recording.


Multitrack Recorder


Multitrack recording started with a guitarist named Les Paul in the late 1940s.  He had been experimenting with overdubbing  and in 1947 Capital records released a record with Paul playing 8 different parts on a electric guitar. He did this using wax discs . First of all he recorded a track and then he recorded himself again playing another part with the first track.   


Audio Cassette


The Compact Cassette, also known as the audio cassette, cassette tape, cassette, or simply tape, is a magnetic tape sound recording format.
Digital Audio Tape (DAT) Compact Cassettes consist of two miniature spools, between which a magnetically coated plastic tape is passed and wound. These spools are held inside a protective plastic shell. Two stereo pairs of tracks or two monaural audio tracks are available on the tape; one stereo pair or one monophonic track is played or recorded when the tape is moving in one direction and the second pair when moving in the other direction. This reversal is done either by swapping the cassette or by having the machine itself change the direction of tape movement.


Digital audio tape


DAT is quite simply music stored digitally on 4mm magnetic tape. DAT tape generally comes in lengths of around 60 minutes. A DAT drive is a digital tape recorder with rotating heads similar to those found in a video deck. 


CD


The optical digital recording and playback processes and materials which became the digital compact disc were created in 1965, by James T. Russell. He wanted to find a way to save his vinyl phonograph records from wearing out so he developed  a system for recording, storing, and replaying information by light rather than touch. Russell invented a method of recording onto a photosensitive platter in binary bits ("dots" of light and dark, each 1 micron in diameter). He used a laser to read the patterns of light and dark, which were converted by computer into an electronic signal, which was then made audible or visible. The result, is near-perfect playback which will never wear out. 


MP3


The German company Fraunhofer-Gesellshaft developed the MP3. MP3 stands for MPEG Audio Layer III and it is a standard for audio compression that makes any music file smaller with little or no loss of sound quality. MP3 players are portable devices that play back digital audio files. Digital audio files come in a number of formats, but the most popular by far is the MP3. MP3 players have changed the face of portable music.

No comments:

Post a Comment