Who invented sound recording

The first two contained objects and documents pertaining to the photophone, a device invented to carry sound on light waves. The third contained apparatus and notes pertaining to a new kind of sound recording device—the graphophone. Already undergoing numerous challenges to his telephone patent, Bell sought to avoid future disputes about his photophone and graphophone work.

These sealed deposits would, if necessary, serve as evidence of priority of invention. No patent dispute arose, and the boxes remained confidential and unopened for nearly fifty years. Images and Recordings High quality images of the recording media can be seen in this Flickr group. Audio samples and their transcriptions can be found on our YouTube channel , or see below for links to high quality.

Electrotyped copper negative disc of a sound recording, deposited at SI in October in sealed tin box. Listen 2. Glass disc recording, produced photographically on November 17, III Nov. Listen 3. Glass disc recording, produced photographically on March 11, Listen 4. Disc recording in green wax on brass holder, probably The question of which sound was the first ever to be recorded seems to have a pretty straightforward answer.

Instead, he thought they would read the tracings. So the first sound to be recorded was not the same as the first recorded sound to be played back. By or he had an idea: Using the daguerreotype as his model, he thought that if a camera replicates an eye to fix image to paper, some sort of mechanical ear could fix sound to paper.

Scott called his invention the phonautograph. A vibrating membrane, working as the eardrum, was attached to a thin stylus that would trace the way the membrane moved. By covering a sheet of paper or a glass plate in a fine layer of soot and moving it under the stylus, Scott could capture the fine, wavy trail it left.

A trained reader could interpret those lines — essentially the image of the sound wave — to know what the sound was. Or at least that was the plan. Scott believed it would happen. That same year he applied for a patent. As he improved the recording apparatus, he switched from recording on a straight sheet of paper or glass to one wrapped around a cylinder, allowing longer recordings, but he was still moving the apparatus by hand, resulting in irregular timing. In and he recorded a tuning fork at the same time as the other vocalizations and sounds.

The predictable vibration rate of a turning fork meant that Giovannoni, Feaster and others with the First Sounds collaboration could properly calibrate the time, making the recordings recognizable again. You can listen to , and recordings on the First Sounds website.

That situation put Scott in the odd position of being essentially unable to prove that his invention worked.

Eventually, he gave up on the project — returning to it, with no small sense of indignation, only near the end of his life when Edison was making headlines. The phonautograph was really the first machine to record sensory data in real time over time. To address these issues, his competitor Alexander Bell devised wax based cylindrical storage medium which proved to be much more durable, enabled better sound quality and was better accepted in the public.

By s, phonograph and few similar devices fought for the dominance on the North American market, but the innovation made by Emile Berliner ensured that his Gramophones became winners.

He devised a way to create flat discs, which enabled much easier manufacture, longer play times and easier use. As the years went on, his Victor Talking Machine Company managed to introduce discs in varying sizes and lengths, all enabling gramophone to become the most popular sound recording and playing device.

The material that is most associated with gramophones, Vinyl , came to the use during s. In the last years, sound recorders went from the simple devices that provided only few minutes of low quality reproduction to the sophisticated devices that can one-the-go process sounds with lifelike quality. Here you can find out more about that journey.

From the end of 19th century, innovators of sound recording devices enabled us to experience music and human speech like never before.