MTM Lesson 3 - Pt 1: Inventors (SP24) PDF

The Birth of the Recording Industry: Inventors and Inventions Inventors and Inventions, 19th Century Described in David Morton’s book, Chapters 1-4 In France: Jean-Marie Constant Duhamel, early experiments Léon Scott – phonautograph (1856/57) Charles Cros – parleóphon (1877) In USA: Alexander Graham...

The Birth of the Recording Industry: Inventors and Inventions Inventors and Inventions, 19th Century Described in David Morton’s book, Chapters 1-4 In France: Jean-Marie Constant Duhamel, early experiments Léon Scott – phonautograph (1856/57) Charles Cros – parleóphon (1877) In USA: Alexander Graham Bell, Boston – telephone – Thomas Watson – Chichester Bell and Charles Tainter – graphophone (1881) Thomas Edison, NJ – phonograph (1877, cylinder) Emile Berliner, (German immigrant) DC/NY – gramophone (1887, disc) – Eldridge Johnson, Camden, NJ Léon Scott’s Phonautograph (1856/57) Visually recorded sound waves to analyze speech, but did not reproduce sound http://www.heritage-history.com/?c=read&author=bachman&book=inventors&story=bell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Édouard-Léon_Scott_de_Martinville 19th Century Telecommunications Revolution 1850: telegraph, telegraphy Telecommunications industry: “the high-tech field of the 1860s and 1870s” (Millard, p. 17) – In the Telecommunications industry, why did they want to record sound? – What would we call this technology today? – What was the other main industry to which sound recording technology was applied? Andre Millard, America on Record: A History of Recorded Sound, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005) Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson: Telephone, 1876 Alexander Graham Bell demonstrates speaking into the telephone using a model prototype in 1876. Early Office Museum. http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/03/dayintech_0310 Thomas Edison, in Menlo Park, NJ 1870s Experimented on: telephone harmonic telegraphs Automatic telegraphs message recorder Stock ticker Electric lighting Edison, 1878, Lib of Congress. http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/gilded/jb_gilded_edison_1_e.html Phonograph, December 1877 Cylinder and “long feed screw turned by a hand crank,” with a “sheet of tinfoil wrapped around the cylinder” Corbis. http://www.corbisimages.com/Enlargement/VV8673.html Edison Phonograph Company & New Lab in West Orange, 1887 http://www.nps.gov/edis/index.htm How did these inventions work? First, how does sound travel? sound travels as longitudinal or compression waves Sound as longitudinal waves and transverse waves Frequencies and amplitudes in transverse sound waves. More waves in a period of time is higher frequency, higher pitch; higher amplitude of wave is louder sound. Caveat: real sounds create more complex/composite transverse waves Léon Scott’s Phonautograph visually recorded sound waves to analyze speech, but did not reproduce sound. Edison’s phonograph did both. http://www.heritage-history.com/?c=read&author=bachman&book=inventors&story=bell Vertical cutting (hill and dale) “Vertical cut recording,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_cut_recording, accessed Feb 3, 2024 Phonograph records and plays back sound, unlike the phonautograph. International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives, https://www.iasa-web.org/book/export/html/3831, accessed Feb 3, 2024 Phonograph, December 1877 Cylinder and “long feed screw turned by a hand crank,” with a “sheet of tinfoil wrapped around the cylinder” Corbis. http://www.corbisimages.com/Enlargement/VV8673.html Video examples Part II: Gramophone, Telephone, and Ramaphone Emile Berliner’s Gramophone, 1888 Disc, not cylinder Lateral cuts, not vertical cuts American Treasures, Library of Congress. http://explorepahistory.com/displayimage.php?imgId=3790 Lateral (side-to-side) vs. Vertical Cuts (hill and dale) http://www.victor-victrola.com/Basics%20of%20the%20Acoustic%20Phonograph.htm “JSA ingenuity brings new life to old Jewish radio programs,” Recorded Sound Archives, Florida Atlantic Universities Library , https://rsa.fau.edu/blog/tag/16-inch-record-discs/, March 3, 2010, accessed Feb 3, 2024. International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives, https://www.iasa-web.org/book/export/html/3831, accessed Feb 3, 2024 Ramaphone Plays back sound in lateral grooves In teams Sound box: tin can, plastic cup Diaphragm: aluminum foil, latex balloon, paper Stylus: metal sewing needle, wooden toothpick Horn (optional): use paper to construct coned horns of different angles and sizes, or none at all Improvements Needed Ease for using the equipment Higher quality sound: Playback was unintelligible Louder sound, especially for dance music Longer playing time Inventors and experimenters tried to improve quality of devices and recordings Bell’s Telephone Worked similar, but with electricity Bell’s Telephone Worked similar, but with electricity Bell’s Telephone Worked similar, but with electricity http://www.privateline.com/TelephoneHistoryA/TeleHistoryA.htm Bell’s Telephone Worked similar, but with electricity Bell’s Telephone in a Nutshell Microphone/transmitter à receiver/reverse-mic Diaphragm modulates the “flow of electrons in a circuit” Transduction: “the conversion of acoustic waves in the air to waves of electromagnetism or pulses of electrical current.” (Morton, p. 7) “In the Bell telephone receiver, incoming electrical signals flowed through a coil of wire, causing a small diaphragm to vibrate, and … generated the sounds.” (Morton, p. 8)