When was voice recorder invented

And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go. He would not work on the phonograph again until the late s, when wax cylinders replaced tin foil as his recording medium. Bell and his associates experimented with disc and cylinder recordings and their graphophone, which employed wax cylinder records, became a popular dictating machine.

Berliner had commercial success with disc records and the machine to play them—the gramophone. Each inventor offered objects and supporting documents to the Smithsonian Institution, where they became part of the permanent collections. Today, the National Museum of American History has about of the earliest audio recordings ever made. These recordings were made using a variety of methods and materials such as rubber, beeswax, glass, tin foil and brass, as the inventors tried to find a material that would hold sound.

They date from the first decades of sound recording and reproduction, from to Beyond vague notes written on old catalog cards, the content of most of the Smithsonian recordings has remained a mystery, until now. A newly invented sound recovery process is beginning to let us hear these recordings, once considered unplayable. The recordings provide insights into the invention process of their designers and shed new light on speech and hearing at the end of the 19th century.

These sounds promise a wealth of new material for scholarly analysis. A test of six recordings has undergone the process on imaging equipment installed by Berkeley Labs at the Library of Congress. These imaging methods protect the records from damage and can circumvent many aspects of pre-existing damage.

This sound recovery activity has been a collaborative effort of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian Institution. If a ranger is unavailable to take your call, we kindly ask that you leave us a detailed message with return contact information and we will be happy to get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you. Explore This Park. Info Alerts Maps Calendar Reserve. Alerts In Effect Dismiss. Dismiss View all alerts.

Unfortunately most of the results were little better than the old mechanical system. But then came the telephone men. Maxfield and Harrison were engineers with the Bell Telephone Laboratories during the s. As part of their work, they developed high quality public address systems. Having achieved that goal, with its necessity for large power outputs with a wide frequency range and low distortion, they turned their attention to recording.

For the first time all the elements of recording, from the acoustics of the sound source right through to the machine upon which the record was to be played, were subjected to scientific research.

The result was what we now call the Western Electric recording system or sometimes Westrex. The results blew acoustic recording away virtually overnight. For the first time something like a full orchestra could be successfully recorded. Transients and sibilants were there, studio ambience and atmosphere, and all these things made for far greater fidelity. Now the gramophone could compete with the radio. The effect of the Western Electric system. This example begins with part of the Nile duet Aida with Giovanni Martinelli from , then changes to the remake.

The difference is extraordinary. Piano recording changed overnight. A full orchestra was now possible. Albert Coates in The first electrical recordings were mainly of popular music, but classical soon followed when once the requirements were understood.

Although Victor and HMV were closely affiliated, UK and Continental recording in the early electrical era tended to be rather different in approach from that in the US, where classical recording was concerned.

HMV preferred a more spacious sound as these two recordings demonstrate. Note the spaciousness of the recording and good balance between orchestra and voice. A much boxier sound, and less natural. Elgar at the opening of Abbey Road studios.

Or rather, recordings of public performances. With mechanical recording, it was a virtual impossibility to make recordings of concert performances. Electrical recording changed all that, and from the early days of experimental recordings in the USA, when live performances provided a constant run of free musical signal the engineers to play with, the possibilities were explored.

The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, was obviously a prime venue since so many international stars were contracted to sing there. Thus far reasonably straightforward, although today we cannot really appreciate the technical achievements which were great indeed.

One particular problem was that the engineers had no sight of the stage and therefore relied on signals as to when lower the cutter-head, always trying to avoid long silences at the beginning of sides.

Sometimes a wanted portion would look to be running too near the label space and a quick fade-out was necessary. There was also a wish not to record applause, and of course the necessity of not recording any artist under contract to a rival. Sadly the orchestra and chorus wanted fees equivalent to a full session at the HMV studios.

A total of 9 sides were recorded that evening, of which four resulted in successful records that were subsequently published; and despite all the difficulties, some of them are extraordinarily vivid.

Chaliapin in a performance at Covent Garden, May Amazingly vivid sound from almost 80 years ago. Of these only two survive, neither of which was published, good though they are. Four days later came a milestone in opera history: the farewell performance of Dame Nellie Melba.

A total of 11 sides were recorded including speeches by Lord Stanley and Dame Nellie herself. Dame Nellie Melba two weeks later with her farewell speech.

No acoustic recording system could have captured that. Just over a week later, the engineers turned their attention to the then greatest living Otello, Giovanni Zenatello. With his huge voice, the result must have been totally unusable. The four surviving sides show the extraordinary progress the engineers had made. The Western Electric system, good though it was, did have a cost. For each record sold and made by that process, a royalty was payable.

The system itself was leased rather than sold outright. All the major record companies therefore made serious attempts to develop their own systems that did not infringe WE patents but that would result in equally good or better recordings. Columbia engineers in the UK, led by Holman and Blumlein, were streets ahead in the race. When the Gramophone Co.

The WE system used a moving-iron cutter head that was heavily damped to prevent the inherent resonances: the Blumlein cutter was a moving coil type which used feedback to damp the movement. The recordings made with it tend to have a freedom that could sometimes be missing from the WE system. More importantly for EMI, it was free of royalty payments.

Blumlein himself went on to develop stereo recording on disc and film before getting involved in secret radar work for the Government. He was killed whilst testing airborne radar when his plane was shot down during the war. The Blumlein lathe. As might be expected, the Americans were trying to do exactly the same thing — to circumvent the WE patents.

It was certainly capable of producing loud records, and RCA wasted no time in exploiting that feature. RCA Victor often abused their system! Lucrezia Bori in Loud and a terrible balance. It is likely that a vocal booth was used for the soloist. Giovanni Martinelli, Pagliacci Spacious sound, well recorded. Even at the slower linear speed, the frequency response is more than adequate.

Considering its date, and slow speed, the results are remarkable, and far better than the contemporary sound-on-film systems, although much more cumbersome of course.

Such a format was never going to be suitable for home music reproduction. These first LPs were not an unqualified success. America was in the middle of a depression and money was scarce. The new records needed specialist replay equipment that was not sold cheaply — a mistake Columbia did not make when post-war LP was introduced. Even for those who did invest, the promises of high quality with long playing time did not quite work out.

Too often the quality was poor, and in fact most of the LPs were actually dubbings from 78s. It was recorded on the 7th April both on 10 standard 78 rpm sides and on 5 LP sides. The results were very variable. An American transcription lathe. A press for 16 inch transcription discs. Here the sound is good, however the other side is not.

The reverse side demonstrates what happens when it went wrong — a distorted and wiry sound which characterised many of this series. Although pre-war LP was not a commercial success, it did hang on until the late s. Not hi-fi, but because what was there was clean and undistorted it sounded very good, and so obviously had improved during the decade. Gigli — Aprile ] mp3 file. More, however, was to come with the ability to store a much wider range of frequencies - up to 14,Hz and more - on disc.

This came about with the need by various government agencies to be able to record higher frequencies for a variety of secret purposes, including anti-submarine warfare. National Symphony Orchestra, Sargent. Halina —Stefanska, Chopin.