He developed a way to imprint or record the waves so that they could be played back or turned back into sound using a second needle.
He eventually designed a device he called the phonograph that had a brass cylinder wrapped in tinfoil, which rotated and moved lengthwise when turned by a hand crank. On one side was a diaphragm, or very thin membrane, connected to a needle. When sound waves were forced into the receiving end, it caused the membrane to vibrate and the needle to etch a groove into the foil as the cylinder was being turned by the crank, thus recording sound.
A second needle and an amplifier were on the other side. When the cylinder was set to the beginning and the needle placed in the grooves, the original sound was reproduced as the vibrations were amplified.
Edison created his first voice recording by shouting the words to "Mary had a little lamb" into a mouthpiece, causing the sound waves to vibrate a needle and etch the nursery rhyme into tinfoil for playback. The phonograph was a breakthrough, as it had the ability not only to record sound, but to play it back. Edison originally thought that the phonograph would be useful in offices for dictation, for families to record their history or for teachers to record lessons.
He considered applying the technology to toys such as talking dolls and music boxes. But the phonograph proved too difficult for most people to use, and the tinfoil on which the recordings were made did not last. Interest in the machine waned as its applications proved impractical in its current state. Edison put it aside to pursue work on other inventions.
When he resumed work on the phonograph nearly 10 years later, another inventor had moved it one step closer to the record player. Even before Edison's invention, other inventors made discoveries about recording sound. In the s, French printer Leon Scott used a phonautograph to imprint sound waves onto a glass cylinder. And in , just before Edison's discovery, another French inventor, Charles Cros wrote of a machine called the paleophone that could record sounds, but he never patented it [source: Schoenherr ].
Although Edison temporarily stopped work on his phonograph, interest in recording and playing sound was not abandoned. Ten years after its invention, in , a German inventor in the U. Instead of a cylinder with the sound etched in tinfoil or wax, he developed a device that rotated a hard rubber and later, shellac disc on a flat plate by the turn of a crank. But unlike its predecessor, the phonograph, Berliner's machine, the gramophone, could only play recordings.
So Berliner started the Gramophone Company, which manufactured not only the machines, but the records played on them. What was lost in the ability to both record and play back sound in one machine resulted in a new system whereby mass-produced recordings could be played and shared repeatedly. Berliner's company merged with that of inventor Eldridge Johnson to become the Victor Talking Machine Company in It manufactured and advertised both gramophones and records.
Johnson refined the design of the gramophone, which until that time had been dominated by a large horn to amplify the sound. In order to fit more comfortably in a home, the horn was tilted down and the entire device placed in a cabinet.
This new design, introduced in , was called the Victrola. Meanwhile, the company also manufactured discs recorded by famous opera singers and musicians, giving the public unprecedented access to music [source: Shoenherr , Morton: Phonograph ]. Over time, the design of the gramophone and the recording process were continuously changing, yet the core elements of the needle in a groove remained the same. By the midth century, most households had what was then commonly known as a record player and most recently called a turntable.
Its mass popularity lasted until about the mids when cassette tape recordings overtook records. We're on our way to finding out what exactly goes on during a record player's playback, but first, we need to understand the basics of how a vinyl record is created. The success of the gramophone to play recorded sounds was dependent on the ability to mass produce records. The process of making records has its roots in Thomas Alva Edison's phonograph.
First, a master recording is made, usually in a studio where engineers perfect the recorded sound. Then an object called a lacquer is placed on a record-cutting machine, and as it rotates, electric signals from the master recording travel to a cutting head, which holds a stylus, or needle.
The needle etches a groove in the lacquer that spirals to the center of the circular disc. The imprinted lacquer is then sent to a production company. There, the lacquer is coated in a metal, such as silver or nickel, to produce a metal master. When the metal master is separated from the lacquer, the resulting disc has ridges instead of grooves. The metal master is then used to create a metal record, also called the mother, which is then used to form the stamper.
Stampers are just negative versions of the original recording that will be used to make the actual vinyl records. Next, the stamper is placed in a hydraulic press, and vinyl is sandwiched in between. Steam from the press softens the plastic as the stampers push an impression of the master recording onto it. Finally, the disc is stiffened using cool water. Once the record is ready to be played, it will need a proper machine to bring its sounds to life.
Up next, we'll break down how exactly a record player's components work together to bring you the music. Records are often referred to by the number of revolutions that they make on a turntable per minute, or RPMs. This number gives the listener an idea of how much is recorded on the record [source: Phonograph ].
For almost a century, the record player was the most common way to listen to recorded music, speeches, languages and lessons. The design has been refined over the years, but the concept changed little, and the basic parts have remained the same.
The turntable is the circular plate on which the record sits. A rod positioned in the center holds the record which has a hole in its center in place. The metal turntable is covered in rubber or plastic, which protects the record from being scratched.
The receiver consisted of a tin foil wrapped cylinder and a very thin membrane, called a diaphragm, attached to a needle. Sound waves were directed into the diaphragm, making it vibrate. A hand crank turned the cylinder to rotate the tinfoil cylinder while the needle cut a groove into it to record the sound vibrations from the diaphragm.
The output side of the machine played the sound through a needle and an amplifier. The needle was set in the groove and the cylinder set to the beginning. The amplified vibrations played back the recorded sounds. The recording medium used in the original phonograph was awkward to use and broke easily. In , Emile Berliner, a German living in America, developed a hand-cranked machine that turned a hard rubber disc on a flat plate instead of a cylinder which became known as the gramophone.
Unlike Edison's phonograph, it could only play back recordings, but this format gave the public access to music they would not have heard, and sparked the start of the recording industry.
While the technology used in recording and playback devices improved steadily, record players are still based on the needle in groove concept. The revival of vinyl is testament to its superiority over all over music formats as it continues to remain the singular most impressive format for recording and reproducing music. Its difficult to imagine when or how vinyl could ever be replaced by a new music format claiming to do it better!
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How Does Vinyl Work? October 8, Have you ever wondered how something as complicated as a song can be perfectly recorded onto the surface of a flat, round disk of vinyl, that can be reproduced on mass for anyone to own, play and listen to whenever they choose? The history of recording and reproducing sound Having access to music whenever and wherever you want is something many of us take for granted but have you ever imagined what it was like before this was possible?
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