The following chronology lists some significant events in the development of recorded sound. Included are advances in recording devices, methods and materials.
| YEAR |
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| 1847 |
- Thomas Alva Edison born in Milan, Ohio.
|
| 1851 |
- Emile Berliner born in Hanover, Germany.
|
| 1857 |
- the first documented recording of sound waves made by the phonautograph, invented by Léon Scott de Martinville.
|
| 1876 |
- the magnetic or reluctance microphone patented by Alexander Graham Bell.
|
| 1877 |
- Charles Cros deposits a sealed packet with the French Academy of Science, describing a method for recording sound in a spiral groove on a disc using photoengraving.
- Thomas Edison makes first sketch of the phonograph, conceived of while he was working on the repeating telegraph.
- an article predicting the various uses of the phonograph appears in the Scientific American.
- the phonograph uses a brass cylinder covered with tinfoil.
- both Emile Berliner and Thomas Edison develop a carbon microphone (loose contact transmitter).
|
| 1878 |
- Edison patents the phonograph in the United States, Great Britain and Canada.
- a demonstration of the phonograph held at the Governor-General’s residence (Rideau Hall) in Ottawa, Canada.
|
| 1880 |
- with prize money granted to him by the French Academy of Science, Alexander Graham Bell establishes the Volta Laboratory Association, an electro-acoustic research facility.
|
| 1881 |
- Chichester Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter develop a machine which improves upon the phonograph, and call the new device a graphophone.
- the graphophone uses a cylinder made from beeswax or carnuba wax over a cardboard base.
|
| 1882 |
|
| 1885 |
- Canadian patent for the graphophone issued.
|
| 1886 |
- American patents for the graphophone issued.
|
| 1887 |
- Edison adopts modifications based upon the Bell-Tainter innovations and produces the Improved Phonograph.
- Berliner receives patent for the gramophone.
|
| 1888 |
- Berliner debuts the gramophone in Germany.
- the early gramophone discs were made with a zinc base with a beeswax coating etched with chromic acid.
|
| 1889 |
- the North American Phonograph Company publishes the first catalogue of records.
- Louis Glass develops the coin operated phonograph.
- Berliner begins to stamp gramophone discs in Vulcanite, or hard rubber.
|
| 1897 |
- Berliner granted Canadian patent for the gramophone.
- gramophone discs begin to be made of a thermoplastic shellac compound called Durinoid.
|
| 1900 |
- Valdemar Poulson wins the Grand Prix at the World Exhibition in Paris for the Telegraphon, a magnetic recording device which uses carbon steel piano wire wound on brass spoons or drums.
|
| 1901 |
- cylinders are now made of celluloid
|
| 1904 |
- Colin McKenzie of Whitehorse, Yukon receives a patent for a double-sided record. The Victor Talking Machine Co. buys it.
|
| 1906 |
- Reginald A. Fessenden, a Canadian-born physicist, makes the first radio broadcast of a gramophone record.
|
| 1908 |
- Columbia issues a double-sided record. Victor takes Columbia to court for patent infringement, but Columbia wins right to make double-sided records.
- Edison introduces the Amberol cylinder, made of a thermoplastic called Condensite.
|
| 1912 |
- Edison introduces the Blue Amberol cylinder, made of bright blue nitrocellulose.
|
| 1917 |
- E.C. Wente of Western Electric perfects the first effective condenser microphone, which becomes the preferred microphone for sound recording.
|
| 1920 |
- Horace O. Merriman, a Canadian, and Lionel Guest, an Englishman, make the first commercial electrical recording at the funeral of the Unknown Soldier at Westminster Abbey.
|
| 1924 |
- Joseph Maxfield of Western Electric records a radio broadcast carried over telephone lines.
- the Compo Co. conducts its first electric recording session.
|
| 1925 |
- C.W. Rice and E.W. Kellogg perfect the dynamic loudspeaker.
|
| 1926 |
- Brunswick-Balke-Collender introduce the first all-electric phonograph.
|
| 1929 |
- Ludwig Blattner Picture Corp. Ltd. of London joins with Kurt Stille's Telegraphie-Patent-Syndicat to produce the Blattnerphone, which magnetically records motion picture sound on steel tape. Widely used to record radio broadcasts.
|
| 1931 |
- S.B. Sawyer patents the crystal microphone.
- RCA Victor experiments with a 33 1/3 rpm record with double the groove density in an attempt to increase playing time.
|
| 1933 |
- Kurt Stille develops a vastly improved magnetic recorder using better steel wire and vacuum tube amplifiers. This machine, called a Textophone, was widely used by the Gestapo during WWII.
|
| 1934 |
- around this time A.D. Blumelien patents a system for stereo recording on disc, employing a lateral cut for one channel, and a vertical cut for the other.
|
| 1936 |
- Allgemeine Electricitats-Gesellschaft (AEG) and I.G. Farben demonstrate the Magnetophon K1, which recorded magnetically on cellulose acetate film coated with gamma ferric oxide, developed by Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik (BASF), a division of I.G. Farben.
|
| 1937 |
- A.H. Reeves invents Pulse Code Modulation (PCM), the basis of digital recording.
|
| 1943 |
- BASF replaces cellulose acetate tape with polyvinyl chloride (PVC) tape for magnetic recording.
|
| 1947 |
- Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing (3M) begins producing ferric oxide coated tape for magnetic recording.
|
| 1948 |
- Columbia introduces commercially successful long playing records (LPs) which play at 33 1/3 rpm.
- use of vinyl as record material becomes universal.
|
| 1949 |
- RCA Victor introduces the 45 rpm 7-inch single with microgrooves.
- Claude Shannon establishes the theoretical framework for digital recording in his book, The Mathematical Theory of Communication.
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