The Rooftop Singers were an American country folk - singing trio in the early 1960s, best known for the hit " Walk Right In ". The group was composed of Erik Darling and Bill Svanoe ( vocals , guitar ) with former jazz singer Lynne Taylor ( vocals ).
110-507: Darling put the group together in June 1962, specifically to record an updated and uptempo version of a 1929 Gus Cannon folk blues song , "Walk Right In". The trio recorded the song for Vanguard Records , with updated lyrics and an arrangement featuring paired 12-string acoustic guitars . The record became the most successful single in Vanguard's history. In the U.S., the song
220-398: A Stroh violin which uses a conical horn connected to a diaphragm that in turn is connected to the violin bridge. The horn was no longer needed once electrical recording was developed. The long-playing 33 1 ⁄ 3 rpm microgroove LP record , was developed at Columbia Records and introduced in 1948. The short-playing but convenient 7-inch (18 cm) 45 rpm microgroove vinyl single
330-422: A data compression algorithm. Adaptive DPCM (ADPCM) was introduced by P. Cummiskey, Nikil S. Jayant and James L. Flanagan at Bell Labs in 1973. Perceptual coding was first used for speech coding compression, with linear predictive coding (LPC). Initial concepts for LPC date back to the work of Fumitada Itakura ( Nagoya University ) and Shuzo Saito ( Nippon Telegraph and Telephone ) in 1966. During
440-462: A digital system do not result in error unless they are so large as to result in a symbol being misinterpreted as another symbol or disturbing the sequence of symbols. It is, therefore, generally possible to have an entirely error-free digital audio system in which no noise or distortion is introduced between conversion to digital format and conversion back to analog. A digital audio signal may be encoded for correction of any errors that might occur in
550-626: A hydropowered (water-powered) organ that played interchangeable cylinders. According to Charles B. Fowler, this "... cylinder with raised pins on the surface remained the basic device to produce and reproduce music mechanically until the second half of the nineteenth century." Carvings in the Rosslyn Chapel from the 1560s may represent an early attempt to record the Chladni patterns produced by sound in stone representations, although this theory has not been conclusively proved. In
660-512: A microphone was used to convert the sound into an electrical signal that was amplified and used to actuate the recording stylus. This innovation eliminated the "horn sound" resonances characteristic of the acoustical process, produced clearer and more full-bodied recordings by greatly extending the useful range of audio frequencies, and allowed previously unrecordable distant and feeble sounds to be captured. During this time, several radio-related developments in electronics converged to revolutionize
770-685: A sound track . The projector used a steady light and a photodetector to convert these variations back into an electrical signal, which was amplified and sent to loudspeakers behind the screen. Optical sound became the standard motion picture audio system throughout the world and remains so for theatrical release prints despite attempts in the 1950s to substitute magnetic soundtracks. Currently, all release prints on 35 mm movie film include an analog optical soundtrack, usually stereo with Dolby SR noise reduction. In addition, an optically recorded digital soundtrack in Dolby Digital or Sony SDDS form
880-469: A Brahms Serenade, and the last movement of Bruckner's 8th Symphony with Von Karajan. Other early German stereophonic tapes are believed to have been destroyed in bombings. Not until Ampex introduced the first commercial two-track tape recorders in the late 1940s did stereo tape recording become commercially feasible. Despite the availability of multitrack tape, stereo did not become the standard system for commercial music recording for some years, and remained
990-489: A DAC. According to the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem , with some practical and theoretical restrictions, a band-limited version of the original analog signal can be accurately reconstructed from the digital signal. During conversion, audio data can be embedded with a digital watermark to prevent piracy and unauthorized use. Watermarking is done using a direct-sequence spread-spectrum (DSSS) method. The audio information
1100-407: A coating of soot as the paper was passed under it. An 1860 phonautogram of " Au Clair de la Lune ", a French folk song, was played back as sound for the first time in 2008 by scanning it and using software to convert the undulating line, which graphically encoded the sound, into a corresponding digital audio file. Thomas Edison's work on two other innovations, the telegraph and the telephone, led to
1210-485: A condenser type developed there in 1916 and greatly improved in 1922, and the best amplifiers and test equipment. They had already patented an electromechanical recorder in 1918, and in the early 1920s, they decided to intensively apply their hardware and expertise to developing two state-of-the-art systems for electronically recording and reproducing sound: one that employed conventional discs and another that recorded optically on motion picture film. Their engineers pioneered
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#17327803046351320-537: A different sampling rate to a common sampling rate prior to processing. Audio data compression techniques, such as MP3 , Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), Opus , Ogg Vorbis , or FLAC , are commonly employed to reduce the file size. Digital audio can be carried over digital audio interfaces such as AES3 or MADI . Digital audio can be carried over a network using audio over Ethernet , audio over IP or other streaming media standards and systems. For playback, digital audio must be converted back to an analog signal with
1430-402: A few crude telephone-based recording devices with no means of amplification, such as the telegraphone , it remained so until the 1920s. Between the invention of the phonograph in 1877 and the first commercial digital recordings in the early 1970s, arguably the most important milestone in the history of sound recording was the introduction of what was then called electrical recording , in which
1540-509: A high level of complexity and sophistication. The combined impact with innovations such as the endless loop broadcast cartridge led to significant changes in the pacing and production style of radio program content and advertising. In 1881, it was noted during experiments in transmitting sound from the Paris Opera that it was possible to follow the movement of singers on the stage if earpieces connected to different microphones were held to
1650-585: A major consumer audio format and advances in electronic and mechanical miniaturization led to the development of the Sony Walkman , a pocket-sized cassette player introduced in 1979. The Walkman was the first personal music player and it gave a major boost to sales of prerecorded cassettes. A key advance in audio fidelity came with the Dolby A noise reduction system, invented by Ray Dolby and introduced into professional recording studios in 1966. It suppressed
1760-408: A mechanical representation of the sound waves on a medium such as a phonograph record (in which a stylus cuts grooves on a record). In magnetic tape recording, the sound waves vibrate the microphone diaphragm and are converted into a varying electric current , which is then converted to a varying magnetic field by an electromagnet , which makes a representation of the sound as magnetized areas on
1870-554: A much larger proportion of people to hear famous orchestras, operas, singers and bands, because even if a person could not afford to hear the live concert, they may be able to hear the recording. The availability of sound recording thus helped to spread musical styles to new regions, countries and continents. The cultural influence went in a number of directions. Sound recordings enabled Western music lovers to hear actual recordings of Asian, Middle Eastern and African groups and performers, increasing awareness of non-Western musical styles. At
1980-407: A plastic tape with a magnetic coating on it. Analog sound reproduction is the reverse process, with a larger loudspeaker diaphragm causing changes to atmospheric pressure to form acoustic sound waves. Digital recording and reproduction converts the analog sound signal picked up by the microphone to a digital form by the process of sampling . This lets the audio data be stored and transmitted by
2090-522: A range of digital transmission applications such as the integrated services digital network (ISDN), cordless telephones and cell phones . Digital audio is used in broadcasting of audio. Standard technologies include Digital audio broadcasting (DAB), Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM), HD Radio and In-band on-channel (IBOC). Digital audio in recording applications is stored on audio-specific technologies including CD, DAT, Digital Compact Cassette (DCC) and MiniDisc . Digital audio may be stored in
2200-402: A result, each performance of a song or piece would be slightly different. With the development of analog sound recording, though, a performance could be permanently fixed, in all of its elements: pitch, rhythm, timbre, ornaments and expression. This meant that many more elements of a performance would be captured and disseminated to other listeners. The development of sound recording also enabled
2310-543: A revival of vinyl in the music industry, as well as analog electronics, and analog type plug-ins for recording and mixing software. Digital audio Digital audio is a representation of sound recorded in, or converted into, digital form . In digital audio, the sound wave of the audio signal is typically encoded as numerical samples in a continuous sequence. For example, in CD audio , samples are taken 44,100 times per second , each with 16-bit resolution . Digital audio
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#17327803046352420-521: A similar function with Hi8 tapes. Formats like ProDigi and DASH were referred to as SDAT (stationary-head digital audio tape) formats, as opposed to formats like the PCM adaptor-based systems and Digital Audio Tape (DAT), which were referred to as RDAT (rotating-head digital audio tape) formats, due to their helical-scan process of recording. Like the DAT cassette, ProDigi and DASH machines also accommodated
2530-703: A special piano, which punched holes in the master as a live performer played the song. Thus, the roll represented a recording of the actual performance of an individual, not just the more common method of punching the master roll through transcription of the sheet music. This technology to record a live performance onto a piano roll was not developed until 1904. Piano rolls were in continuous mass production from 1896 to 2008. A 1908 U.S. Supreme Court copyright case noted that, in 1902 alone, there were between 70,000 and 75,000 player pianos manufactured, and between 1,000,000 and 1,500,000 piano rolls produced. The first device that could record actual sounds as they passed through
2640-510: A specialist market during the 1950s. EMI (UK) was the first company to release commercial stereophonic tapes. They issued their first Stereosonic tape in 1954. Others quickly followed, under the His Master's Voice (HMV) and Columbia labels. 161 Stereosonic tapes were released, mostly classical music or lyric recordings. RCA imported these tapes into the USA. Although some HMV tapes released in
2750-442: A specified sampling rate and converts at a known bit resolution. CD audio , for example, has a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz (44,100 samples per second), and has 16-bit resolution for each stereo channel. Analog signals that have not already been bandlimited must be passed through an anti-aliasing filter before conversion, to prevent the aliasing distortion that is caused by audio signals with frequencies higher than
2860-464: A stereo soundtrack was Walt Disney's Fantasia , released in 1940. The 1941 release of Fantasia used the Fantasound sound system. This system used a separate film for the sound, synchronized with the film carrying the picture. The sound film had four double-width optical soundtracks, three for left, center, and right audio—and a fourth as a "control" track with three recorded tones that controlled
2970-469: A variety of materials including mild steel, thorn, and even sapphire. Discs had a distinctly limited playing life that varied depending on how they were manufactured. Earlier, purely acoustic methods of recording had limited sensitivity and frequency range. Mid-frequency range notes could be recorded, but very low and very high frequencies could not. Instruments such as the violin were difficult to transfer to disc. One technique to deal with this involved using
3080-429: A variety of techniques from remixing to pseudostereo . Magnetic tape transformed the recording industry. By the early 1950s, most commercial recordings were mastered on tape instead of recorded directly to disc. Tape facilitated a degree of manipulation in the recording process that was impractical with mixes and multiple generations of directly recorded discs. An early example is Les Paul 's 1951 recording of How High
3190-476: A wide frequency range and high audio quality are not. The development of analog sound recording in the nineteenth century and its widespread use throughout the twentieth century had a huge impact on the development of music. Before analog sound recording was invented, most music was as a live performance. Throughout the medieval , Renaissance , Baroque , Classical , and through much of the Romantic music era ,
3300-441: A wider variety of media. Digital recording stores audio as a series of binary numbers (zeros and ones) representing samples of the amplitude of the audio signal at equal time intervals, at a sample rate high enough to convey all sounds capable of being heard . A digital audio signal must be reconverted to analog form during playback before it is amplified and connected to a loudspeaker to produce sound. Long before sound
3410-550: A worldwide standard for higher-quality recording on vinyl records. The Ernest Ansermet recording of Igor Stravinsky 's Petrushka was key in the development of full frequency range records and alerting the listening public to high fidelity in 1946. Until the mid-1960s, record companies mixed and released most popular music in monophonic sound. From mid-1960s until the early 1970s, major recordings were commonly released in both mono and stereo. Recordings originally released only in mono have been rerendered and released in stereo using
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3520-454: Is also the name for the entire technology of sound recording and reproduction using audio signals that have been encoded in digital form. Following significant advances in digital audio technology during the 1970s and 1980s, it gradually replaced analog audio technology in many areas of audio engineering , record production and telecommunications in the 1990s and 2000s. In a digital audio system, an analog electrical signal representing
3630-417: Is likely to be present. An optically recorded timecode is also commonly included to synchronize CDROMs that contain a DTS soundtrack. This period also saw several other historic developments including the introduction of the first practical magnetic sound recording system, the magnetic wire recorder , which was based on the work of Danish inventor Valdemar Poulsen . Magnetic wire recorders were effective, but
3740-442: Is the electrical , mechanical , electronic, or digital inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music , or sound effects . The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording . Acoustic analog recording is achieved by a microphone diaphragm that senses changes in atmospheric pressure caused by acoustic sound waves and records them as
3850-469: Is then modulated by a pseudo-noise (PN) sequence, then shaped within the frequency domain and put back in the original signal. The strength of the embedding determines the strength of the watermark on the audio data. Pulse-code modulation (PCM) was invented by British scientist Alec Reeves in 1937. In 1950, C. Chapin Cutler of Bell Labs filed the patent on differential pulse-code modulation (DPCM),
3960-577: Is then sent through an audio power amplifier and ultimately to a loudspeaker . Digital audio systems may include compression , storage , processing , and transmission components. Conversion to a digital format allows convenient manipulation, storage, transmission, and retrieval of an audio signal. Unlike analog audio, in which making copies of a recording results in generation loss and degradation of signal quality, digital audio allows an infinite number of copies to be made without any degradation of signal quality. Digital audio technologies are used in
4070-504: The Newport Folk Festival in 1963. Vanguard released several further singles , the most successful being "Tom Cat" (No. 20, May 1963). Yielding to pressure from her husband, Taylor left the trio shortly after Vanguard released the group's second album, Good Time! , and Darling and Svanoe recruited Mindy Stuart to replace her. That line-up recorded one final album, Rainy River . Patricia Street replaced Stuart shortly before
4180-552: The Nyquist frequency (half the sampling rate). A digital audio signal may be stored or transmitted. Digital audio can be stored on a CD, a digital audio player , a hard drive , a USB flash drive , or any other digital data storage device . The digital signal may be altered through digital signal processing , where it may be filtered or have effects applied. Sample-rate conversion including upsampling and downsampling may be used to change signals that have been encoded with
4290-580: The UK Singles Chart , peaking at No. 10. The record sold over one million copies, gaining gold disc status. The album that contained the song was also called Walk Right In . The group was more influenced by ragtime , blues , and songster material than contemporaneous folk groups such as The Weavers , to which Darling belonged until just before he formed the Rooftop Singers. They were also less overtly political. The group played at
4400-720: The United States was made by Thomas Stockham at the Santa Fe Opera in 1976, on a Soundstream recorder. An improved version of the Soundstream system was used to produce several classical recordings by Telarc in 1978. The 3M digital multitrack recorder in development at the time was based on BBC technology. The first all-digital album recorded on this machine was Ry Cooder 's Bop till You Drop in 1979. British record label Decca began development of its own 2-track digital audio recorders in 1978 and released
4510-536: The compact disc (CD) in 1982 brought significant improvements in the quality and durability of recordings. The CD initiated another massive wave of change in the consumer music industry, with vinyl records effectively relegated to a small niche market by the mid-1990s. The record industry fiercely resisted the introduction of digital systems, fearing wholesale piracy on a medium able to produce perfect copies of original released recordings. The most recent and revolutionary developments have been in digital recording, with
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4620-452: The graphic equalizer , which could be connected together to create a complete home sound system. These developments were rapidly taken up by major Japanese electronics companies, which soon flooded the world market with relatively affordable, high-quality transistorized audio components. By the 1980s, corporations like Sony had become world leaders in the music recording and playback industry. The advent of digital sound recording and later
4730-464: The 14th century, a mechanical bell-ringer controlled by a rotating cylinder was introduced in Flanders . Similar designs appeared in barrel organs (15th century), musical clocks (1598), barrel pianos (1805), and music boxes ( c. 1800 ). A music box is an automatic musical instrument that produces sounds by the use of a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder or disc so as to pluck
4840-406: The 1920s, Phonofilm and other early motion picture sound systems employed optical recording technology, in which the audio signal was graphically recorded on photographic film. The amplitude variations comprising the signal were used to modulate a light source which was imaged onto the moving film through a narrow slit, allowing the signal to be photographed as variations in the density or width of
4950-434: The 1970s, Bishnu S. Atal and Manfred R. Schroeder at Bell Labs developed a form of LPC called adaptive predictive coding (APC), a perceptual coding algorithm that exploited the masking properties of the human ear, followed in the early 1980s with the code-excited linear prediction (CELP) algorithm. Discrete cosine transform (DCT) coding, a lossy compression method first proposed by Nasir Ahmed in 1972, provided
5060-549: The 1980s, but in the 1960s the pre-recorded 8-track tape was launched as a consumer audio format by the Lear Jet aircraft company. Aimed particularly at the automotive market, they were the first practical, affordable car hi-fi systems, and could produce sound quality superior to that of the compact cassette. The smaller size and greater durability – augmented by the ability to create home-recorded music mixtapes since 8-track recorders were rare – saw
5170-483: The Moon , on which Paul played eight overdubbed guitar tracks. In the 1960s Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys , Frank Zappa , and The Beatles (with producer George Martin ) were among the first popular artists to explore the possibilities of multitrack recording techniques and effects on their landmark albums Pet Sounds , Freak Out! , and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band . The next important innovation
5280-526: The Rooftop Singers formally disbanded in 1967. Darling and Street continued working as a duo into the early 1970s, recording the album The Possible Dream for Vanguard. Lynne Taylor, who was married to radio DJ Skip Weshner , died by suicide on 21 April 1979, aged 43. Erik Darling died on August 3, 2008, aged 74, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, from Burkitt's lymphoma . Sound recording and reproduction Sound recording and reproduction
5390-597: The USA cost up to $ 15, two-track stereophonic tapes were more successful in America during the second half of the 1950s. The history of stereo recording changed after the late 1957 introduction of the Westrex stereo phonograph disc , which used the groove format developed earlier by Blumlein. Decca Records in England came out with FFRR (Full Frequency Range Recording) in the 1940s, which became internationally accepted as
5500-500: The additional benefit of being marginally louder than cylinders. Sales of the gramophone record overtook the cylinder ca. 1910, and by the end of World War I the disc had become the dominant commercial recording format. Edison, who was the main producer of cylinders, created the Edison Disc Record in an attempt to regain his market. The double-sided (nominally 78 rpm) shellac disc was the standard consumer music format from
5610-407: The air (but could not play them back—the purpose was only visual study) was the phonautograph , patented in 1857 by Parisian inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville . The earliest known recordings of the human voice are phonautograph recordings, called phonautograms , made in 1857. They consist of sheets of paper with sound-wave-modulated white lines created by a vibrating stylus that cut through
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#17327803046355720-494: The amount of data that can be stored on a single medium, such as Super Audio CD , DVD-A , Blu-ray Disc , and HD DVD became available, longer programs of higher quality fit onto a single disc. Sound files are readily downloaded from the Internet and other sources, and copied onto computers and digital audio players. Digital audio technology is now used in all areas of audio, from casual use of music files of moderate quality to
5830-490: The audio data being recorded to the tape using a multi-track stationary tape head. PCM adaptors allowed for stereo digital audio recording on a conventional NTSC or PAL video tape recorder . The 1982 introduction of the CD by Philips and Sony popularized digital audio with consumers. ADAT became available in the early 1990s, which allowed eight-track 44.1 or 48 kHz recording on S-VHS cassettes, and DTRS performed
5940-417: The background of hiss, which was the only easily audible downside of mastering on tape instead of recording directly to disc. A competing system, dbx , invented by David Blackmer, also found success in professional audio. A simpler variant of Dolby's noise reduction system, known as Dolby B, greatly improved the sound of cassette tape recordings by reducing the especially high level of hiss that resulted from
6050-466: The basis for the modified discrete cosine transform (MDCT), which was developed by J. P. Princen, A. W. Johnson and A. B. Bradley in 1987. The MDCT is the basis for most audio coding standards , such as Dolby Digital (AC-3), MP3 ( MPEG Layer III), AAC, Windows Media Audio (WMA), Opus and Vorbis ( Ogg ). PCM was used in telecommunications applications long before its first use in commercial broadcast and recording. Commercial digital recording
6160-555: The basis of all electronic sound systems until the commercial introduction of the first transistor -based audio devices in the mid-1950s. During World War I, engineers in the United States and Great Britain worked on ways to record and reproduce, among other things, the sound of a German U-boat for training purposes. Acoustical recording methods of the time could not reproduce the sounds accurately. The earliest results were not promising. The first electrical recording issued to
6270-454: The cassette become the dominant consumer format for portable audio devices in the 1970s and 1980s. There had been experiments with multi-channel sound for many years – usually for special musical or cultural events – but the first commercial application of the concept came in the early 1970s with the introduction of Quadraphonic sound. This spin-off development from multitrack recording used four tracks (instead of
6380-407: The cassette's miniaturized tape format. The compact cassette format also benefited from improvements to the tape itself as coatings with wider frequency responses and lower inherent noise were developed, often based on cobalt and chrome oxides as the magnetic material instead of the more usual iron oxide. The multitrack audio cartridge had been in wide use in the radio industry, from the late 1950s to
6490-447: The commercial recording, distribution, and sale of sound recordings became a growing new international industry, with the most popular titles selling millions of units by the early 1900s. A process for mass-producing duplicate wax cylinders by molding instead of engraving them was put into effect in 1901. The development of mass-production techniques enabled cylinder recordings to become a major new consumer item in industrial countries and
6600-482: The computer can effectively run at a single time. Avid Audio and Steinberg released the first digital audio workstation software programs in 1989. Digital audio workstations make multitrack recording and mixing much easier for large projects which would otherwise be difficult with analog equipment. The rapid development and wide adoption of PCM digital telephony was enabled by metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) switched capacitor (SC) circuit technology, developed in
6710-505: The controversy came to focus on concern for the perception of moving image and sound. There are individual and cultural preferences for either method. While approaches and opinions vary, some emphasize sound as paramount, others focus on technology preferences as the deciding factor. Analog fans might embrace limitations as strengths of the medium inherent in the compositional, editing, mixing, and listening phases. Digital advocates boast flexibility in similar processes. This debate fosters
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#17327803046356820-456: The correct equipment, of the released music. It eventually faded out in the late 1970s, although this early venture paved the way for the eventual introduction of domestic surround sound systems in home theatre use, which gained popularity following the introduction of the DVD. The replacement of the relatively fragile vacuum tube by the smaller, rugged and efficient transistor also accelerated
6930-538: The cumbersome disc-to-disc editing procedures previously in some limited use, together with tape's consistently high audio quality finally convinced radio networks to routinely prerecord their entertainment programming, most of which had formerly been broadcast live. Also, for the first time, broadcasters, regulators and other interested parties were able to undertake comprehensive audio logging of each day's radio broadcasts. Innovations like multitracking and tape echo allowed radio programs and advertisements to be produced to
7040-407: The cylinder was the main consumer format from the late 1880s until around 1910. The next major technical development was the invention of the gramophone record , generally credited to Emile Berliner and patented in 1887, though others had demonstrated similar disk apparatus earlier, most notably Alexander Graham Bell in 1881. Discs were easier to manufacture, transport and store, and they had
7150-572: The development of the phonograph. Edison was working on a machine in 1877 that would transcribe telegraphic signals onto paper tape, which could then be transferred over the telegraph again and again. The phonograph was both in a cylinder and a disc form. On April 30, 1877, French poet, humorous writer and inventor Charles Cros submitted a sealed envelope containing a letter to the Academy of Sciences in Paris fully explaining his proposed method, called
7260-490: The development of various uncompressed and compressed digital audio file formats , processors capable and fast enough to convert the digital data to sound in real time , and inexpensive mass storage . This generated new types of portable digital audio players . The minidisc player, using ATRAC compression on small, re-writeable discs was introduced in the 1990s, but became obsolescent as solid-state non-volatile flash memory dropped in price. As technologies that increase
7370-444: The early 1910s to the late 1950s. In various permutations, the audio disc format became the primary medium for consumer sound recordings until the end of the 20th century. Although there was no universally accepted speed, and various companies offered discs that played at several different speeds, the major recording companies eventually settled on a de facto industry standard of nominally 78 revolutions per minute. The specified speed
7480-570: The early 1970s. This led to the development of PCM codec-filter chips in the late 1970s. The silicon-gate CMOS (complementary MOS) PCM codec-filter chip, developed by David A. Hodges and W.C. Black in 1980, has since been the industry standard for digital telephony. By the 1990s, telecommunication networks such as the public switched telephone network (PSTN) had been largely digitized with VLSI (very large-scale integration ) CMOS PCM codec-filters, widely used in electronic switching systems for telephone exchanges , user-end modems and
7590-409: The electrical audio signal is amplified and then converted back into physical waveforms via a loudspeaker . Analog audio retains its fundamental wave-like characteristics throughout its storage, transformation, duplication, and amplification. Analog audio signals are susceptible to noise and distortion, due to the innate characteristics of electronic circuits and associated devices. Disturbances in
7700-399: The first European digital recording in 1979. Popular professional digital multitrack recorders produced by Sony/Studer ( DASH ) and Mitsubishi ( ProDigi ) in the early 1980s helped to bring about digital recording's acceptance by the major record companies. Machines for these formats had their own transports built-in as well, using reel-to-reel tape in either 1/4", 1/2", or 1" widths, with
7810-402: The high recording speeds required, they used enormous reels about one meter in diameter, and the thin tape frequently broke, sending jagged lengths of razor steel flying around the studio. Magnetic tape recording uses an amplified electrical audio signal to generate analogous variations of the magnetic field produced by a tape head , which impresses corresponding variations of magnetization on
7920-540: The main way that songs and instrumental pieces were recorded was through music notation . While notation indicates the pitches of the melody and their rhythm many aspects of the performance are undocumented. Indeed, in the Medieval era, Gregorian chant did not indicate the rhythm of the chant. In the Baroque era, instrumental pieces often lack a tempo indication and usually none of the ornaments were written down. As
8030-399: The most common form of music consumption. An analog audio system converts physical waveforms of sound into electrical representations of those waveforms by use of a transducer , such as a microphone . The sounds are then stored on an analog medium such as magnetic tape , or transmitted through an analog medium such as a telephone line or radio . The process is reversed for reproduction:
8140-651: The most demanding professional applications. New applications such as internet radio and podcasting have appeared. Technological developments in recording, editing, and consuming have transformed the record , movie and television industries in recent decades. Audio editing became practicable with the invention of magnetic tape recording , but technologies like MIDI , sound synthesis and digital audio workstations allow greater control and efficiency for composers and artists. Digital audio techniques and mass storage have reduced recording costs such that high-quality recordings can be produced in small studios. Today,
8250-402: The moving tape. In playback mode, the signal path is reversed, the tape head acting as a miniature electric generator as the varyingly magnetized tape passes over it. The original solid steel ribbon was replaced by a much more practical coated paper tape, but acetate soon replaced paper as the standard tape base. Acetate has fairly low tensile strength and if very thin it will snap easily, so it
8360-415: The music industry distributed and sold music by selling physical copies in the form of records and cassette tapes . With digital audio and online distribution systems such as iTunes , companies sell digital sound files to consumers, which the consumer receives over the Internet. Popular streaming services such as Apple Music , Spotify , or YouTube , offer temporary access to the digital file, and are now
8470-599: The next few years, the lesser record companies licensed or developed other electrical recording systems. By 1929 only the budget label Harmony was still issuing new recordings made by the old acoustical process. Comparison of some surviving Western Electric test recordings with early commercial releases indicates that the record companies artificially reduced the frequency range of recordings so they would not overwhelm non-electronic playback equipment, which reproduced very low frequencies as an unpleasant rattle and rapidly wore out discs with strongly recorded high frequencies. In
8580-488: The next two years, Blumlein developed stereo microphones and a stereo disc-cutting head, and recorded a number of short films with stereo soundtracks. In the 1930s, experiments with magnetic tape enabled the development of the first practical commercial sound systems that could record and reproduce high-fidelity stereophonic sound . The experiments with stereo during the 1930s and 1940s were hampered by problems with synchronization. A major breakthrough in practical stereo sound
8690-578: The obligatory 44.1 kHz sampling rate, but also 48 kHz on all machines, and eventually a 96 kHz sampling rate. They overcame the problems that made typical analog recorders unable to meet the bandwidth (frequency range) demands of digital recording by a combination of higher tape speeds, narrower head gaps used in combination with metal-formulation tapes, and the spreading of data across multiple parallel tracks. Unlike analog systems, modern digital audio workstations and audio interfaces allow as many channels in as many different sampling rates as
8800-405: The only issued electrical recording. Several record companies and independent inventors, notably Orlando Marsh , experimented with equipment and techniques for electrical recording in the early 1920s. Marsh's electrically recorded Autograph Records were already being sold to the public in 1924, a year before the first such offerings from the major record companies, but their overall sound quality
8910-416: The paleophone. Though no trace of a working paleophone was ever found, Cros is remembered by some historians as an early inventor of a sound recording and reproduction machine. The first practical sound recording and reproduction device was the mechanical phonograph cylinder , invented by Thomas Edison in 1877 and patented in 1878. The invention soon spread across the globe and over the next two decades
9020-665: The playback volume of the three audio channels. Because of the complex equipment this system required, Disney exhibited the movie as a roadshow, and only in the United States. Regular releases of the movie used standard mono optical 35 mm stock until 1956, when Disney released the film with a stereo soundtrack that used the Cinemascope four-track magnetic sound system. German audio engineers working on magnetic tape developed stereo recording by 1941. Of 250 stereophonic recordings made during WW2, only three survive: Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto with Walter Gieseking and Arthur Rother,
9130-808: The process of making a recording is separated into tracking, mixing and mastering . Multitrack recording makes it possible to capture signals from several microphones, or from different takes to tape, disc or mass storage allowing previously unavailable flexibility in the mixing and mastering stages. There are many different digital audio recording and processing programs running under several computer operating systems for all purposes, ranging from casual users and serious amateurs working on small projects to professional sound engineers who are recording albums, film scores and doing sound design for video games . Digital dictation software for recording and transcribing speech has different requirements; intelligibility and flexible playback facilities are priorities, while
9240-549: The public, with little fanfare, was of November 11, 1920, funeral service for The Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey , London. The recording engineers used microphones of the type used in contemporary telephones. Four were discreetly set up in the abbey and wired to recording equipment in a vehicle outside. Although electronic amplification was used, the audio was weak and unclear, as only possible in those circumstances. For several years, this little-noted disc remained
9350-590: The recording industry. Tape made possible the first sound recordings totally created by electronic means, opening the way for the bold sonic experiments of the Musique Concrète school and avant-garde composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen , which in turn led to the innovative pop music recordings of artists such as the Beatles and the Beach Boys . The ease and accuracy of tape editing, as compared to
9460-540: The recording process. These included improved microphones and auxiliary devices such as electronic filters, all dependent on electronic amplification to be of practical use in recording. In 1906, Lee De Forest invented the Audion triode vacuum tube, an electronic valve that could amplify weak electrical signals. By 1915, it was in use in long-distance telephone circuits that made conversations between New York and San Francisco practical. Refined versions of this tube were
9570-453: The recording, manipulation, mass-production, and distribution of sound, including recordings of songs , instrumental pieces, podcasts , sound effects, and other sounds. Modern online music distribution depends on digital recording and data compression . The availability of music as data files, rather than as physical objects, has significantly reduced the costs of distribution as well as making it easier to share copies. Before digital audio,
9680-646: The rights to the Blattnerphone, and newly developed Marconi-Stille recorders were installed in the BBC's Maida Vale Studios in March 1935. The tape used in Blattnerphones and Marconi-Stille recorders was the same material used to make razor blades, and not surprisingly the fearsome Marconi-Stille recorders were considered so dangerous that technicians had to operate them from another room for safety. Because of
9790-466: The sale of consumer high-fidelity sound systems from the 1960s onward. In the 1950s, most record players were monophonic and had relatively low sound quality. Few consumers could afford high-quality stereophonic sound systems. In the 1960s, American manufacturers introduced a new generation of modular hi-fi components — separate turntables, pre-amplifiers, amplifiers, both combined as integrated amplifiers, tape recorders, and other ancillary equipment like
9900-505: The same tape many times, sounds could be duplicated from tape to tape with only minor loss of quality, and recordings could now be very precisely edited by physically cutting the tape and rejoining it. Within a few years of the introduction of the first commercial tape recorder—the Ampex 200 model, launched in 1948—American musician-inventor Les Paul had invented the first multitrack tape recorder , ushering in another technical revolution in
10010-514: The same time, sound recordings enabled music lovers outside the West to hear the most famous North American and European groups and singers. As digital recording developed, so did a controversy commonly known as the analog versus digital controversy. Audio professionals, audiophiles, consumers, musicians alike contributed to the debate based on their interaction with the media and the preferences for analog or digital processes. Scholarly discourse on
10120-420: The sound is converted with an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) into a digital signal, typically using pulse-code modulation (PCM). This digital signal can then be recorded, edited, modified, and copied using computers , audio playback machines, and other digital tools. For playback, a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) performs the reverse process, converting a digital signal back into an analog signal, which
10230-566: The sound quality was poor, so between the wars, they were primarily used for voice recording and marketed as business dictating machines. In 1924, a German engineer, Kurt Stille, improved the Telegraphone with an electronic amplifier. The following year, Ludwig Blattner began work that eventually produced the Blattnerphone, which used steel tape instead of wire. The BBC started using Blattnerphones in 1930 to record radio programs. In 1933, radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi 's company purchased
10340-400: The storage or transmission of the signal. This technique, known as channel coding , is essential for broadcast or recorded digital systems to maintain bit accuracy. Eight-to-fourteen modulation is the channel code used for the audio compact disc (CD). If an audio signal is analog, a digital audio system starts with an ADC that converts an analog signal to a digital signal. The ADC runs at
10450-479: The system and both made their earliest published electrical recordings in February 1925, but neither actually released them until several months later. To avoid making their existing catalogs instantly obsolete, the two long-time archrivals agreed privately not to publicize the new process until November 1925, by which time enough electrically recorded repertory would be available to meet the anticipated demand. During
10560-411: The tuned teeth (or lamellae ) of a steel comb. The fairground organ , developed in 1892, used a system of accordion-folded punched cardboard books. The player piano , first demonstrated in 1876, used a punched paper scroll that could store a long piece of music. The most sophisticated of the piano rolls were "hand-played," meaning that they were duplicates from a master roll which had been created on
10670-495: The two ears. This discovery was commercialized in 1890 with the Théâtrophone system, which operated for over forty years until 1932. In 1931, Alan Blumlein , a British electronics engineer working for EMI , designed a way to make the sound of an actor in a film follow his movement across the screen. In December 1931, he submitted a patent application including the idea, and in 1933 this became UK patent number 394,325 . Over
10780-615: The two used in stereo) and four speakers to create a 360-degree audio field around the listener. Following the release of the first consumer 4-channel hi-fi systems, a number of popular albums were released in one of the competing four-channel formats; among the best known are Mike Oldfield 's Tubular Bells and Pink Floyd 's The Dark Side of the Moon . Quadraphonic sound was not a commercial success, partly because of competing and somewhat incompatible four-channel sound systems (e.g., CBS , JVC , Dynaco and others all had systems) and generally poor quality, even when played as intended on
10890-566: The use of mechanical analogs of electrical circuits and developed a superior "rubber line" recorder for cutting the groove into the wax master in the disc recording system. By 1924, such dramatic progress had been made that Western Electric arranged a demonstration for the two leading record companies, the Victor Talking Machine Company and the Columbia Phonograph Company . Both soon licensed
11000-549: Was 78.26 rpm in America and 77.92 rpm throughout the rest of the world. The difference in speeds was due to the difference in the cycle frequencies of the AC electricity that powered the stroboscopes used to calibrate recording lathes and turntables. The nominal speed of the disc format gave rise to its common nickname, the "seventy-eight" (though not until other speeds had become available). Discs were made of shellac or similar brittle plastic-like materials, played with needles made from
11110-781: Was No. 1 for two weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in early 1963. It spent five weeks atop the Easy Listening chart , which later became known as the Adult Contemporary chart. In addition, "Walk Right In" reached both the R&;B chart (peaking at No. 4) as well as the country music chart (peaking at No. 23). The song reached No. 1 in Australia , according to the Kent Music Report , and it made
11220-414: Was acceptable. The compact 45 format required very little material. Vinyl offered improved performance, both in stamping and in playback. Vinyl records were, over-optimistically, advertised as "unbreakable". They were not, but they were much less fragile than shellac, which had itself once been touted as "unbreakable" compared to wax cylinders. Sound recording began as a purely mechanical process. Except for
11330-450: Was first recorded, music was recorded—first by written music notation , then also by mechanical devices (e.g., wind-up music boxes , in which a mechanism turns a spindle, which plucks metal tines, thus reproducing a melody ). Automatic music reproduction traces back as far as the 9th century, when the Banū Mūsā brothers invented the earliest known mechanical musical instrument, in this case,
11440-507: Was further improved just after World War II by American audio engineer John T. Mullin with backing from Bing Crosby Enterprises. Mullin's pioneering recorders were modifications of captured German recorders. In the late 1940s, the Ampex company produced the first tape recorders commercially available in the US. Magnetic tape brought about sweeping changes in both radio and the recording industry. Sound could be recorded, erased and re-recorded on
11550-530: Was in turn eventually superseded by polyester. This technology, the basis for almost all commercial recording from the 1950s to the 1980s, was developed in the 1930s by German audio engineers who also rediscovered the principle of AC biasing (first used in the 1920s for wire recorders ), which dramatically improved the frequency response of tape recordings. The K1 Magnetophon was the first practical tape recorder, developed by AEG in Germany in 1935. The technology
11660-411: Was introduced by RCA Victor in 1949. In the US and most developed countries, the two new vinyl formats completely replaced 78 rpm shellac discs by the end of the 1950s, but in some corners of the world, the 78 lingered on far into the 1960s. Vinyl was much more expensive than shellac, one of the several factors that made its use for 78 rpm records very unusual, but with a long-playing disc the added cost
11770-448: Was made by Bell Laboratories , who in 1937 demonstrated a practical system of two-channel stereo, using dual optical sound tracks on film. Major movie studios quickly developed three-track and four-track sound systems, and the first stereo sound recording for a commercial film was made by Judy Garland for the MGM movie Listen, Darling in 1938. The first commercially released movie with
11880-499: Was pioneered in Japan by NHK and Nippon Columbia and their Denon brand, in the 1960s. The first commercial digital recordings were released in 1971. The BBC also began to experiment with digital audio in the 1960s. By the early 1970s, it had developed a 2-channel recorder, and in 1972 it deployed a digital audio transmission system that linked their broadcast center to their remote transmitters. The first 16-bit PCM recording in
11990-479: Was small cartridge-based tape systems, of which the compact cassette , commercialized by the Philips electronics company in 1964, is the best known. Initially a low-fidelity format for spoken-word voice recording and inadequate for music reproduction, after a series of improvements it entirely replaced the competing consumer tape formats: the larger 8-track tape (used primarily in cars). The compact cassette became
12100-410: Was too low to demonstrate any obvious advantage over traditional acoustical methods. Marsh's microphone technique was idiosyncratic and his work had little if any impact on the systems being developed by others. Telephone industry giant Western Electric had research laboratories with material and human resources that no record company or independent inventor could match. They had the best microphone,
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