155-541: The Washington Area Music Association (WAMA) is a regional music industry not-for-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. WAMA's activity centers on highlighting the area's cultural contribution by assisting regional musicians with becoming recognized on a national scale. The organization offers its members a variety of professional development services, including seminars, directories for networking , assistance with obtaining barcodes for recordings, and
310-398: 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
465-420: A disruptive technology to the commercial interests which published sheet music. During the sheet music era, if a regular person wanted to hear popular new songs, he or she would buy the sheet music and play it at home on a piano, or learn the song at home while playing the accompaniment part on piano or guitar. Commercially released phonograph records of musical performances, which became available starting in
620-512: 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
775-487: A road crew : a semi-permanent touring organization that travels with the artist during concert series. The road crew is headed by a tour manager . Crew members provides stage lighting , live sound reinforcement , musical instrument maintenance and transportation . On large tours, the road crew may also include an accountant, stage manager, bodyguard, hairdressers, makeup artists and catering staff. Local crews are typically hired to help move equipment on and off stage. On
930-685: 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
1085-469: 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
1240-422: A biography of Mozart. In the 19th century, sheet-music publishers dominated the music industry. Before the invention of sound recording technologies, the main way for music lovers to hear new symphonies and opera arias (songs) was to buy the sheet music (often arranged for piano or for a small chamber music group) and perform the music in a living room, using friends who were amateur musicians and singers. In
1395-415: A certain market niche. Only the industry's most popular artists are signed directly to the major label. These companies account for more than half of US market share. However, this has fallen somewhat in recent years, as the new digital environment allows smaller labels to compete more effectively. Total album sales have declined in the early decades of the 21st century, leading some music critics to declare
1550-407: 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
1705-419: A composer's music might only be known in the city she lived in and its surrounding towns, because only wealthy aristocrats would be able to afford to have hand copies made of her music. With music printing, though, a composer's music could be printed and sold at a relatively low cost to purchasers from a wide geographic area. As sheet music of major composer's pieces and songs began to be printed and distributed in
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#17327718626521860-485: 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
2015-464: A daily or hourly rate) in a recording session . In the 21st century, advances in digital recording technology have allowed many producers and artists to create " home studios " using high-end computers and digital recording programs like Pro Tools , bypassing the traditional role of the commercial recording studio. The record producer oversees all aspects of the recording, making many of the logistic, financial and artistic decisions in cooperation with
2170-402: 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
2325-514: A fixed price per song or album, Spotify pays artists based on their "market share" (the number of streams for their songs as a proportion of total songs streamed on the service). Spotify distributes approximately 70% to rights-holders, who will then pay artists based on their agreements. The variable, and (some say) inadequate nature of this compensation, has led to criticism. Spotify reports paying on average US$ 0.006 to US$ 0.008 per stream. In response to concerns, Spotify claims that they are benefiting
2480-509: 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
2635-545: A label continues to be a popular choice for up-and-coming musicians, especially in genres like hardcore punk and extreme metal , even though indies cannot offer the same financial backing of major labels. Some bands prefer to sign with an indie label, because these labels typically give performers more artistic freedom. In the first decade of the 2000s, digitally downloaded and streamed music became more popular than buying physical recordings (e.g. CDs , records and tapes ). This gave consumers almost "friction-less" access to
2790-523: A laptop in a bedroom and to distribute it over the Internet to a worldwide audience. This, in turn, has caused problems for recording studios, record producers and audio engineers : the Los Angeles Times reports that as many as half of the recording facilities in that city have failed. Changes in the music industry have given consumers access to a wider variety of music than ever before, at
2945-548: A large amount of data is processed. Access to big data may increase transparency in the industry. Music publishing using machine-printed sheet music developed during the Renaissance music era in the mid-15th century. The development of music publication followed the evolution of printing technologies that were first developed for printing regular books . After the mid-15th century, mechanical techniques for printing sheet music were first developed. The earliest example,
3100-585: 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
3255-743: A master roll which had been created on 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
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#17327718626523410-554: 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
3565-412: A nationwide and sometimes even a worldwide scale. Moreover, whereas attendance at the top symphony and opera concerts was formerly restricted to high-income people in a pre-radio world, with broadcast radio , a much larger wider range of people, including lower and middle-income people could hear the best orchestras , big bands , popular singers and opera shows. The "record industry" eventually replaced
3720-476: A percentage of the artist's income. An entertainment lawyer assists them with the details of their contracts with record companies and other deals. A business manager handles financial transactions, taxes, and bookkeeping. Unions, such as AFTRA and the American Federation of Musicians in the U.S. provide health insurance and instrument insurance for musicians. A successful artist functions in
3875-545: A performing artist and a venue owner and arranges contracts. A booking agency represents the artist to promoters, makes deals and books performances. Consumers usually buy tickets either from the venue or from a ticket distribution service such as Ticketmaster . In the US, Live Nation is the dominant company in all of these roles: they own most of the large venues in the US, they are the largest promoter, and they own Ticketmaster . Choices about where and when to tour are decided by
4030-504: A price that gradually approaches zero. However, consumer spending on music-related software and hardware increased dramatically over the last decade, providing a valuable new income-stream for technology companies such as Apple Inc. and Pandora Radio . According to IFPI, the global digital album sales grew by 6.9% in 2014. Source: Nielsen SoundScan, Official Charts Company/BPI, GfK and IFPI estimate. World music market sales shares, according to IFPI (2005) Prior to December 1998,
4185-588: A printer and publisher who was able to secure a twenty-year monopoly on printed music in Venice during the 16th century. Venice was one of the major business and music centers during this period. His Harmonice Musices Odhecaton , a collection of chansons printed in 1501, is commonly misidentified as the first book of sheet music printed from movable type. That distinction belongs to the Roman printer Ulrich Han's Missale Romanum of 1476. Nevertheless, Petrucci's later work
4340-433: A record company. In the 2000s, consumer electronics and computer companies such as Apple Computer have become digital music retailers . New digital music distribution technologies and the trends towards using sampling of older songs in new songs or blending different songs to create "mashup" recordings have also forced both governments and the music industry to re-examine the definitions of intellectual property and
4495-484: A report in 2012, noting that these labels controlled 88.5% of the market, and further noted: Note: the IFPI and Nielsen Soundscan use different methodologies, which makes their figures difficult to compare casually, and impossible to compare scientifically. Market shares as of September 2018 are as follows: The largest players in this industry own more than 100 subsidiary record labels or sublabels, each specializing in
4650-402: 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
4805-556: A set of liturgical chants, dates from about 1465, shortly after the Gutenberg Bible was printed. Prior to this time, music had to be copied out by hand. To copy music notation by hand was a very costly, labor-intensive, and time-consuming process, so it was usually undertaken only by monks and priests seeking to preserve sacred music for the church. The few collections of secular (non-religious) music that are extant were commissioned and owned by wealthy aristocrats. Examples include
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4960-632: A single composition and a single recording will typically be distributed via many media. For example, the song " My Way " is owned by its composers, Paul Anka and Claude François , Frank Sinatra 's recording of "My Way" is owned by Capitol Records , Sid Vicious 's recording of "My Way" is owned by Virgin Records , and the millions of CDs and vinyl records that can play these recordings are owned by millions of individual consumers. Songs , instrumental pieces and other musical compositions are created by songwriters or composers and are originally owned by
5115-481: A small tour with less financial backing, all of these jobs may be handled by just a few roadies or by the musicians themselves. Bands signed with small "indie" labels and bands in genres such as hardcore punk are more likely to do tours without a road crew, or with minimal support. Artists such as singers and musicians may hire several people from other fields to assist them with their career. The artist manager oversees all aspects of an artist's career in exchange for
5270-510: 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
5425-464: 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
5580-469: 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
5735-429: 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
5890-476: 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 ,
6045-582: A wider area, this enabled composers and listeners to hear new styles and forms of music. A German composer could buy songs written by an Italian or English composer, and an Italian composer could buy pieces written by Dutch composers and learn how they wrote music. This led to more blending of musical styles from different countries and regions. The pioneer of modern music printing was Ottaviano Petrucci (born in Fossombrone in 1466 – died in 1539 in Venice),
6200-590: A wider variety of music than ever before, across multiple devices. At the same time, consumers spent less money on recorded music (both physically and digitally distributed) than they had in the 1990s. Total "music-business" revenues in the U.S. dropped by half, from a high of $ 14.6 billion in 1999 to $ 6.3 billion in 2009, according to Forrester Research . Worldwide revenues for CDs, vinyl , cassettes and digital downloads fell from $ 36.9 billion in 2000 to $ 15.9 billion in 2010 according to IFPI. The Economist and The New York Times reported that
6355-550: 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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6510-474: Is amplified and connected to a loudspeaker to produce sound. Long before sound 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
6665-411: Is achieved by a microphone diaphragm that senses changes in atmospheric pressure caused by acoustic sound waves and records them as 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
6820-573: Is less clear-cut. Some date it to the start of the Great Depression in the 1930s when the phonograph and radio supplanted sheet music as the driving force of American popular music, while others consider Tin Pan Alley to have continued into the 1950s when earlier styles of American popular music were upstaged by the rise of rock & roll . At the dawn of the early 20th century, the development of sound recording began to function as
6975-417: 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
7130-564: Is paid to songwriters, composers and recording artists. This royalty is typically much smaller than publishing or mechanical royalties . Within the past decade, more than "15 to 30 percent" of tracks on streaming services are unidentified with a specific artist. Jeff Price says "Audiam, an online music streaming service, has made over several hundred thousand dollars in the past year from collecting royalties from online streaming. According to Ken Levitan, manager from Kings of Leon, Cheap Trick and others, "Youtube has become radio for kids". Because of
7285-504: Is signed. A publishing company will also promote the compositions, such as by acquiring song "placements" on television or in films . Recordings are created by recording artists , which includes singers , musicians (including session musicians ) and musical ensembles (e.g. backing bands , rhythm sections , orchestras , etc.) usually with the assistance and guidance from record producers and audio engineers . They were traditionally made in recording studios (which are rented for
7440-636: Is the largest owner of radio stations in the United States . In the first decades of the 2000s, the music industry underwent drastic changes with the advent of widespread digital distribution of music via the Internet (which includes both illegal file sharing of songs and legal music purchases in online music stores ). A conspicuous indicator of these changes is total music sales: since 2000, sales of recorded music have dropped off substantially while live music has increased in importance. In 2011,
7595-422: Is then converted to a varying magnetic field by an electromagnet , which makes a representation of the sound as magnetized areas on 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
7750-568: The Chladni patterns produced by sound in stone representations, although this theory has not been conclusively proved. In 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
7905-427: The Renaissance music era. His printing shop used the triple-impression method, in which a sheet of paper was pressed three times. The first impression was the staff lines, the second the words, and the third the notes. This method produced very clean and readable results, although it was time-consuming and expensive. Until the 18th century, the processes of formal composition and of the printing of music took place for
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#17327718626528060-562: The Squarcialupi Codex of Italian Trecento music and the Chantilly Codex of French Ars subtilior music. The use of printing enabled sheet music to be reproduced much more quickly and at a much lower cost than hand-copying music notation. This helped musical styles to spread to other cities and countries more quickly, and it also enabled music to be spread to more distant areas. Before the invention of music printing,
8215-418: The artist's management and the artist, sometimes in consultation with the record company . Record companies may finance a tour in the hopes that it will help promote the sale of recordings. However, in the 21st century, it has become more common to release recordings to promote ticket sales for live shows, rather than book tours to promote the sales of recordings. Major, successful artists will usually employ
8370-654: The booking agents , promoters , music venues , road crew , and audio engineers who help organize and sell concerts. The industry also includes a range of professionals who assist singers and musicians with their music careers. These include talent managers , artists and repertoire managers, business managers , entertainment lawyers ; those who broadcast audio or video music content ( satellite , Internet radio stations , broadcast radio and TV stations ); music journalists and music critics ; DJs ; music educators and teachers ; manufacturers of musical instruments and music equipment; as well as many others. In addition to
8525-536: 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
8680-538: The death of the album . (For instance, the only albums that went platinum in the US in 2014 were the soundtrack to the Disney animated film Frozen and Taylor Swift's 1989 , whereas several artists did in 2013.) The following table shows album sales and market value in the world in 2014. Source: IFPI 2014 annual report. In its June 30, 2000 annual report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission , Seagram reported that Universal Music Group made 40% of
8835-452: 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
8990-406: 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
9145-402: The 1930s and 1950s, when records replaced sheet music as the most important product in the music business. In the commercial world, "the recording industry"—a reference to recording performances of songs and pieces and selling the recordings–began to be used as a loose synonym for "the music industry". In the 2000s, a majority of the music market is controlled by three major corporate labels:
9300-549: 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
9455-621: The 2000s, traditional lines that once divided singers, instrumentalists, publishers, record companies, distributors, retail and consumer electronics have become blurred or erased. Artists may record in a home studio using a high-end laptop and a digital recording program such as Pro Tools or use Kickstarter to raise money for an expensive studio recording session without involving a record company. Artists may choose to exclusively promote and market themselves using only free online video sharing services such as YouTube or using social media websites, bypassing traditional promotion and marketing by
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#17327718626529610-706: The French-owned Universal Music Group , the Japanese-owned Sony Music Entertainment , and the US-owned Warner Music Group . Labels outside of these three major labels are referred to as independent labels (or "indies"). The largest portion of the live music market for concerts and tours is controlled by Live Nation , the largest promoter and music venue owner. Live Nation is a former subsidiary of iHeartMedia Inc , which
9765-428: The Internet. With streaming services, the user pays a subscription to a company for the right to listen to songs and other media from a library. Whereas with legal digital download services, the purchaser owns a digital copy of the song (which they can keep on their computer or on a digital media player), with streaming services, the user never downloads the song file or owns the song file. The subscriber can only listen to
9920-483: 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
10075-597: 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
10230-548: The United States became known as Tin Pan Alley . The name originally referred to a specific place: West 28th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan , and a plaque (see below ) on the sidewalk on 28th Street between Broadway and Sixth commemorates it. The start of Tin Pan Alley is usually dated to about 1885, when several music publishers set up shop in the same district of Manhattan . The end of Tin Pan Alley
10385-476: The United States, the music industry arose in tandem with the rise of " black face " minstrelsy . Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used predominantly by non-black performers to represent a black person . The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the spread of negative racial stereotypes of African-American people. In the late part of the century the group of music publishers and songwriters which dominated popular music in
10540-500: 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
10695-407: 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
10850-438: 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
11005-450: The artists. The record producer has a range of different responsibilities including choosing material and/or working with the composers, hiring session musicians, helping to arrange the songs, overseeing the musician performances, and directing the audio engineer during recording and mixing to get the best sound. Audio engineers (including recording , mixing and mastering engineers ) are responsible for ensuring good audio quality during
11160-417: 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
11315-492: 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
11470-420: The business relationship between a recording artist and the record company. In a traditional contract, the company provides an advance to the artist who agrees to make a recording that will be owned by the company. The A&R department of a record company is responsible for finding new talent and overseeing the recording process. The company pays for the recording costs and the cost of promoting and marketing
11625-523: The businesses and artists there are organizations that also play an important role, including musician's unions (e.g. American Federation of Musicians ), not-for-profit performance-rights organizations (e.g. American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers ) and other associations (e.g. International Alliance for Women in Music , a non-profit organization that advocates for women composers and musicians ). The modern Western music industry emerged between
11780-454: 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
11935-407: 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
12090-447: 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
12245-499: The composer, although they may be sold or the rights may be otherwise assigned. For example, in the case of work for hire , the composition is owned immediately by another party. Traditionally, the copyright owner licenses or "assigns" some of their rights to publishing companies , by means of a publishing contract . The publishing company (or a collection society operating on behalf of many such publishers, songwriters and composers) collects fees (known as " publishing royalties ") when
12400-417: The composition is used. A portion of the royalties are paid by the publishing company to the copyright owner, depending on the terms of the contract. Sheet music provides an income stream that is paid exclusively to the composers and their publishing company. Typically (although not universally), the publishing company will provide the owner with an advance against future earnings when the publishing contract
12555-549: The consumers after they buy them. Buyers do not typically have the right to make digital copies from CDs or other media they buy, or rent or lease the CDs, because they do not own the recording on the CD, they only own the individual physical CD. A music distributor delivers crates of the packaged physical media from the manufacturer to the retailer and maintains commercial relationships with retailers and record companies. The music retailer pays
12710-505: 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
12865-456: 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
13020-538: 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
13175-407: 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
13330-634: The debut of the Apple iTunes Store in 2003. The popularity of music distribution over the Internet has increased, and by 2011 digital music sales topped physical sales of music. In 2008, Atlantic Records reports that digital sales have surpassed physical sales. However, as The Economist reported, "paid digital downloads grew rapidly, but did not begin to make up for the loss of revenue from CDs". After 2010, Internet-based services such as Deezer , Pandora , Spotify , and Apple's iTunes Radio began to offer subscription-based " pay to stream " services over
13485-573: The decline in sales of recordings. The 2008 British Music Rights survey showed that 80% of people in Britain wanted a legal peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing service, however only half of the respondents thought that the music's creators should be paid. The survey was consistent with the results of earlier research conducted in the United States, upon which the Open Music Model was based. Legal digital downloads became widely available with
13640-572: 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
13795-490: 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
13950-586: The distributor, who in turn pays the record company for the recordings. The record company pays mechanical royalties to the publisher and composer via a collection society. The record company then pays royalties, if contractually obligated, to the recording artist. When music is digitally downloaded or streamed , there is no physical media other than the consumer's computer memory on his or her portable media player or laptop. For this reason, artists such as Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney, Kings of Leon, and others have called for legal changes that would deny social media
14105-451: The downward trend was expected to continue for the foreseeable future. This dramatic decline in revenue has caused large-scale layoffs inside the industry, driven some more venerable retailers (such as Tower Records ) out of business and forced record companies, record producers, studios, recording engineers and musicians to seek new business models . In response to the rise of widespread illegal file sharing of digital music-recordings,
14260-507: The earliest known mechanical musical instrument, in this case, 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
14415-444: 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
14570-415: The early illegal file sharing days. However, the multitude of service offerings and revenue models make it difficult to understand the true value of each and what they can deliver for musicians and music companies. As well, there are major transparency problems throughout the music industry caused by outdated technology. With the emerging of new business models as streaming platforms, and online music services,
14725-483: The end of the 1980s, the "Big six" — EMI , CBS , BMG , PolyGram , WEA and MCA — dominated the industry. Sony bought CBS Records in 1987 and changed its name to Sony Music in 1991. In mid-1998, PolyGram Music Group merged with MCA Music Entertainment creating what we now know as Universal Music Group . Since then, Sony and BMG merged in 2004, and Universal took over the majority of EMI's recorded music interests in 2012. EMI Music Publishing , also once part of
14880-402: 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
15035-481: The industry was dominated by the "Big Six": Sony Music and BMG had not yet merged, and PolyGram had not yet been absorbed into Universal Music Group. After the PolyGram-Universal merger, the 1998 market shares reflected a "Big Five", commanding 77.4% of the market, as follows, according to MEI World Report 2000: In 2004, the joint venture of Sony and BMG created the 'Big Four' at a time the global market
15190-429: The largest recorded music retailer in the world was now a digital, Internet -based platform operated by a computer company: Apple Inc. 's online iTunes Store . Since 2011, the music industry has seen consistent sales growth with streaming now generating more revenue per year than digital downloads. Spotify , Apple Music , and Amazon Music are the largest streaming services by subscriber count. The main branches of
15345-399: The late 1880s, and later the onset of widespread radio broadcasting , starting in the 1920s, forever changed the way music was heard and listened to. Opera houses, concert halls, and clubs continued to produce music and musicians and singers continued to perform live, but the power of radio allowed bands, ensembles and singers who had previously performed only in one region to become popular on
15500-540: 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
15655-461: The majority of their income, which in turn has made them more dependent – like pre-20th-century musicians – on patrons, now exemplified by music promoters such as Live Nation (which dominates tour promotion and owns or manages a large number of music venues ). In order to benefit from all of an artist's income streams, record companies increasingly rely on the " 360 deal ", a new business-relationship pioneered by Robbie Williams and EMI in 2007. At
15810-491: The market as a brand and, as such, they may derive income from many other streams, such as merchandise , personal endorsements, appearances (without performing) at events or Internet-based services. These are typically overseen by the artist's manager and take the form of relationships between the artist and companies that specialize in these products. Singers may also hire a vocal coach , dance instructor , acting coach , personal trainer or life coach to help them. In
15965-536: The market: After the absorption of EMI by Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group in December 2011 the "big three" were created and on January 8, 2013, after the merger there were layoffs of forty workers from EMI. European regulators forced Universal Music to spin off EMI assets which became the Parlophone Label Group which was acquired by Warner Music Group. Nielsen SoundScan issued
16120-475: The microphone to a digital form by the process of sampling . This lets the audio data be stored and transmitted by 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
16275-651: 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,
16430-528: The most part with the support of patronage from aristocracies and churches . In the mid-to-late 18th century, performers and composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart began to seek more commercial opportunities to market their music and performances to the general public. After Mozart's death, his wife ( Constanze Weber ) continued the process of commercialization of his music through an unprecedented series of memorial concerts, selling his manuscripts, and collaborating with her second husband, Georg Nissen , on
16585-402: 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
16740-426: The music business by migrating "them away from piracy and less monetized platforms and allowing them to generate far greater royalties than before" by encouraging users to use their paid service. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) revealed in its 2015 earnings report that streaming services were responsible for 34.3 percent of the year's U.S. recorded-music-industry revenue, growing 29 percent from
16895-504: The music industry are the live music industry, the recording industry , and all the companies that train, support, supply and represent musicians. The recording industry produces three separate products: compositions (songs, pieces, lyrics), recordings (audio and video) and media (such as CDs or MP3s , and DVDs ). These are each a type of property : typically, compositions are owned by composers, recordings by record companies, and media by consumers. There may be many recordings of
17050-599: 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
17205-488: 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
17360-688: The now defunct British conglomerate, is now co-owned by Sony as a subsidiary of Sony/ATV Music Publishing . As in other industries, the record industry is characterised by many mergers and/or acquisitions, for the major companies as well as for middle sized business (recent example is given by the Belgium group PIAS and French group Harmonia Mundi ). Genre-wise, music entrepreneurs expanded their industry models into areas like folk music , in which composition and performance had continued for centuries on an ad hoc self-supporting basis. Forming an independent record label , or "indie" label, or signing to such
17515-405: 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
17670-543: The organizations that aid, train, represent and supply music creators. Among the many individuals and organizations that operate in the industry are: the songwriters and composers who write songs and musical compositions; the singers , musicians , conductors , and bandleaders who perform the music; the record labels , music publishers , recording studios , music producers , audio engineers , retail and digital music stores , and performance rights organizations who create and sell recorded music and sheet music; and
17825-536: The other extreme, record companies can offer a simple manufacturing- and distribution-deal , which gives a higher percentage to the artist, but does not cover the expenses of marketing and promotion. Companies like Kickstarter help independent musicians produce their albums through fans funding bands they want to listen to. Many newer artists no longer see a record deal as an integral part of their business plan at all. Inexpensive recording-hardware and -software make it possible to record reasonable-quality music on
17980-465: The overuse of YouTube and offline streaming, album sales have fallen by 60 percent in the past few years. When recordings are used in television and film , the composer and their publishing company are typically paid through a synchronization license . In the 2000s, online subscription services (such as Rhapsody ) also provide an income stream directly to record companies, and through them, to artists, contracts permitting. A promoter brings together
18135-416: 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
18290-665: 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,
18445-414: The previous year and becoming the largest source of income, pulling in around $ 2.4 billion. US streaming revenue grew 57 percent to $ 1.6 billion in the first half of 2016 and accounted for almost half of industry sales. This contrasts with the $ 14.6 billion in revenue that was received in 1999 by the U.S. music industry from the sale of CDs. The turmoil in the recorded-music industry in the 2000s altered
18600-808: 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
18755-664: The production of live music events. WAMA also organized the Washington Area Music Awards (Wammies) (a regional music award), and released and promoted compilation recordings that featured songs from different member artists. This article about a music organization is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Music industry The music industry refers to the individuals and organizations that earn money by writing songs and musical compositions , creating and selling recorded music and sheet music , presenting concerts , as well as
18910-549: 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
19065-589: The publishing royalties described above. This portion is similar to a percentage, but may be limited or expanded by a number of factors (such as free goods, recoupable expenses, bonuses, etc.) that are specified by the record contract. Session musicians and orchestra members (as well as a few recording artists in special markets) are under contract to provide work for hire ; they are typically only paid one-time fees or regular wages for their services, rather than ongoing royalties. Physical media (such as CDs or vinyl records) are sold by music retailers and are owned by
19220-444: The record industry took aggressive legal action. In 2001 it succeeded in shutting down the popular music-website Napster , and threatened legal action against thousands of individuals who participated in sharing music-song sound-files. However, this failed to slow the decline in music-recording revenue and proved a public-relations disaster for the music industry. Some academic studies have even suggested that downloads did not cause
19375-415: The record. For physical media (such as CDs ), the company also pays to manufacture and distribute the physical recordings. Smaller record companies (known as " indies ") will form business relationships with other companies to handle many of these tasks. The record company pays the recording artist a portion of the income from the sale of the recordings, also known as a "royalty", but this is distinct from
19530-590: 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
19685-540: 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
19840-566: The recording, but others may restrict the user to storing the music on a specific number of hard drives or devices. When a recording is broadcast (either on radio or by a background music service such as Muzak ), performance rights organisations (such as the ASCAP and BMI in the US, SOCAN in Canada, or MCPS and PRS in the UK), collect a third type of royalty known as a performance royalty, which
19995-524: The recording. They select and set up microphones and use effects units and mixing consoles to adjust the sound and level of the music. A recording session may also require the services of an arranger , orchestrator , studio musicians , session musicians , vocal coaches , or even a discreetly hired ghostwriter to help with the lyrics or songwriting . Recordings are (traditionally) owned by record companies . Some artists own their own record companies (e.g. Ani DiFranco ). A recording contract specifies
20150-555: The right to stream their music without paying them royalties. In the digital and online music market of the 2000s, the distributor becomes optional. Large online shops may pay the labels directly, but digital distributors do exist to provide distribution services for vendors large and small. When purchasing digital downloads or listening to music streaming, the consumer may be required to agree to record company and vendor licensing terms beyond those which are inherent in copyright ; for example, some services may allow consumers to freely share
20305-435: The rights of all the parties involved. Also compounding the issue of defining copyright boundaries is the fact that the definition of "royalty" and "copyright" varies from country to country and region to region, which changes the terms of some of these business relationships. After 15 or so years of the Internet economy, the digital music industry platforms like iTunes , Spotify , and Google Play are major improvements over
20460-646: 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
20615-466: 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
20770-505: 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
20925-514: 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
21080-469: The sheet music publishers as the music industry's largest force. A multitude of record labels came and went. Some noteworthy labels of the earlier decades include the Columbia Records , Crystalate, Decca Records , Edison Bell, The Gramophone Company , Invicta, Kalliope, Pathé , Victor Talking Machine Company and many others. Many record companies died out as quickly as they had formed, and by
21235-537: The song for as long as they continue to pay the streaming subscription. Once the user stops paying the subscription, they cannot listen to audio from the company's repositories anymore. Streaming services began to have a serious impact on the industry in 2014. Spotify , together with the music-streaming industry in general, faces some criticism from artists claiming they are not being fairly compensated for their work as downloaded-music sales decline and music-streaming increases. Unlike physical or download sales, which pay
21390-566: 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
21545-479: 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
21700-404: The twentieth-century balance between artists, record companies, promoters, retail music-stores and consumers. As of 2010 , big-box stores such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy sell more records than music-only CD stores, which have ceased to function as a major player in the music industry. Music-performing artists now rely on live performance and merchandise sales (T-shirts, sweatshirts, etc.) for
21855-495: 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
22010-615: 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
22165-450: The use of a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder or disc so as to pluck 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
22320-566: 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
22475-497: The worldwide classical music sales over the preceding year. Interim physical retail sales in 2005. All figures in millions. Sound recording Sound recording and reproduction 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
22630-549: 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
22785-414: 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
22940-456: Was estimated at $ 30–40 billion. Total annual unit sales (CDs, music videos, MP3s ) in 2004 were 3 billion. Additionally, according to an IFPI report published in August 2005, the big four accounted for 71.7% of retail music sales: US music market shares, according to Nielsen SoundScan (2011) Nielsen SoundScan in their 2011 report noted that the "big four" controlled about 88% of
23095-528: Was extraordinary for the complexity of his white mensural notation and the smallness of his font. He printed the first book of polyphony (music with two or more independent melodic lines) using movable type. He also published numerous works by the most highly regarded composers of the Renaissance, including Josquin des Prez and Antoine Brumel . He flourished by focusing on Flemish works, rather than Italian, as they were very popular throughout Europe during
23250-459: 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
23405-530: 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
23560-411: 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
23715-448: 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
23870-479: 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
24025-410: 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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