Before Elvis And The Beatles There Was Tom Edison
I'm not sure what percentage of the sound we hear every day is pre-recorded. I guess 20 % of the sound I hear isn't there, added to another 10 or 15% that's live but electronically processed. This year our eardrums celebrate the hundredth anniversary of recorded sound.
Before Elvis And The Beatles There Was Tom Edison
REWIRE YOURSELF
by Richard Robinson
I'm not sure what percentage of the sound we hear every day is pre-recorded. I guess 20 % of the sound I hear isn't there, added to another 10 or 15% that's live but electronically processed. This year our eardrums celebrate the hundredth anniversary of recorded sound. By way of celebration, this month's Rewire Yourself takes you back to the days before transistors. #1: In 1877 Tom Edison applied for a patent on his tinfoil phonograph. The cylinder shaped record used on Edison's machine dominated the early consumer market. In 1887 Emile Berliner invented the flat disc phonograph. The photo shows a Berliner flat disc machine vintage 1893. To operate it you cranked the handle at 70 rpm. Between 1894 and 1902 Berliner and his partner, Eldridge Johnson, invented the eritire phonograph and record system as we know it today. In addition, they formed the Victor Talking Machine Company. But until about 1912, it's wax cylinders and the Edison system that are the big success. So much of a success that at one point in 1906 Edison was backordered two and a half million cylinders.