A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of recorded sound. The sound vibration waveforms are recorded as corresponding physical deviations of a spiral groove engraved, etched, incised, or impressed into the surface of a rotating cylinder or disc, called a "record". To recreate the sound, the surface is similarly rotated while a playback stylus traces the groove and is therefore vibrated by it, faintly reproducing the recorded sound. In early acoustic phonographs, the stylus vibrated a diaphragm that produced sound waves coupled to the open air through a flaring horn, or directly to the listener's ears through stethoscope-type earphones.
A pantograph is a mechanical linkage connected in a manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a second pen. If a line drawing is traced by the first point, an identical, enlarged, or miniaturized copy will be drawn by a pen fixed to the other. Using the same principle, different kinds of pantographs are used for other forms of duplication in areas such as sculpting, minting, engraving, and milling.
Phonograph cylinders are the earliest commercial medium for recording and reproducing sound. Commonly known simply as "records" in their heyday, a name which has been passed on to their disc-shaped successor, these hollow cylindrical objects have an audio recording engraved on the outside surface which can be reproduced when they are played on a mechanical cylinder phonograph. The first cylinders were wrapped with tin foil but the improved version made of wax was created a decade later, after which they were commercialized. In the 1910s, the competing disc record system triumphed in the marketplace to become the dominant commercial audio medium.
The Dictabelt, in early years and much less commonly also called a Memobelt, is an analog audio recording medium commercially introduced by the American Dictaphone company in 1947. Having been intended for recording dictation and other speech for later transcription, it is a write-once-read-many medium consisting of a 5-mil (0.13 mm) thick transparent vinyl plastic belt 3.5 inches (89 mm) wide and 12 inches (300 mm) around. The belt is loaded onto a pair of metal cylinders, put under tension, then rotated like a tank tread. It is inscribed with an audio-signal-modulated helical groove by a stylus which is slowly moved across the rotating belt. Unlike the stylus of a record cutter, the Dictabelt stylus is blunt and in recording mode it simply impresses a groove into the plastic rather than engraving it and throwing off a thread of waste material. The Dictabelt system was popular, and by 1952, made up 90% of Dictaphone's sales.
Edison Records was one of the early record labels that pioneered sound recording and reproduction, and was an important and successful company in the early recording industry.
The Edison Diamond Disc Record is a type of phonograph record marketed by Thomas A. Edison, Inc. on their Edison Record label from 1912 to 1929. They were named Diamond Discs because the matching Edison Disc Phonograph was fitted with a permanent conical diamond stylus for playing them. Diamond Discs were incompatible with lateral-groove disc record players, e.g. the Victor Victrola, the disposable steel needles of which would damage them while extracting hardly any sound. Uniquely, they are just under 1⁄4 in thick.
"The Teddy Bears' Picnic" is a song consisting of a melody written in 1907 by American composer John Walter Bratton, and lyrics added in 1932 by Irish songwriter Jimmy Kennedy. It remains popular in Ireland and the United Kingdom as a children's song, having been recorded by numerous artists over the decades. Kennedy lived at Staplegrove Elm and is buried in Staplegrove Church, in Taunton, Somerset, England. Local folklore has it that the small wooded area between the church and Staplegrove Scout Hut was the inspiration for his lyrics.
Byron George Harlan was an American singer from Kansas, a comic minstrel singer and balladeer who often recorded with Arthur Collins. The two together were often billed as "Collins & Harlan".
The Graphophone was the name and trademark of an improved version of the phonograph. It was invented at the Volta Laboratory established by Alexander Graham Bell in Washington, D.C., United States.
Ada Jane Jones was an English-American popular singer who made her first recordings in 1893 on Edison cylinders. She is among the earliest female singers to be recorded.
The history of sound recording - which has progressed in waves, driven by the invention and commercial introduction of new technologies — can be roughly divided into four main periods:
A dictation machine is a sound recording device most commonly used to record speech for playback or to be typed into print. It includes digital voice recorders and tape recorder.
In the field of audio recording, an aluminum disc is a phonograph record made of bare aluminum, a medium introduced in the late 1920s for making one-off recordings. Although sometimes used for making amateur studio or home recordings or in coin-operated "record-your-voice" booths at fairs and arcades, during the first half of the 1930s bare aluminum discs were primarily used to record radio broadcasts for the private transcription disc archives of performers or sponsors.
Gianni Bettini was a gentleman inventor and a pioneer audiophile who invented several phonograph improvements. He is best known for having made the first recordings of the voices of several very famous singers and other celebrities of the 1890s. Few of these recordings have survived.
Thomas A. Edison, Incorporated was the main holding company for the various manufacturing companies established by the inventor and entrepreneur Thomas Edison. It was a successor to Edison Manufacturing Company and operated between 1911 and 1957, when it merged with McGraw Electric to form McGraw-Edison.
The "Black and White Rag" is a 1908 ragtime composition by George Botsford.
The Volta Laboratory and the Volta Bureau were created in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., by Alexander Graham Bell.
The Indestructible Record Company was an American record label that produced plastic cylinder records between 1907 and 1922.
Harry Anthony was an American tenor and pioneer recording artist. With James F. Harrison he made several recordings of religious music that were popular at the time. He was known as a solo artist, and also became a member of the American Quartet. He made records for most of the major recording companies of the day.
