The phonautograph is the earliest known device for recording sound. Previously, tracings had been obtained of the sound-producing vibratory motions of tuning forks and other objects by physical contact with them, but not of actual sound waves as they propagated through air or other mediums. Invented by Frenchman Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, it was patented on March 25, 1857. [2] It transcribed sound waves as undulations or other deviations in a line traced on smoke-blackened paper or glass. Scott believed that future technology would allow the traces to be deciphered as a kind of "natural stenography". [3] Intended as a laboratory instrument for the study of acoustics, it was used to visually study and measure the amplitude envelopes and waveforms of speech and other sounds, or to determine the frequency of a given musical pitch by comparison with a simultaneously recorded reference frequency.
Apparently, it did not occur to anyone before the 1870s that the recordings, called phonautograms, contained enough information about the sound that they could, in theory, be used to recreate it. Because the phonautogram tracing was an insubstantial two-dimensional line, direct physical playback was impossible in any case. However, several phonautograms recorded before 1861 were successfully played as sound in 2008 by optically scanning them and using a computer to process the scans into digital audio files.
The phonautograph was patented on March 25, 1857 by Frenchman Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, [4] an editor and typographer of manuscripts at a scientific publishing house in Paris. [5] One day while editing Professor Longet's Traité de Physiologie, he happened upon that customer’s engraved illustration of the anatomy of the human ear, and conceived of "the imprudent idea of photographing the word." In 1853 or 1854 (Scott cited both years) he began working on "le problème de la parole s'écrivant elle-même" ("the problem of speech writing itself"), aiming to build a device that could replicate the function of the human ear. [5] [6]
Scott coated a plate of glass with a thin layer of lampblack. He then took an acoustic trumpet, and at its tapered end affixed a thin membrane that served as the analog to the eardrum. At the center of that membrane, he attached a rigid boar's bristle approximately a centimeter long, placed so that it just grazed the lampblack. As the glass plate was slid horizontally in a well formed groove at a speed of one meter per second, a person would speak into the trumpet, causing the membrane to vibrate and the stylus to trace figures [5] that were scratched into the lampblack. [7] On March 25, 1857, Scott received the French patent [8] #17,897/31,470 for his device, which he called a phonautograph. [9] The earliest known intelligible recorded sound of a human voice was conducted on April 9, 1860 when Scott recorded [7] someone singing the song "Au Clair de la Lune" ("By the Light of the Moon") on the device. [10] However, the device was not designed to play back sounds, [7] [11] as Scott intended for people to read back the tracings, [12] which he called phonautograms. [6] This was not the first time someone had used a device to create direct tracings of the vibrations of sound-producing objects, as tuning forks had been used in this way by English physicist Thomas Young in 1807. [13] By late 1857, with support from the Société d'encouragement pour l'industrie nationale, Scott’s phonautograph was recording sounds with sufficient precision to be adopted by the scientific community, paving the way for the nascent science of acoustics. [6]
The device's true significance in the history of recorded sound was not fully realized prior to March 2008, when it was discovered and resurrected in a Paris patent office by First Sounds, an informal collaborative of American audio historians, recording engineers, and sound archivists founded to make the earliest sound recordings available to the public. The phonautograms were then digitally converted by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, who were able to play back the recorded sounds, something Scott had never conceived of. Prior to this point, the earliest known record of a human voice was thought to be an 1877 phonograph recording by Thomas Edison. [7] [14] The phonautograph would play a role in the development of the gramophone, whose inventor, Emile Berliner, worked with the phonautograph in the course of developing his own device. [15]
By mid-April 1877, Charles Cros had realized that a phonautograph recording could be converted back into sound by photoengraving the tracing into a metal surface to create a playable groove, then using a stylus and diaphragm similar to those of the phonautograph to reverse the recording process and recreate the sound. Before he was able to put his ideas into practice, the announcement of Thomas Edison's phonograph, which recorded sound waves by indenting them into a sheet of tinfoil from which they could be played back immediately, temporarily relegated Cros's less direct method to obscurity.[ citation needed ]
Ten years later, the early experiments of Emile Berliner, the creator of the disc Gramophone, employed a recording machine that was in essence a disc form of the phonautograph. It traced a clear sound-modulated spiral line through a thin black coating on a glass disc. The photoengraving method first proposed by Cros was then used to produce a metal disc with a playable groove. Arguably, these circa 1887 experiments by Berliner were the first known reproductions of sound from phonautograph recordings. [16]
However, as far as is known, no attempt was ever made to use this method to play any of the surviving early phonautograms made by Scott de Martinville. Possibly this was because the few images of them generally available in books and periodicals were of unpromising short bursts of sound, of fragmentary areas of longer recordings, or simply too crude and indistinct to encourage such an experiment. [17]
Nearly 150 years after they had been recorded, promising specimens of Scott de Martinville's phonautograms, stored among his papers in France's patent office and at the Académie des Sciences, were located by American audio historians. High-quality images of them were obtained. In 2008, the team played back the recordings as sound for the first time. Modern computer-based image processing methods were used to accomplish the playback. The first results were obtained by using a specialized system developed for optically playing recordings on more conventional media which were too fragile or damaged to be played by traditional means. Later, generally available image-editing and image-to-sound conversion software, requiring only a high-quality scan of the phonautogram and an ordinary personal computer, were found to be sufficient for this application. [18] [19]
For First Sounds' March 2008 release of "Au Clair de la Lune", its engineers wrote software to improve the stability of the sound. It did the same with a May 17, 1860 recording of "Gamme de la Voix" which First Sounds presented at the Audie Engineering Society's convention in late 2008. [20]
One phonautogram, created on April 9, 1860, was revealed to be a 20-second recording of the French folk song "Au clair de la lune". [21] It was initially played at double the original recording speed and believed to be the voice of a woman or child. However, further recordings were uncovered accompanied with notes Scott de Martinville made that inadvertently identified himself as the speaker. [22] At the correct speed, the voice of a man, almost certainly Scott de Martinville himself, is heard singing the song very slowly. [1] Also recovered were two 1860 recordings of "Vole, petite abeille" ("Fly, Little Bee"), a lively song from a comic opera. [23] Previously, the earliest known recording of vocal music was an 1888 Edison wax cylinder phonograph recording of a Handel choral concert.
A phonautogram containing the opening lines of Torquato Tasso's pastoral drama Aminta has also been found. Probably recorded in April or May 1860, this phonautogram is the earliest known recording of intelligible spoken words to be played back, [24] [25] predating Frank Lambert's 1878 talking clock recording. Earlier recordings, made in 1857, 1854, and 1853, also contain Scott de Martinville's voice but are unintelligible because of their low quality, brevity and irregularity of speed. [26] Only one of these recordings, 1857 cornet scale recording, was restored and made intelligible. [27]
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 phonograph record, a vinyl record, or simply a record or vinyl is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts near the outside edge and ends near the center of the disc. The stored sound information is made audible by playing the record on a phonograph.
Emile Berliner originally Emil Berliner, was a German-American inventor. He is best known for inventing the lateral-cut flat disc record used with a gramophone. He founded the United States Gramophone Company in 1894; The Gramophone Company in London, England, in 1897; Deutsche Grammophon in Hanover, Germany, in 1898; and Berliner Gram-o-phone Company of Canada in Montreal in 1899. Berliner also invented what was probably the first radial aircraft engine (1908), a helicopter (1919), and acoustical tiles (1920s).
"Mary Had a Little Lamb" is an English language nursery rhyme of nineteenth-century American origin, first published by American writer Sarah Josepha Hale in 1830. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 7622.
The year 1860 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
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.
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:
The National Recording Registry is a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States." The registry was established by the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000, which created the National Recording Preservation Board, whose members are appointed by the Librarian of Congress. The recordings preserved in the United States National Recording Registry form a registry of recordings selected yearly by the National Recording Preservation Board for preservation in the Library of Congress.
The "Experimental Talking Clock" was recorded c. 1878 by inventor Frank Lambert. It was long thought to be the world's oldest playable sound recording and is listed in both the Guinness Book of World Records and The Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound as such; however, an older phonautogram recording of Au clair de la lune from 1860 by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville was reproduced for the first time in 2008 with the aid of modern technology. The talking clock is still the oldest recording that can be played back with its own mechanism, without the involvement of digital technology.
Francois Lambert was a French American inventor. Lambert is perhaps best known today for making the oldest sound recording reproducible on its own device (1878) on his own version of the phonograph. Lambert also invented a typewriter on which the keyboard consists of one single piece.
"Au clair de la lune" is a French folk song of the 18th century. Its composer and lyricist are unknown. Its simple melody is commonly taught to beginners learning an instrument.
Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville was a French printer, bookseller and inventor.
Events from the year 1860 in France.
Archeophone Records is a record company and label founded in 1998 to document the early days of America's recording history. It was started by Richard Martin and Meagan Hennessey, a husband and wife who run the company in Champaign, Illinois. Archeophone restores and remasters audio from cylinders and discs of jazz, popular music, vaudeville, and spoken word recordings.
The first inscriptions on the UNESCO Memory of the World International Register were made in 1997. By creating a compendium of the world's documentary heritage—manuscripts, oral traditions, audio-visual materials, library and archive holdings – the program aims to tap on its networks of experts to exchange information and raise resources for the preservation, digitization, and dissemination of documentary materials. As of 2018, 432 documentary heritages have been included in the Register, among them recordings of folk music, ancient languages and phonetics, aged remnants of religious and secular manuscripts, collective lifetime works of renowned giants of literature, science and music, copies of landmark motion pictures and short films, and accounts documenting changes in the world's political, economic and social stage. Of these, seven properties were nominated by international organizations.
Early recordings for the classical guitar had often have a low or limited audio quality since recording technology was just in its beginning phases, with the earliest known guitar sound recorded in either 1853 or 1854 recorded the phonautograph by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. The phonautogram features a snippet of Adolphe Giacomelli playing a few notes on guitar, though it is unintelligible as a result of the recording’s brevity and low quality. A later guitar sound of a few notes was recorded was done by using the phonograph type invented by Thomas Edison on 18 July 1877, which used phonograph cylinders as a recording medium. Classical guitar recording quality greatly improved along with technological improvements to the phonograph and the development of the gramophone record in the 1900s.
French electronic music is a panorama of French music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production.
Electric music technology refers to musical instruments and recording devices that use electrical circuits, which are often combined with mechanical technologies. Examples of electric musical instruments include the electro-mechanical electric piano, the electric guitar, the electro-mechanical Hammond organ and the electric bass. All of these electric instruments do not produce a sound that is audible by the performer or audience in a performance setting unless they are connected to instrument amplifiers and loudspeaker cabinets, which made them sound loud enough for performers and the audience to hear. Amplifiers and loudspeakers are separate from the instrument in the case of the electric guitar, electric bass and some electric organs and most electric pianos. Some electric organs and electric pianos include the amplifier and speaker cabinet within the main housing for the instrument.
IRENE is a digital imaging technology designed to recover analog audio stored on fragile or deteriorating phonograph cylinders, records, and other grooved audio media. It is in use by several archives and preservation institutions in the United States seeking to preserve and digitize historical audio.
In 1860, French inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville made the earliest known sound recording, capturing himself singing the French folk song "Au clair de la lune." This recording went largely unnoticed and was overshadowed by Thomas Edison's phonograph, which famously recorded "Mary Had a Little Lamb." However, in March 2008, researchers rediscovered Scott de Martinville's recording and sent it to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where they used a computer program to convert it into audible sound.