100 years of electric recording

[manustiina]

In the early 1920s the Bell Telephone Laboratories figured out how to use electricity for recording of sound. In 1925 Victor built one of the first electric recording studios (or the first?) and the first electrical recordings there were made in the same year. That was 100 years ago.

I wanted to bring this up since I have not seen anything about this from the audio community during this year, even though this development is one of the most important things that happened in recording technology. The other major developments happened in recording mediums: magnetic tape in 1940s and digital in 1970s. These developments were absolutely crucial for the high quality recordings we have today. But the replacement of large cones used in acoustic recording with electrical microphones was a big, big thing! Some would say the biggest.

If you have seen any retrospective/celebratory things about the advent of electrical recording, please post them here! I am very curious.

Some sources/reading:

• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sound_recording
• Perfecting Sound Forever by Greg Milner

 

[CapMan]

Perfecting Sound Forever by Greg Milner

This is an excellent book for those who are interested in the recording process and its history