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I ended up down a bit of an internet rabbit-hole, reading about early recording techniques.
That led me to the phonoautograph, invented by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, which is generally recognised as the first technology capable of recording sounds directly from the air. I love this invention because it was directly inspired by the human ear: it used an "ear canal" type horn to conduct sound to a parchment "ear drum", which in turn was connected to a lightweight stylus via an "ossicle"-like amplifying lever.
The sound could not be played back at the time. The point was merely to record an analogue of the waveform to soot-coated paper or glass so that it could be visually examined.
However, around 12 years ago some of these very early phonoautograph recordings (c. 1860), made on parchment and preserved, were scanned and read using a DSP, and then reproduced as audio.
This fascinating youtube series describes the history of pre-phonograph recording, and explains how the preserved parchments, made using de Martinville's machine some 160 years ago, were scanned and then played back as audio in 2008.
That led me to the phonoautograph, invented by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, which is generally recognised as the first technology capable of recording sounds directly from the air. I love this invention because it was directly inspired by the human ear: it used an "ear canal" type horn to conduct sound to a parchment "ear drum", which in turn was connected to a lightweight stylus via an "ossicle"-like amplifying lever.
The sound could not be played back at the time. The point was merely to record an analogue of the waveform to soot-coated paper or glass so that it could be visually examined.
However, around 12 years ago some of these very early phonoautograph recordings (c. 1860), made on parchment and preserved, were scanned and read using a DSP, and then reproduced as audio.
This fascinating youtube series describes the history of pre-phonograph recording, and explains how the preserved parchments, made using de Martinville's machine some 160 years ago, were scanned and then played back as audio in 2008.
