The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Interesting article from 2008 about recorded sound pre-dating Edison's Tin-foil invention:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/arts/ ... alink&_r=0

This was the first sound recording, but when it was made, it was never intended to be played back, Edison's machine recorded and played back the sound.

yes, the phonautograph was the very first machine to ever pick up sound however this was attached to a needle that would move laterally instaid of vertically and it would DRAW the sound waves onto paper to then be examined to see what sound looks like, edouard leon scott who invented the phonautograph never thought that what he had recorded could be played back, this has since been done digitally and has been identified as "au claire de la lune" this was recorded in 1857, i beleive edison then picked up on this idea in 1877 then thought of producing a machine and experiment with not only the capabilities of recording but also reproducing the sound so since he could reproduce the sound and could carry it further so he got all the credit where in fact, eduard leon scott technically beat him to it by 20 years!!

Accidental discovery? Copy:

The invention of the Phonograph was almost accidental. During 1877 Thomas Alva Edison was attempting to devise a method of repeating morse telegraph signals; instead, he came up with a machine described in Scientific American on December 22nd that year as “a little affair of a few pieces of metal that talks in such a way, that even if in its present imperfect form many words are not clearly distinguishable, there can be no doubt but that the inflections are those of the human voice.” Imperfect or not, the Phonograph caused a sensation, and when exhibited in London the following August, The Illustrated London News went into raptures about the instrument, “Witnessing its performance one is apt to take the stories of genii bottled up for years to be released at last, of frozen tunes released by warmth flooding the air with melody, and other romances of a like kind, as veritable prophecies of the good time coming.”

Despite this great public attention, Edison did not develop his invention, thus allowing others time to make their own important discoveries. During the next few years, Alexander Graham Bell, Chichester Bell, and Charles Sumner Tainter worked together in Washington to produce the Graphophone, which used cardboard cylinders coated with wax and a feed screw to move the recorder along the cylinder as it turned. The challenge of the Graphophone led Edison to improve his Phonograph. He placed on the market a much more sophisticated model, which, using a cylinder made entirely of wax, superseded the Graphophone of the period. This model of the Phonograph, dating from 1888, became the basic design of every subsequent Edison product. The original version was powered by an electric motor which limited its sales, but by 1895 spring motors were incorporated.

As part of a campaign to get the Phonograph accepted into offices as as a dictating machine, Edison’s agent, Colonel Gouraud, invited celebrities of the day to record messages to be sent to Edison. Politicians, literary men, people prominent in every walk of life, flocked to make records. From Florence Nightingale came, “When I am no longer even a memory, just a name, I hope my voice may perpetuate the great work of my life. God bless my dear old comrades of Balaclava, and bring them safe to shore.”

I was privileged to hear a phonautograph recording at a CAPS banquet a couple of years ago. The recording was of an adolescent French girl singing a lesser know second verse of a folk song. I remember having so many emotions run through me at the same time. I was able to listen to a recording that was never expected to be reproduced. I was amazed. I felt like I had heard a ghost. I felt honored to just be able to listen. I was delighted. It was worth the trip to hear that very short recording that was made nearly one hundred fifty years ago. Jerry Blais

and i beleive that one member of this forum (rene rondeau (tinfoilphono)) has part of a phonautograph!, the early history of the phonograph was incredibly interesting!

This has been batted around for years, especially Edison vs. Cros, so it's all kind of old news in that sense. Cros never built his version, even though we know he wrote a detailed description of his concept months before Edison built his first tinfoil phonograph. As to Scott, he became just a blip on the historical radar until recently because he didn't or wouldn't consider the possibility of playback. I'm very glad to know that someone is now working to transcribe original tinfoil and phonautograph recordings. That opens up many more years worth of possible treasures to historians. Who knows what may yet be found.


Jim

briankeith wrote:Interesting article from 2008 about recorded sound pre-dating Edison's Tin-foil invention:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/arts/ ... alink&_r=0

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/10/25/18 ... p=features Another tin foil recording. I gotta say..Edison is really an unsung hero people think Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are important these days.

Personally, I think it's fair to say that Leon Scott invented sound recording in 1857, and Thomas Edison invented sound reproduction in 1877.

We all have read varying accounts by Edison himself and by others how the phonograph was conceived. Some of those may have been misleading or simplified stories for reporters. Sifting through those, I have tried to piece together my conjecture of Edison's most likely train of thought.

1) Edison was probably aware of the Phononautograph, so he knew a representation of sound waves could be traced and saved.

2) Bell's telephone in 1876 was absolute proof that complex waveforms such as the human voice could be captured and replicated by electro/mechanical means in real time, even from a distance. Edison invented the carbon microphone as an improvement over Bell's, so he became familiar with capturing and reproducing sounds in real time.

3) The early telephones had a limited range. Edison had already invented telegraph repeaters to increase telegraph range by delayed playback, and by one account of his, Edison imagined a similar telephone repeater to accomplish the same purpose of extending range. Then Edison paused with the sudden realization that he had conceived of reproducing speech from a stored sound, rather than a live sound. The oft-told story of the out-of-control telegraph repeater humming may or may not have had much impact on Edison's thinking.

4) Edison's first experiments to test such an idea were to mount a needle on a telephone diaphragm and prick his finger from sounds. Then he ran waxed paper under the needle and studied the recorded vibrations and ran the paper under the needle again.

5) As final proof of the concept, Edison sketched a mechanical design that was much simpler than a telephone repeater.