For centuries people have dreamed of recording and playing back the voice or other sounds. You did it. But it was a long way to the series production of records. At the end of the 16th century, Giovanni Battista della Porta, an Italian scientist, thought about preserving the spoken word, but failed due to the technical possibilities available.
About 200 years later, in 1777, the poet Gottfried August Bürger tells the story of the frozen post horn, which, when it thaws in a warm room, emits sounds that the postilion had previously blown into it in the freezing cold. But mankind will have to wait another 100 years for the first successes of sound recording.
"Hello" - the first recorded word
At the World Exhibition in Paris in 1867, the French poet and philosopher Charles Cros presented an automatic telegraph that was not yet able to record sounds. Ten years later, on July 18, 1877, Thomas Alva Edison succeeded in recording and reproducing the human voice for the first time. To do this, he uses a membrane with a needle tip, pulls it over a strip of paper coated with paraffin and speaks "Hello" loudly into the membrane. As he draws the needle back over the strip of paper, he can hear his words faintly.
Edison and Berliner are competing in research
The record that Berliner invented in 1887 was made of zinc.At almost the same time, the German Emil Berliner, who had emigrated to the USA, was working on recording and playing back sounds. He builds a device that converts sound waves into horizontal movements of a needle. He has the mechanical vibrations scratched into a glass plate covered with soot. When the soot has hardened, Berliner makes a zinc positive from the plate and a zinc negative from it. He can use this negative as a stamp for the pressing of any number of positives. Berliner patented his idea in 1887.
He replaces the soot-coated glass plate with a zinc or copper plate, which he coats with wax. And he develops a device to scan the record and make the sounds audible. In May 1888 he presented the record and the gramophone to the public.
The Kämmer und Reinhardt doll factory in Thuringia produced the first hand-operated record player in Germany in 1890. Emil Berliner continues to experiment and finds that vulcanized hard rubber is the most suitable pressing material for the plates. Series production seems to be within reach. But it will be a few years before that happens.
The invention of the vinyl record
Berliner soon gave up the use of hard rubber for the production of records. He switches to a molding compound made in the USA, which essentially consists of shellac. With the help of shellac and various mineral substances, a mixture of materials can be created that is easy to shape and durable. Some soot makes the black color.
Starting difficulties in the USA
The American Gramophone Company, founded by Emil Berliner in 1889, soon collapses. In April 1893 he made a second attempt with the Gaisberg brothers and founded the United States Gramophone Company. Seat is Washington. The company produces a few records and gramophones, but soon runs into financial difficulties. Berliner succeeds in convincing investors from Philadelphia of his ideas. This is how the Berliner Gramophone Company came into being, in which Berliner only held a few shares. The production of records and players can finally begin. Some sources claim that by the fall of 1894 around 25,000 records and 1,000 players had left the factory.
First series production of vinyl record
A sign at Brühlstraße 27 in Hanover commemorates the former resident Joseph Berliner.On November 6, 1898, Emil and his brother Joseph Berliner founded Deutsche Grammophon GmbH in Hanover. Records are produced in series for the first time in Kniestrasse. Emil Berliner creates a second mainstay in Great Britain and participates in the founding of The Gramophone and Typewriter Company Ltd. The reasons for going to Great Britain are not proven beyond doubt. Apparently, Emil and Joseph Berliner did not get enough money from the banks. In any case, the British company became the parent company of Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, which continued to produce records.
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- Part 1:"Hello" - the first recorded word
- Part 2:Caruso initiates the triumph of the record