CHAPTER History of Acoustical Recording The history of “acoustical” recording machines and the transition to our present-day so-called “electrical” recording heads of the capacitive, magnetic, and crystal types. @ ‘The great American inventor Thomas Edison, back in 1877, stumbled across what was to become the first recording and reproducing system. Bdi- son used an acoustical method for re- cording and reproducing sound on a wax roll. Commercial use was not found for this invention until several years later when the Ediphone, a busi- ness dictating machine, was developed. Correspondence and other intelligence could be recorded on this unit and later transeribed from the wax cylinders. The early models utilized cylinders which could be used only once, but later ones were developed with a very thick coating of wax so that previous sounds could be scraped from the surface and the new surface reused. The record industry had its origin in 1855 with Leon Scott's “Phonauto- graph”, ‘This was not a practical means for recording or reproducing sound as about all this machine could do was to trace grooves in lampblack. ‘The granddaddy of the present Dicta~ phone machines (shown in Fig. 2-1) was invented by Alexander Graham Bell and two associates in 1881. His machine employed a heavy metal casting to which was mounted a heavy steel rod, part of which acted as a “feed screw” to move the acoustical diaphragm in a horizontal plane. A wax coated cylin- der was mounted to the shaft which, +10° on Bell’s invention, was hand-driven by a erank. This historie machine was removed from its vault in the Smith- sonian Institute on October 27, 1937, where it had remained for 56 years. ‘The wax cylinder when replayed re- vealed the following: “The following words and sounds are recorded upon the cylinder of the Gramophone... tra tra... There are more things in Heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in our philosophy ... trr ... Iam a gramo- phone and my mother was a phono- graph.” Later in 1885 the Volta Laboratories, controlled by Alexander Graham Bell, began filing new patents to make the invention commercially successful. The American Gramophone Company was organized in order to serve a market for these machines, Edison then began to exploit his machine commercially. There were a few patent difficulties between Edison and Volta, However, when these were worked out, they be- came very friendly competitors in this new field. Emil Berliner then came into the pic- ture and to him goes the credit for the records and phonographs we use today. Berliner devised a means for recording Walker, Frank B. RADIO AGE. January 1942,History of Acoustical Recording 1 Fig. 2-1. The original Bell Gramophone (1881) now in the Smithsonian Institute. on and reproducing sound from a flat dise. (Fig, 2-2.) Furthermore, he de- veloped a means for pressing (making copies of) records from a master, rather than taking 4 chance of ruining the original dise, as was done by Edison and Volta. Berliner later became con- nected with a Camden machinist by the name of Eldridge Johnson. Johnson contributed many improvements to the original Berliner machine. The Edison and Rell machines both worked on the same fundamental prin- ciple. In oth cases, the waves set up in the air by any source of sound were al- lowed to strike a delicately held dia- phragm which vibrated under the im- machine which featured the use of a wax disc. paet of the sound waves. The only dif- ference was in the method of recording the sound on the rotating eylinder. In the Edison invention, the record was produced hy indenting a line of vary- ing radial depth, while Bell obtained the record by actually cutting the line on a blank cylinder, In both cases the vibrating diaphragm was made to pro- duce a sound line of varying depth on the surface of the record. Berliner, in 1890, took out patents for further improvements in the Gramo- phone. In particular were new forms of diaphragm holders or sound boxes. One was designed for recording pur- poses and the other for reproducing. Even then the Gramophone had not be- come a commercial article. It was near the end of 1897 that the first dise record was manufactured commercially in the United States, This made the Gramo- phone popular as a means for enter- tainment. Instead of a record being made from an etched metal original, a disc record made by a new process which allowed many hundreds of good facsimile copies to he made from the one master record could be offered to the publie, The process consisted of cutting the first record on a dise-shaped blank of a wax-like material. Later, a solid metal negative was made by12 THIN MICA DIAPHRAGM SOUND CHAMBER, Fig. 2:3. Old type mechanical reproducer. electrodeposition. Then followed the pressing of copies of the original from this negative in a material which was hard at normal temperatures but be- came plastic under heat. ‘The period that followed was devoted by several inventors to mechanical im- provements for the machine, An effi- cient governor, or speed regulator, was provided to insure a uniform speed of rotation of the turntable. The hand- driven machine was abolished and a new machine, which was driven by a spring motor, substituted. The speed yegulator was furnished with an indi- cator that showed the speed when the machine was running so that the ree- ords, on reproduction, could be revolved at exactly the same speed as the blank on which the original record was cut. Recording and Reproduction of Sound ‘The sound box also went through a series of improvements, the inventors’ object being to render the diaphragm as sensitive as possible, either to the sound waves of the selection being re- corded or to the vibrations transmitted to it from the record dise, as the case might be. Other improvements were made in the means of conveying the sounds reereated in the sound box to the ear of the auditor (Fig. 2-3). The old air tube had disappeared to give place to a small horn. The sound box was attached to the narrow end. The next step was to remove the amplifying horn a short distance from the sound box and to carry it upon a rigid bracket on the cabinet of the instrument. ‘The sound box was connected to the small end of the horn by a piece of flexible tubing which allowed the sound box to move across the turntable and also to be raised or lowered above the record. Patents were taken out in 1903 to re- place this piece of tubing with a paper arm. A joint in the amplifying horr. itself was also added. The idea was that while the horn could be locates immediately next to the sound bos, the latter could be moved with freedom without moving the heavy bell portion of the amplifying horn. The success of this invention was immediate and a tapering sound arm was adopted. A modern version of this acoustical technique is shown in Fig. 2-4 A and B. FIBRE CASE SPEAKER CONE (PAPER) RECORD wo CIRCULAR BOX ENCLOSING SPEAKER CONE PIVOT POINTS ‘fi RECORD. @ Fig. 2-4. Two relotively new types of acoustical sound reproducers,History of Acoustical Recording 13 Fig. 2-5. Construction details of Parson's Auxetophone designed for intensifying sound by means of air pressure. The Auxetophone Sir Charles Parsons, English in- ventor, did much development work on the Gramophone. He perfected means for intensifying the sound by using air valves, Improvements in sound repro- ducers or intensifiers (as they were then called) applicable to phonographs, Gramophones, telephones, etc. were re- placed by Parsons with the well-known mica diaphragm and by a very finely adjusted valve which controlled the flow of a column of air supplied under pressure, (Fig. 2-5). The action of Par- son’s invention, which he called the Auxetophone, was as follows: As the needle followed the sinuosities of the sound line on the record, the valve moved with it and this opened and closed the slots in the valve seat through which the air was rushing. The air was therefore given minute pulsations corresponding to the undulations in the sound record so that sound waves iden- tical with those originally recorded were set up in the surrounding air and traveled to the ear of the hearer. The valve was mounted on a weigh bar rigidly connected to the reproducing stylus bar or needle holder. This weigh bar was capable of oscillating rotation- ally only about its own axis, A box containing a filter was also provided to insure that the air, before entering the valve, was perfectly clean. Very fine adjustments of the valve would be un- balanced if particles of dust or oil got into the unit. Later patents taken out by Parsons related to musical instruments. Patents described the use of a valve as adapted to stringed instruments such as a violin, violoncello, bass, double bass, piano- forte, harpe, etc. He replaced the usual sounding board or membrane by a valve operated directly by the vibrations of the strings, The valve was substantially the same as previously described and, as applied to a violin, was supported from a structure on which the bridge was carried, the sounding board being removed. On the exit side of the valve an expanding trumpet was provided and this was lined with velvet which had the effect of damping out any seratching sounds and very high har- monies. Parsons’ further contributions to the art included means for attaching Gramophone needles to the sound repro- ducer, He made the hole for the needle diamond shaped so that when in use the needle seated itself in the hole by the pressure between the socket and the record. To retain the needle in position when the reproducer was not resting on the record, he provided a small mag- net with its poles sufficiently near the needle to keep it in a slanting position. Alternately, instead of using a magnet, a very light spring attached to the socket arm was used, pressing lightly against the needle to keep it from fall- ing out. Parsons took out other patents that contributed further to improvement of sound quality. One of these patents covered the use of an elastic connec- tion joining the needle and the moving part of the valve, The object of this invention was to provide means whereby seratching sounds and changes of tone were reduced or eliminated. A better and more uniform reproduction of the original sound resulted. He also took out a patent covering the use of a com- pensating cylinder and piston which rendered the working position of the14 Recording and Reproduction of Sound valve independent of fluctuations of air pressure. Tt was found that the mean position of the valves was disturbed by differences of fluctuations of air pressure from the supply with the re- sult that the tone or power of the in- strument was thereby affected.? The Victor Talking Machine Com- puny was formed in 1898, One of the earliest of their produets is shown in Fig. 2-6. This was the old-fashioned acoustical horn style phonograph so fa- miliar to many of our patents and grandparents. It should be remembered that all of the previous instruments described are essentially acoustical in operation. They relied almost entirely upon sound pres- sure, or pressure striking a diaphragm (Fig. 2-7), and actuating a needle or other deviee. A typical recording setup of an orchestra making an acoustical record is shown in Fig. 2-8. Here we see that the musicians are literally erowded in front of a long horn, The weaker instruments, those having the lowest amplitudes of sound, were placed for- ward, while those possessing greater power, volume or amplitude, were placed further to the rear. The idea ~ "Heaton Works Journal, Dee. 1934— p. 251, Fig. 2-6. controlled Victrola of the year 1898. Hend cranked, governor was for the musicians to play as loud as possible in order that the greatest possible volume would enter the horn. At the smallest terminating point of the horn was stretched a diaphragm in a framework. The diaphragm (with stylus attached) picked up the sound pressure waves entering the horn from ROLLED E0GE RETAINING RING RUBBER GASKETS DIAPHRAGM Fig. 2-7. Construction of an acoustical re- producer used with early phonographs.History of Acoustical Recording Fig. 2-8. Rosario Bourdon and the Victor Solon Orchestra recording in the early ‘20's. the instruments of the orchestra and ‘the sound waves were modulated onto the master record of wax (Fig. 2-9). A reversed process was used for play- back. While the literature does not disclose why the standard speed of 78 rpm was chosen for the phonograph industry, apparently this just happened to be the speed created by one of the early ma- chines and, for no other reason con- tinued to be used. In those early days, speed was an important factor in get- ting satisfactory quality from the ree- ords. The phonograph turntable had to revolve at considerable speed in order that the high notes (and there were few in those days) could be reproduced, a process which will be explained in later chapters. Finished records were reproduced by means of another horn connected to a diaphragm to which was fastened the reproducing needle. Sound waves appearing in the grooves of the record would move the needle from side reproducing acoustical records. to side and thus transmit vibrations to the diaphragm as shown in Fig. 2-7. Sound waves would then pass through the horn and be amplified somewhat by the “focusing effect” of the horn— Fig, 2-10, ‘Thus, we have the earliest acoustical recording and reproducing systems. To- day, as we all know, electronics plays a dominant part in the recording and re- production of sound. The fundamentals, however, remain basically the same. Undulations in recorded grooves are transformed into electrical vibrations which are amplified by means of suit- able amplifying equipment and repro- duced through modern speaker systems, Electrical Recording Electrieal recording was borrowed from the radio, the microphone and the vacuum tube amplifier which had, by 1927, supplanted the old method of singing, talking or playing directly into a horn. This latter system depended upon the sound wave pressure to acti- vate a diaphragm and needle to do the cutting? ‘Jewell, F. A. “Combining the Phono- graph and Radio,” RADIO NEWS, April, 1927, page 1288,16 Recording and Reproduction of Sound Fig. 2-10. Horn-style Victrola which was introduced to the public in the year 1902. In the early acoustical system, which of the problems. The result was the was far from perfect, most of the har- production of much better records. monies and overtones were completely The earliest forms of electrical pick- Jost and even some of the fundamental ups were of the carbon or magnetic waves, especially the low, or bass nates, types. In 1927 a new pickup was intro- failed to register. The adoption of the duced which relied on the capacity ef- microphone amplifier and an electrically fect of its elements. Both the carbon operated cutting stylus overcame most and the magnetie types of pickup, al- ig. 2-11. How the capacity pickup of 1927 was connected fo an audio amplifier.History of Acoustical Recording 17 though superior to the old acoustical pickups, were far from perfect and their faults were many. For instance, in the carbon type, the instability of the car- bon granules caused a fuzzy blowing sound. These carbon granules soon be- came packed when electrical current passed through them and they would adhere to one another. In addition, the modulated electrical current was far from being an exact duplicate of the sound waves that were cut on the ree- ord. Im the magnetic type there was the problem of inertia from the relatively heavy iron armature which was held by a stiff spring to overcome the mag- netic pull of the pole pieces and to pre- vent the armature from “freezing” to one of the pole pieces. Thus the inertia of the heavy iron armature and the tension of the spring made it very diffi- cult for the instrument to respond to the delicate harmonics and overtones. The natural frequency of vibration of the armature, which was in the audio range, caused a blasting on certain notes. Furthermore, the energy gen- crated by the movement of the arma- ture to and from the pole pieces was in direct proportion to the square of the distance of travel. That meant that the current output was distorted relative to the sound waves cut on the record. It should be pointed out that the modern magnetic pickup has overcome these difficulties. ‘The Capacity Pickup The new capacity or “modulator” pickup, as it was then called, is dia- grammed in Fig. 2-11, The drawing briefly explains the system. The first tube is oscillating at a frequency gov- cerned by the inductances of Z; and In and the capacity C. Any conventional oscillating circuit may be used with this pickup. Inductively coupled to the oscil- lating coil is a pickup coil, Ls, which is in series with a capacity type pickup, C.-C, and a radio frequency trans- former, R.F., which is broadly tuned to the frequency of the oscillations. The amount of radio frequency current flowing in the primary of the rf trans- former is governed by the capacity of C.-C: Plate C, is fixed, while C; vi- brates, causing a variable radio fre quency current to flow in the circuit in exact proportion to the vibration. C; is fastened to a stylus that is traveling in a groove on the record and is vibrated by the sound waves eut in the record groove. Thus, the modulated rf cur- rent flowing in the primary of the rf transformer is transferred to the sec- ondary and rectified by any of the con- ventional detector circuits, passed through the usual filter circuit and then on to the audio amplifier and loud- speaker. Inasmuch as the frequency passing through C, - Cs is very high, these plates are mechanically very small. Consequently, the vibrating member is very light, usually being made of alumi- num. As this vibrating member does not have to perform any appreciable mechanical work (such as moving an air column or working against a heavy spring tension, as in a magnetic type pickup) it is allowed to “float” in the record groove. As it has very small in- ertia, it can readily respond to all the delicate overtones as well as all the fundamental notes. There is only one frequency to contend with, that of the oscillator, and since the only function of the capacity type of pickup is to vary the amplitude of this frequency, no difficulty was encountered in de- signing a cireuit that would respond to the variations. When the modulated radio frequency current is rectified in the detector cir- cuit and filtered, an electrical wave which exactly corresponds to the sound waves put on the record is transmitted to the audio amplifier for additional reinforcement. Thus we have the transition from earliest acoustical systems to electrical recording techniques.