Audio Timeline

By Leighton Weber

1878• The first music was put on a record.• The song was Yankee Doodle.• The artist was Jules Levy.

1881• The stereo effect were accidentally created.• Clement Ader did this. • He was using carbon microphones and

armature headphones and other people liked the stereo effect.

1888

• Edison introduced an electronic, motor driven phonograph.

1895

• Marconi experimented his wireless telegraphy system in Italy and it was a success.

1898

• The telegraph recorded magnetically on steel wire.

1901

• The Victor Talking Machine Company was founded by Emile Berliner and Eldridge Johnson.

• Experimental recordings were made on motion picture films.

1906

• Lee DeForest invented the triode vacuum tube.

• A triode vacuum tube was the first electronic signal amplifier.

1910

• Enrico Caruso was heard through the first live broadcast.

• Metropolitan Opera, New York City.

1912

• Major Edwin F. Armstrong was issued a patent for a regenerative circuit.

• This made radio reception practical.

1913

• The first “talking movie” was demonstrated by Edison.

• He demonstrated it by using his Kinetophone process, a cylinder player mechanically synchronized to a film projector.

1917

• The Scully disk recording lathe was introduced.

1919

• The Radio Corporation of America, or the RCA, was founded.

1929

• The “Nyquist Theorem” was published by Harry Nyquist.

• The Nyquist Theorem is the mathematical foundation for the sampling theorem basic to all digital audio processing.

1932

• The first cardioid ribbon microphone was patented by Dr. Harry F. Olsen of RCA.

• It used a field coil instead of permanent magnet.

1933

• Snow, Fletcher, and Steinberg at Bell Labs transmited the first inter- city stereo audio program.

1935

• AEG, in Germany, exhibited its “Magnetophon” Model K-1 at the Berlin Radio Exposition.

1936

• BASF made the first recording of a symphony concert.

1939

• Western Electrics designed the first motional feedback, vertical- cut disk recording head.

1941

• Commercial FM broadcasting began in the U.S.

Later in 1941

• Arthur Haddy devised the first motional feedback, lateral- cut disk recording head.

• This was later used to cut his “ffrr” high- fidelity recordings.

1942

• The RCA LC-1 loudspeaker was developed as a reference- standard control- room monitor.

1947

• Ampex produced its first tape recorder, the Model 200.

1948

• The Audio Engineering Society was formed in New York.

1949

• RCA introduced the microgroove 45 rpm, large- hole, 7 inch record and record changer/ adaptor.

1954

• RCA introduces its polydirectional ribbon microphone, the 77DX.

1956

• Les Paul made the first 8 track recording.• He did so using the “Sel- Sync”

method.

1965

• The Dolby Type A, noise reduction system was introduced.

1967

• The Broadway musical, Hair, opened using a high- powered sound system.

1976

• Dr. Stockham from Soundstream made the first 16- bit digital recording system.

1980

• A multitrack digital recorder was introduced.

• It was introduced by Sony, Studer, and Mitsubishi in the same year.

1981

• The Compact Disc, or a CD, was demonstrated.

1983

• Fiber- optic cable was used for long distance audio transmission.

• It linked New York and Washington DC.

1986

• Dr. Gunther Theile introduced the “sphere microphone.”

1991

• Alesis unveiled the ADAT.• ADAT was the first affordable,

mutitrack recorder.

The End

• Thank you for watching!!