Since many of you are/were involved in one way or another in the Business of Music, I thought I’d drop a lil history on ya! – By Tony Winger
The History of Recorded Music
1800′s | 1900′s-1920′s | 1930′s-1950′s | 1960′s-1980′s | 1990′s
1900 E.R. Johnson first used the His Master’s Voice trade mark.
1901 Berliner and Johnson joined interests in the Victor Talking Machine Co. The original etched plate method of reproduction was being replaced by recording on a thick wax blank. Bitter litigation between rival companies alleging patent infringement almost destroyed the entire business.
1902 Caruso had made his first of many records, and records by Dame Nellie Melba were released. The popularity of the cylinder had begun to decline.
1903 The first 12 inch) diameter records were released on the Monarch label. HMV Italiana released Verdi’s “Ernan” on 40 single sided discs.
1904 Fleming invented the diode thermionic valve and, later, Lee de Forest the triode. Electrical recording had become a possibility.
1906 The Victor Company’s Victrola model gramophone first appeared. Victrola was to become a generic term.
1908 Edison continued to persevere with the cylinder machine but the disc was proving ever stronger competition.
1917 The first jazz releases on cylinder helped to delay the final demise of this format. Leopold Stokowski, with the Philadelphia Orchestra, began recording for the Victor Company at the Camden, New Jersey studios.
1919 Electrical recording was in the experimental stage. Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra produced the first million seller with “Japanese Sandman” coupled with “Whispering” and began a major new popular music craze that boosted the record industry throughout the decade. Garrard Engineering, a subsidiary of the British Crown jewellers, commenced manufacture of precision clockwork gramophone motors.
1922 Mons Remy of Belgium and Messieurs Dolon, Renaux and Debrabant, of France, together applied for a French patent covering constant linear speed recording. In England Noel Pemberton Billing independently developed a similar system, UK Patent 195,673/204,728. Pemberton Billing is also famous for founding the Supermarine Aircraft Company which made the Schneider Trophy Winners and the Spitfire of World War II.
1923 The record business was becoming seriously depressed by the growing popularity of radio.
1925 The first electrical recordings were issued by Victor and Colombia in the US. In March, Alfred Cortot electrically recorded works by Chopin and Schubert in Victor’s Camden Studios. The first commercial electrical recording prompted all other major companies to follow suit. In June Jack Hylton and his Orchestra used the technique to record “Feelin Kind O Blue” at the HMV Studios at Hayes, Middlesex. HMV also released the first electrically recorded symphony.
1927 Bartlett Jones of Chicago was granted a US patent for dummy head (kunstkopf) stereo. The Jazz Singer, not the first but the most famous talking picture was released. The British Broadcasting Company started taking the gramophone seriously by commencing a regular long running record programme presented by Christopher Stone, brother-in-law of the novelist, Compton Mackenzie, the founder and first editor of The Gramophone
1928 The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) bought the Victor Talking Machine Company.
1931 The Gramophone Co. (HMV) and the Columbia Graphophone Co. combined to form Electrical and Musical Industries (EMI). Alan Dower Blumlein (EMI) was granted a patent for a stereo recording technique that provided the basis for present day techniques. Edison died aged 84.
1934 BASF manufactured 50,000 metres of magnetic recording tape for use by AEG for large scale experiments.
1935 AEG-Telefunken gave the first public demonstration of the Magnetophon tape recorder at the Berlin Funkausteilung.
1936 BASF engineers, using a Magnetophon, recorded Mozart’s Symphony No.39 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham. The first tape recording of a full symphony orchestra, it still exists and is of surprisingly good quality.
1938 Experiments were being carried out on the problems of multi track optical and magnetic recording onto 35mm film stock.
1941 Leopold Stokowski, who since 1917 had shown an interest in musical techniques to improve recorded performance, conducted the recording sessions for the soundtrack of the Walt Disney film “Fantasia”. The result was a technical and artistic triumph.
1942 RCA Victor presented the first ever “Gold Disc” to Glenn Miller for the million selling “Chattanooga Choo-choo”.
1945 The immediate post-war release of research facilities to peaceful purposes gave tremendous impetus to sound quality improvement. The frequency spectrum covered by recording increased dramatically. During the war years background music came of age. By decreasing fatigue and raising morale, it contributed significantly to wartime productivity. Some estimates found it increased output by as much as 25%. This revelation had an enormous impact on the history and development of recorded sound.
1948 The oil industry had developed a multi purpose thermo plastic, polyvinylchloride (PVC), suitable for making recording tape and gramophone records with very low surface noise. The flow characteristics of PVC made possible the pressing of microgroove long playing records developed by a CBS team headed by Dr Peter Goldmark. Edison had released “Long Playing Discs” with a duration of twenty minutes per side as early as 1926 but they could not be fairly compared with the CBS microgroove LP.
1949 The first demonstration of the transistor by Shockley, Brittain and Bardeen caused a revolution in recording equipment design and performance parameters, and was to have the same effect on domestic equipment. With the release by RCA of the first 7 inch diameter, 45 rpm microgroove discs, a short lived and good tempered battle to establish a new standard, 10 inch (or 12 inch) diameter records at 33.33 rpm or 7 inch (or larger) diameter records at 45rpm, commenced. In the event, both existed happily side by side each serving a particular purpose.
1952 Cinerama presented multi sound track replay to the public for the first time. This stimulated public interest in the possiblility of stereo recordings and research was stepped up.
1950 The record companies generally adopted the new standards with the vast improvements in sound quality. Production of the 78rpm shellac disc began to be discontinued.
1954 The companies began to provide the equipment for stereo recording in major studios. The possibility of recording “right hand” and “left hand” signals simultaneously on separate tracks on quarter inch magnetic tape had already been demonstrated and some of the major problems inherent in transferring both signals to one groove of a disc had been solved by Baumann in 1930.
1956 Stereo LPs became available and new releases were issued in both mono (monaural) and stereo (stereophonic) versions. The Philips original cast recordings of “My Fair Lady” was one of the first million seller LPs together with Van Cliburn playing Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto.
1960 Stereo had almost completely replaced mono as the recording mode. Studios re-equipped with multi-track tape recorders, first 3-track (initially for film work) or half inch or one inch wide tape, then 4 track on one inch wide tape (later reduced to half inch). 8-track on one inch tape increased to 16-track on two inch tape. The maximum tape width has stayed at two inches but the number of tracks has increased still further to 24, 36 and even to 48 tracks.
1963 Philips introduced the Musicassette at the Berlin Funkaustellung.
1965 Pre-recorded Musicassettes were released. Simple to use, the cassette format was to become very popular. However, during its first year on the market only 9000 units were sold. Philips did not protect its cassette as a proprietary technology but encouraged other companies to license its use. The pre-recorded 8 track cartridge appeared on the “in-car entertainment” market. It was considered a convenient medium for this purpose because it could be inserted into the player with one hand and was a continuous loop.
1966 As unwanted background noise had been steadily reduced, so the demand grew for even greater reduction. The film sound engineers had long been using sophisticated devices to achieve noise reduction but recording studios had been slow to follow their example. In 1966 Dr Ray Dolby introduced the Dolby Noise Reduction System which became a universal standard.
1968 By 1968 around eighty-five different manufacturers had sold over 2.4 million cassette players world wide and in that year alone the cassette business was worth about $150 million. By the end of the decade, the Philips compact cassette had become the standard format for tape recording.
1971 Quadrophonic (four channel) records appeared on the market but public reaction was unenthusiastic due to the confusion of incompatible systems and the economic climate.
1975 Recording had become such a complicated process that the computer memory was added to studio equipment.
1977 One hundred years after Edison’s dream that some day in the distant future there would be a talking machine in every home, the average house contained two or three. The cassette had begun to challenge the disc as the most popular format and the number of LPs sold gradually declined while sales of cassettes increased rapidly. Record companies were releasing their product in both formats.
1978 First announcement of Compact Disc from Philips Industries.
1979 Sony introduced the Soundabout cassette player which was later renamed the Walkman. The innovative elements of this machine were the tiny headphones capable of producing good quality sound with only the smallest signal from the amplifier, and the increased output from the batteries which powered the machine. Initially considered a novelty and priced at $200 it was not considered a product for mass marketing.
1981 The Walkman II was introduced. It was 25% smaller than the original version and had 50% fewer moving parts. Its price dropped considerably and it was to become one of the most successful audio products of the post war period. MTV (Music Television), a cable channel began transmitting video clips. During the next few years, the music video became essential for the promotion of a recording and once established as a promotional tool it became an entertainment product in its own right. Philips began to demonstrate their compact disc system to representatives of the audio industry. Research had been carried out jointly with the Sony Corporation of Japan and together they produced a commercial digital play back record.
1982 Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” album released by the Columbia subsidiary Epic Records ultimately sold 40m copies world wide and became the most successful product in the history of recorded sound. With the help of elaborate music videos, the album produced seven best-selling albums. Compact Disc (CD) hardware and software was launched in Japan in October.
1983 CD was officially launched in the UK on 1 March. It was hailed as “the most important development in the recorded music industry since the long playing record”.
1984 The CD was firmly established as the finest available music carrier for the present and foreseeable future. Bob Geldof, Irish singer and guitarist, organised Band Aid which, by means of large benefit concerts, recordings and television appearances and keenly supported by the music fraternity and public alike, raised more than 50million to help the starving populations of Africa.
1986 After slow initial sales, 50 million CD units were sold in the year.
1988 For the first time sales of CD were higher than vinyl. By 1989 the CD accounted for over 200 million units and the LP was beginning to disappear from record stores.
1989 DAT was introduced by Sony in the US. It employed the cassette format to record digitally but using a smaller sized cassette. Under pressure from the recording industry the DAT hardware manufacturers agreed to install SCMS (Serial Copy Management System) in all equipment to prevent digital copying.
1991 Philips began to introduce its Compact Disc Interactive (CD-I) technology to industrial users before marketing it as an entertainment system for all consumers. It is based on a CD-ROM (read only memory) technology which stores and reads information in the same way as a compact disc. CD-I systems can play audio discs and films as well as numerous other publications from computer games to illustrated encyclopedias.
1992 Philips introduced the Digital Compact Cassette (DCC) which was compatible with the magnetic audio cassette. The DCC was the same size as the musicassette and the new players were capable of playing both formats. Unable to reach agreement with Philips over the format of digital recording technology, Sony responded to the challenge of DCC by introducing the MiniDisc (MD) which combined the reproduction quality of a CD with the ease of recording of the audio cassette.
1993 In spite of the arrival of DCC and MD, the CD still remained the dominant format.
1996 The first DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) product was shown at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. DVD is essentially a faster CD with a huge capacity capable of holding video as well as audio and computer data.
1997 Elton John’s tribute to Diana, Princess of Wales, “Candle in the Wind 1997″ became the fastest selling single ever and was certified 8 times platinum by the RIAA within 24 hours of release.
1998 Music piracy on the Internet, using the MP3 format, became a cult activity. Watermarks, which cannot be heard, were introduced for music.
1999 SDMI specification published, aiming to provide a legal alternative to pirate music.
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