1 00:00:04,160 --> 00:00:07,160 Speaker 1: Get in tech with technology with tech Stuff from how 2 00:00:07,240 --> 00:00:13,840 Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 3 00:00:13,880 --> 00:00:19,079 Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm a producer host a 4 00:00:19,200 --> 00:00:22,159 Speaker 1: gad about town here at how Stuff Works, and I 5 00:00:22,239 --> 00:00:26,599 Speaker 1: love all things tech and we're going to continue our 6 00:00:26,760 --> 00:00:33,440 Speaker 1: series of listener requests about tech that relates back to music. Today, 7 00:00:33,800 --> 00:00:38,080 Speaker 1: I'm talking about a request from listener Gelert. Gellert wrote 8 00:00:38,080 --> 00:00:41,080 Speaker 1: in to ask that I do an episode about DJ technology. 9 00:00:41,800 --> 00:00:45,600 Speaker 1: Here's the thing, there's a ton to cover in DJ tech, 10 00:00:46,200 --> 00:00:49,479 Speaker 1: and I could have just done one sort of overview episode, 11 00:00:49,520 --> 00:00:51,879 Speaker 1: but I don't feel like that's really the spirit of 12 00:00:51,920 --> 00:00:54,520 Speaker 1: this show, and I don't think it just I don't 13 00:00:54,520 --> 00:00:56,840 Speaker 1: think it will do justice to Gellert's request, and I 14 00:00:56,880 --> 00:01:00,320 Speaker 1: don't think it really serves you guys well as lessners. 15 00:01:00,400 --> 00:01:03,800 Speaker 1: So instead, I'm gonna take my time and for this 16 00:01:03,840 --> 00:01:07,880 Speaker 1: particular episode, I'm going to focus on the origin of 17 00:01:08,080 --> 00:01:11,319 Speaker 1: one piece of technology used in DJ work, and that 18 00:01:11,360 --> 00:01:15,400 Speaker 1: would be the predecessor of the turntable. That's right, I'm 19 00:01:15,440 --> 00:01:18,400 Speaker 1: not even really talking about the turntable in this episode because, 20 00:01:18,840 --> 00:01:22,280 Speaker 1: as it turns out, no pun intended. I'm probably gonna 21 00:01:22,280 --> 00:01:25,360 Speaker 1: be saying turn a lot this episode, but trust me, 22 00:01:25,400 --> 00:01:27,640 Speaker 1: I'm not intending it to be kind of a pun. 23 00:01:28,240 --> 00:01:30,960 Speaker 1: But as it turns out, it's a very long and 24 00:01:31,120 --> 00:01:35,440 Speaker 1: rich history, and it's really interesting well before it ever 25 00:01:35,480 --> 00:01:38,120 Speaker 1: becomes what we would typically call a turntable or a 26 00:01:38,120 --> 00:01:40,960 Speaker 1: record player. So this is part one, and in part 27 00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:43,959 Speaker 1: two we will continue that story before moving on to 28 00:01:44,440 --> 00:01:47,680 Speaker 1: other listener requests that also have to do with music. 29 00:01:48,320 --> 00:01:51,920 Speaker 1: So a few years ago, I probably would have made 30 00:01:51,920 --> 00:01:53,640 Speaker 1: a joke, In fact, I know I would have made 31 00:01:53,640 --> 00:01:56,080 Speaker 1: the joke that most of you guys out there have 32 00:01:56,200 --> 00:01:59,800 Speaker 1: no idea what a turntable is because vinyl had gone 33 00:01:59,800 --> 00:02:02,280 Speaker 1: out of favor after a while, and really the only 34 00:02:02,280 --> 00:02:05,840 Speaker 1: people who were interested in vinyl were collectors and DJ's 35 00:02:06,160 --> 00:02:09,520 Speaker 1: and everyone else had kind of lost any connection to it. 36 00:02:09,600 --> 00:02:13,600 Speaker 1: But since then, vinyl has obviously experienced a renaissance. You've 37 00:02:13,639 --> 00:02:16,920 Speaker 1: got a lot more bands that are producing albums in vinyl, 38 00:02:17,320 --> 00:02:19,600 Speaker 1: You've got a lot more companies out there making equipment 39 00:02:19,600 --> 00:02:21,960 Speaker 1: to play vinyl. You've got a lot more people out 40 00:02:21,960 --> 00:02:26,440 Speaker 1: there interested in buying it. So heck, the Facebook friendship 41 00:02:26,520 --> 00:02:29,840 Speaker 1: anniversary videos that you get whenever it's your anniversary of 42 00:02:29,919 --> 00:02:33,239 Speaker 1: making friends with someone on Facebook that features a vinyl 43 00:02:33,320 --> 00:02:36,079 Speaker 1: album being placed on a turntable, so the references are 44 00:02:36,080 --> 00:02:39,520 Speaker 1: out there. So I'm gonna assume y'all know what a 45 00:02:39,520 --> 00:02:42,160 Speaker 1: turntable is. Now. In my neck of the woods, we 46 00:02:42,560 --> 00:02:45,240 Speaker 1: sometimes would call these record players, but you should know 47 00:02:45,560 --> 00:02:49,519 Speaker 1: record players and turntables are technically two different types of technology. 48 00:02:49,560 --> 00:02:53,000 Speaker 1: They're very similar. A record player has a turntable incorporated 49 00:02:53,040 --> 00:02:57,520 Speaker 1: into it, but you shouldn't just use the terms interchangeably, 50 00:02:57,919 --> 00:03:01,280 Speaker 1: like I am probably going to you, because old habits 51 00:03:01,320 --> 00:03:05,560 Speaker 1: die hard, y'all. So this is a really big story, 52 00:03:05,800 --> 00:03:08,000 Speaker 1: and like I said, this is part one of the 53 00:03:08,040 --> 00:03:10,720 Speaker 1: history of turntables and how they work. In our next episode, 54 00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:13,880 Speaker 1: we'll pick up where we left off today and uh 55 00:03:13,880 --> 00:03:17,480 Speaker 1: spoiler alert, that'll be just before World War Two, but 56 00:03:17,800 --> 00:03:21,040 Speaker 1: we're gonna go from its origins up to that point today, 57 00:03:21,160 --> 00:03:25,360 Speaker 1: and then maybe we'll start chatting in the next episode 58 00:03:25,360 --> 00:03:28,000 Speaker 1: about some of the features you'll find on modern turntable, 59 00:03:28,080 --> 00:03:30,800 Speaker 1: specifically the ones that professional d j z is because 60 00:03:31,120 --> 00:03:34,960 Speaker 1: they've got some metaphorical bells and whistles that you won't 61 00:03:35,000 --> 00:03:37,720 Speaker 1: find on your typical record player at home. Now, I 62 00:03:37,760 --> 00:03:40,200 Speaker 1: feel like I've talked a lot about the physics of 63 00:03:40,320 --> 00:03:44,160 Speaker 1: sound over the past few episodes, so I'm just gonna 64 00:03:44,240 --> 00:03:46,600 Speaker 1: hit the high points so that we have that foundation. 65 00:03:46,920 --> 00:03:51,240 Speaker 1: Sound is vibration, and we primarily hear sounds through these 66 00:03:51,320 --> 00:03:55,840 Speaker 1: vibrations affecting the tympanic membrane in our ears, which transfers 67 00:03:55,880 --> 00:04:00,760 Speaker 1: those vibrations to structures called cochlea inside our inner ear, 68 00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:05,040 Speaker 1: And inside the cochlea there's fluid that when it moves 69 00:04:05,800 --> 00:04:09,600 Speaker 1: due to these vibrations, it stimulates special nerve cells that 70 00:04:09,640 --> 00:04:13,480 Speaker 1: then send impulses to the brain, which interprets all of 71 00:04:13,520 --> 00:04:16,760 Speaker 1: that as sound. I think that's the most important bits 72 00:04:16,800 --> 00:04:19,680 Speaker 1: that I could hit. But remembering that sound is a 73 00:04:19,760 --> 00:04:24,159 Speaker 1: physical phenomena, it is vibration, that's the important part. When 74 00:04:24,160 --> 00:04:28,560 Speaker 1: it comes to the history of turntables and recorded sound. Now, 75 00:04:28,600 --> 00:04:31,520 Speaker 1: the idea of a device that could play back sound 76 00:04:31,760 --> 00:04:35,560 Speaker 1: dates back much further than our ability to achieve such 77 00:04:35,560 --> 00:04:38,159 Speaker 1: a goal. This what came as a big surprise to me. 78 00:04:38,680 --> 00:04:44,000 Speaker 1: So there was a great French novelist, seven Yen de 79 00:04:44,200 --> 00:04:48,960 Speaker 1: Siernald de Bejarac, who lived during the seventeen century. He 80 00:04:49,040 --> 00:04:53,960 Speaker 1: actually wrote about such a potential gadget not in a 81 00:04:54,040 --> 00:04:58,080 Speaker 1: way of or not as a means of making one like. 82 00:04:58,080 --> 00:05:00,080 Speaker 1: It wasn't a set of instructions, but rather just a 83 00:05:00,200 --> 00:05:03,360 Speaker 1: concept he had. And this is, by the way, the 84 00:05:03,400 --> 00:05:07,400 Speaker 1: person whom the play sierra No de Bergerac was based 85 00:05:07,480 --> 00:05:11,000 Speaker 1: upon it was a real person, and he actually did 86 00:05:11,400 --> 00:05:13,760 Speaker 1: have quite the shnaws on him. If you know the 87 00:05:13,760 --> 00:05:17,720 Speaker 1: story of Sierrano de Bergerac, you know he was regarded 88 00:05:17,720 --> 00:05:20,880 Speaker 1: as a man who was very gifted in language, a 89 00:05:20,920 --> 00:05:24,480 Speaker 1: wonderful poet, but also, and not to mention, a deadly duelist, 90 00:05:24,520 --> 00:05:26,599 Speaker 1: but also a guy who had a really big nose. 91 00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:30,159 Speaker 1: As it turns out, the real Sierrano de Bergerac was 92 00:05:30,200 --> 00:05:32,599 Speaker 1: all those things, but most of the other elements in 93 00:05:32,640 --> 00:05:37,360 Speaker 1: the famous play based off of his life are largely invented. Anyway, 94 00:05:37,760 --> 00:05:42,680 Speaker 1: sierra No wrote the following about a device he discovered. 95 00:05:42,880 --> 00:05:46,360 Speaker 1: Let's say, in a dream. He was dreaming about the 96 00:05:46,400 --> 00:05:50,919 Speaker 1: moon and possible inhabitants of the moon, and he in 97 00:05:51,040 --> 00:05:54,560 Speaker 1: this dream he encounters a box, and he says, when 98 00:05:54,560 --> 00:05:58,240 Speaker 1: I opened a box, I found something made of metal 99 00:05:58,640 --> 00:06:02,080 Speaker 1: somewhat like our locks, full of an endless number of 100 00:06:02,160 --> 00:06:06,520 Speaker 1: little springs and tiny machines. It was indeed a book, 101 00:06:06,760 --> 00:06:09,240 Speaker 1: but it was a miraculous one that had no pages 102 00:06:09,360 --> 00:06:11,760 Speaker 1: or printed letters. It was a book to be read 103 00:06:11,880 --> 00:06:15,440 Speaker 1: not with the eyes, but with ears. When anyone wants 104 00:06:15,480 --> 00:06:17,880 Speaker 1: to read, he winds up the machine with a large 105 00:06:17,960 --> 00:06:20,640 Speaker 1: number of keys of all kinds. Then he turns the 106 00:06:20,680 --> 00:06:23,599 Speaker 1: indicator to the chapter he wants to listen to. As 107 00:06:23,640 --> 00:06:26,600 Speaker 1: though from the mouth of a person or a musical instrument, 108 00:06:26,720 --> 00:06:30,159 Speaker 1: come all the distinct and different sounds that the upper 109 00:06:30,240 --> 00:06:33,840 Speaker 1: class moon beings used in their language. When I thought 110 00:06:33,839 --> 00:06:36,680 Speaker 1: about this marvelous way of making books, I was no 111 00:06:36,760 --> 00:06:39,400 Speaker 1: longer surprised that the young people of that country know 112 00:06:39,560 --> 00:06:42,800 Speaker 1: more at the age of sixteen or eighteen than the 113 00:06:42,839 --> 00:06:46,000 Speaker 1: graybeards of our world. They can read as soon as 114 00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:48,400 Speaker 1: they can talk, and are never at a loss for 115 00:06:48,480 --> 00:06:52,600 Speaker 1: reading material. In their rooms, on walks in town, during 116 00:06:52,680 --> 00:06:56,440 Speaker 1: voyages on foot, or on horseback, they can have thirty 117 00:06:56,480 --> 00:06:59,120 Speaker 1: books in their pockets or hanging on the pommels of 118 00:06:59,160 --> 00:07:02,240 Speaker 1: their saddles. They need only wind to spring to hear 119 00:07:02,320 --> 00:07:06,480 Speaker 1: one or more chapters, or a whole book, if they wish. Thus, 120 00:07:06,520 --> 00:07:09,040 Speaker 1: you always have with you all the great men, both 121 00:07:09,120 --> 00:07:14,040 Speaker 1: living and dead, who speak to you in their own voices. Now, 122 00:07:14,080 --> 00:07:16,280 Speaker 1: I think that's actually a remarkable dream when you think 123 00:07:16,280 --> 00:07:19,960 Speaker 1: about it, because what Siatrano de Bergerac is describing in 124 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:25,080 Speaker 1: this fanciful description of a dream are are things that 125 00:07:25,120 --> 00:07:28,640 Speaker 1: we have today. The idea of having a device that's 126 00:07:28,680 --> 00:07:32,240 Speaker 1: able to play back for you and audio copy of 127 00:07:32,240 --> 00:07:34,440 Speaker 1: a book. I mean, we have entire businesses that are 128 00:07:34,480 --> 00:07:38,680 Speaker 1: built around making audio books available and then devices that 129 00:07:38,760 --> 00:07:43,120 Speaker 1: can play those, and so sierr No's just being fanciful, 130 00:07:43,160 --> 00:07:46,000 Speaker 1: but today we actually have that stuff. So this was 131 00:07:46,120 --> 00:07:50,040 Speaker 1: kind of amazing science fiction from this uh, this French 132 00:07:50,160 --> 00:07:55,000 Speaker 1: author back in hundreds of years ago. So it's a 133 00:07:55,080 --> 00:07:57,360 Speaker 1: charming dream, but as I said, it was a little 134 00:07:57,400 --> 00:07:59,720 Speaker 1: more than wishful thinking in sierr No's day. It would 135 00:07:59,760 --> 00:08:04,000 Speaker 1: take two more centuries before someone attempted a practical means 136 00:08:04,040 --> 00:08:07,640 Speaker 1: to convert sound into a recorded medium. And it was 137 00:08:07,680 --> 00:08:11,240 Speaker 1: in a peculiar but a clever way. Before there was 138 00:08:11,320 --> 00:08:15,520 Speaker 1: ever a phonograph or a grammophone, and certainly long before 139 00:08:15,560 --> 00:08:19,200 Speaker 1: there were turntables or record players, there was the phone autograph. 140 00:08:19,640 --> 00:08:24,760 Speaker 1: A nineteenth century French bookseller named Edward Leon Scott de 141 00:08:24,880 --> 00:08:28,040 Speaker 1: Martinville came up with the idea or Martin Villa, if 142 00:08:28,040 --> 00:08:29,680 Speaker 1: you prefer it, came up with this idea and it 143 00:08:29,720 --> 00:08:34,160 Speaker 1: was a pretty cool one. In the eighteen fifties. Eddie, 144 00:08:34,280 --> 00:08:37,040 Speaker 1: as I call him, was reflecting on the growing art 145 00:08:37,120 --> 00:08:41,120 Speaker 1: and science of photography, which was a very young technology 146 00:08:41,240 --> 00:08:44,640 Speaker 1: at that time. Photographs were able to capture moments in 147 00:08:44,720 --> 00:08:48,640 Speaker 1: still images, but what if you could capture sound in 148 00:08:48,679 --> 00:08:52,960 Speaker 1: a similar way and make a record of actual audible stimuli. 149 00:08:53,480 --> 00:08:56,440 Speaker 1: Scott created a design for a machine that would do 150 00:08:56,520 --> 00:08:59,400 Speaker 1: just that. It did not record sound directly to a 151 00:08:59,440 --> 00:09:03,800 Speaker 1: medium exactly, but rather made a record of sound upon 152 00:09:03,880 --> 00:09:08,360 Speaker 1: a visual format. He proposed mounting an acoustic trumpet over 153 00:09:08,440 --> 00:09:11,720 Speaker 1: a pane of glass that was coated in lamp black, 154 00:09:12,200 --> 00:09:14,200 Speaker 1: so sort of like a kind of like an ink. 155 00:09:14,880 --> 00:09:18,040 Speaker 1: The flared end of the trumpet would face the sounds 156 00:09:18,080 --> 00:09:20,720 Speaker 1: you wish to document, so it's almost like the business 157 00:09:20,840 --> 00:09:24,240 Speaker 1: end of a microphone. You would put the sound into 158 00:09:24,360 --> 00:09:27,080 Speaker 1: that side of it. The small end of the trumpet 159 00:09:27,240 --> 00:09:31,480 Speaker 1: had a very thin membrane stretched across it, so uh, 160 00:09:31,520 --> 00:09:33,520 Speaker 1: if it were a classical trumpet, the part that you 161 00:09:33,520 --> 00:09:35,559 Speaker 1: would blow in the mouthpiece that would have a little 162 00:09:35,600 --> 00:09:39,719 Speaker 1: membrane on it. Mounted on the center of this membrane, 163 00:09:39,760 --> 00:09:42,480 Speaker 1: facing away from the interior of the trumpet and toward 164 00:09:42,559 --> 00:09:45,600 Speaker 1: the pane of glass, would be a small needle made 165 00:09:45,600 --> 00:09:49,000 Speaker 1: from a flexible but stiff material such as boar's hair. 166 00:09:49,600 --> 00:09:54,200 Speaker 1: This needle would make very light contact with that pane 167 00:09:54,200 --> 00:09:57,360 Speaker 1: of glass, just enough so that if the needle would 168 00:09:57,400 --> 00:10:01,240 Speaker 1: move due to vibrations in the membrane, it would disturb 169 00:10:01,440 --> 00:10:04,520 Speaker 1: the lamp black. Vibrations in the membrane. Now, I feel 170 00:10:04,520 --> 00:10:08,160 Speaker 1: like singing a song, but I'm not gonna Scott proposed 171 00:10:08,200 --> 00:10:11,560 Speaker 1: moving the lamp black so that the needle would gently 172 00:10:11,640 --> 00:10:15,439 Speaker 1: drag across it, and then speaking into the trumpet, you 173 00:10:15,480 --> 00:10:18,920 Speaker 1: would create these vibrations and that would end up tracing 174 00:10:19,040 --> 00:10:22,720 Speaker 1: patterns on the lamp black. You would smear the lamp 175 00:10:22,720 --> 00:10:26,040 Speaker 1: black away and what would be left is a pattern 176 00:10:26,120 --> 00:10:29,000 Speaker 1: that would represent whatever the sound was that went into 177 00:10:29,120 --> 00:10:32,760 Speaker 1: the trumpet. So you would have a record of what 178 00:10:32,920 --> 00:10:36,480 Speaker 1: happened just dragged in this lamp black. Now, he didn't 179 00:10:36,520 --> 00:10:39,120 Speaker 1: intend for this device to have any useful ability to 180 00:10:39,200 --> 00:10:42,720 Speaker 1: play back sound. Instead, he thought it would create a 181 00:10:42,800 --> 00:10:48,079 Speaker 1: type of natural stenography that way of actually taking down dictation. 182 00:10:48,200 --> 00:10:51,000 Speaker 1: For example, it would be a visual record of the 183 00:10:51,040 --> 00:10:54,720 Speaker 1: noises that were present during the recording session, and perhaps 184 00:10:54,760 --> 00:10:57,480 Speaker 1: one day, with enough study, we would be able to 185 00:10:57,559 --> 00:11:01,360 Speaker 1: read the words that were spoken simply by looking at 186 00:11:01,360 --> 00:11:04,560 Speaker 1: the patterns that had been left behind in the lampblack. So, 187 00:11:04,600 --> 00:11:07,559 Speaker 1: in other words, you might say the same sound over 188 00:11:07,600 --> 00:11:10,439 Speaker 1: and over and over again while you use this machine, 189 00:11:10,720 --> 00:11:13,400 Speaker 1: you look for the pattern that's made from speaking that 190 00:11:13,520 --> 00:11:16,480 Speaker 1: sound while the machine is in use, and then you say, 191 00:11:16,520 --> 00:11:19,920 Speaker 1: all right, every time I see this particular shape in 192 00:11:20,679 --> 00:11:24,160 Speaker 1: this kind of glass, I know that it was that 193 00:11:24,320 --> 00:11:26,760 Speaker 1: sound that made this shape. That was kind of the 194 00:11:26,800 --> 00:11:29,240 Speaker 1: basis of his idea. As it turns out, this wasn't 195 00:11:29,280 --> 00:11:32,320 Speaker 1: that far fetched. In fact, it's now been done more 196 00:11:32,360 --> 00:11:35,320 Speaker 1: than a century later. In two thousand and eight, historians 197 00:11:35,320 --> 00:11:38,960 Speaker 1: were able to use optical imaging to scan phone autograph 198 00:11:39,120 --> 00:11:42,880 Speaker 1: cylinders and play back the sound. There's a great example 199 00:11:42,920 --> 00:11:46,280 Speaker 1: of one that recorded someone singing au Claire de la lune, 200 00:11:46,360 --> 00:11:50,199 Speaker 1: a French folks song. The sound file the historians generated 201 00:11:50,280 --> 00:11:52,960 Speaker 1: at first didn't sound anything like that. It didn't sound 202 00:11:53,040 --> 00:11:55,679 Speaker 1: recognizable at all, at least not to me. But they 203 00:11:55,720 --> 00:11:58,800 Speaker 1: built in some algorithms to clean stuff up, to adjust 204 00:11:58,880 --> 00:12:03,240 Speaker 1: the playback speed, to remove some harmonics to enhance some 205 00:12:03,320 --> 00:12:05,640 Speaker 1: other elements of it, and then once they were done, 206 00:12:05,679 --> 00:12:09,440 Speaker 1: it was unmistakably au Claire de la Loon. By eighteen 207 00:12:09,480 --> 00:12:13,520 Speaker 1: fifty nine, Scott partnered with a man named Rudolph Kinnig, 208 00:12:13,800 --> 00:12:18,040 Speaker 1: who specialized in building precise instrumentation. He was a machinist. 209 00:12:18,520 --> 00:12:23,120 Speaker 1: The two determined that one necessary requirement was a means 210 00:12:23,200 --> 00:12:26,439 Speaker 1: to have an accurate and precise measurement of the passing 211 00:12:26,480 --> 00:12:29,160 Speaker 1: of time in relation to the creation of a recording. 212 00:12:29,640 --> 00:12:32,720 Speaker 1: By using a tuning fork of a known pitch, the 213 00:12:32,760 --> 00:12:35,559 Speaker 1: two could determine the amount of time that passed during 214 00:12:35,600 --> 00:12:38,679 Speaker 1: any part of a recording. A tuning fork will always 215 00:12:38,760 --> 00:12:42,560 Speaker 1: vibrate at the same frequency. The specific frequency depends upon 216 00:12:42,600 --> 00:12:45,160 Speaker 1: the tuning forks. So if you have a tuning fork 217 00:12:45,480 --> 00:12:48,920 Speaker 1: with a fundamental frequency of the note A, it will 218 00:12:49,040 --> 00:12:51,840 Speaker 1: vibrate at four hundred forty times per second or four 219 00:12:51,920 --> 00:12:55,440 Speaker 1: hundred forty hurts. So if you have an a tuning 220 00:12:55,480 --> 00:12:58,480 Speaker 1: fork and you strike it and then you put that 221 00:12:58,520 --> 00:13:01,959 Speaker 1: next to one of these phonautographs as it's recording, you'll 222 00:13:02,040 --> 00:13:06,160 Speaker 1: get this very even pattern that's made from the vibration 223 00:13:06,320 --> 00:13:09,600 Speaker 1: of that needle. And if you count the repetition of 224 00:13:09,640 --> 00:13:13,320 Speaker 1: that pattern, essentially the wave that you're seeing. You should 225 00:13:13,520 --> 00:13:17,520 Speaker 1: be able to say, well, this this stretch represents one second, 226 00:13:17,559 --> 00:13:21,160 Speaker 1: because there are four hundred and forty of those repeated 227 00:13:21,200 --> 00:13:24,640 Speaker 1: patterns here, and we know that the tuning fork it 228 00:13:24,920 --> 00:13:27,640 Speaker 1: vibrates at four forty times per seconds. So by counting 229 00:13:27,679 --> 00:13:29,640 Speaker 1: those up and we get to four or forty, we say, 230 00:13:29,640 --> 00:13:32,840 Speaker 1: all right, that represents one second of recording time. And 231 00:13:32,880 --> 00:13:36,559 Speaker 1: according to the National Park Service website, Scott's original design 232 00:13:36,600 --> 00:13:40,079 Speaker 1: would move the glass pane across the needle at a 233 00:13:40,160 --> 00:13:44,040 Speaker 1: speed of about one meter per second, which is pretty 234 00:13:44,160 --> 00:13:48,040 Speaker 1: darn fast. Now. The reason I mentioned Scott's work is 235 00:13:48,040 --> 00:13:50,839 Speaker 1: to point out that many different people were thinking about 236 00:13:50,840 --> 00:13:53,640 Speaker 1: ways to preserve sound, whether in a format that could 237 00:13:53,679 --> 00:13:56,880 Speaker 1: be played back or some other method of notation, and 238 00:13:56,920 --> 00:13:59,320 Speaker 1: a few looked at Scott's work and began to wonder 239 00:13:59,400 --> 00:14:02,480 Speaker 1: if such a thing would be possible with the phonoten graph. 240 00:14:02,720 --> 00:14:07,720 Speaker 1: One such smarty pants was Alexander Graham Bell, who theorized 241 00:14:07,760 --> 00:14:09,760 Speaker 1: that if you could find a means to trace the 242 00:14:09,760 --> 00:14:14,479 Speaker 1: patterns created by the phonotograph and transmit vibrations to a membrane, 243 00:14:14,840 --> 00:14:18,000 Speaker 1: you could recreate the sound that originally was responsible for 244 00:14:18,040 --> 00:14:21,600 Speaker 1: the markings. In other words, if you reverse this process 245 00:14:21,640 --> 00:14:25,520 Speaker 1: where the patterns that are on the pane of glass 246 00:14:25,840 --> 00:14:30,119 Speaker 1: can transfer vibrations back to a needle, back to a membrane, 247 00:14:30,600 --> 00:14:33,040 Speaker 1: you should be able to replicate the sound that made 248 00:14:33,040 --> 00:14:36,200 Speaker 1: those patterns in the first place. But he couldn't quite 249 00:14:36,240 --> 00:14:38,240 Speaker 1: figure out how to do it, Plus he was kind 250 00:14:38,240 --> 00:14:42,040 Speaker 1: of busy with other stuff, like inventing the telephone. In 251 00:14:42,160 --> 00:14:46,480 Speaker 1: April eighteen seventy seven, a French poet named Charles Kroll 252 00:14:47,200 --> 00:14:51,000 Speaker 1: suggested a method he thought might just work. And this 253 00:14:51,040 --> 00:14:54,080 Speaker 1: is where I really marvel at how French poets were 254 00:14:54,120 --> 00:14:58,560 Speaker 1: so forward thinking and inventive. Anyway, Miss r Krow said 255 00:14:58,600 --> 00:15:02,160 Speaker 1: that if you could etch sound into a medium, such 256 00:15:02,160 --> 00:15:05,320 Speaker 1: as a disc of tempered steel, you could create an 257 00:15:05,320 --> 00:15:09,000 Speaker 1: apparatus that could use those etchings to recreate the original sound. 258 00:15:09,480 --> 00:15:13,760 Speaker 1: He called his proposed invention a paleophone. He filed a 259 00:15:13,800 --> 00:15:16,320 Speaker 1: paper on the subject with the French Academy of Science, 260 00:15:16,880 --> 00:15:21,480 Speaker 1: wherein more or less was forgotten about for a few months. Meanwhile, 261 00:15:21,720 --> 00:15:24,200 Speaker 1: another person was at work on this concept, and that 262 00:15:24,320 --> 00:15:28,760 Speaker 1: was the Wizard of Menlo Park himself, Thomas Edison now 263 00:15:29,720 --> 00:15:32,440 Speaker 1: a moment here. I think Edison gets an awful lot 264 00:15:32,440 --> 00:15:35,560 Speaker 1: of credit for this field, and it is good to 265 00:15:35,560 --> 00:15:37,880 Speaker 1: remind ourselves that he was not the only big thinker 266 00:15:37,920 --> 00:15:41,400 Speaker 1: out there. It's also important to acknowledge that Edison employed 267 00:15:41,400 --> 00:15:44,680 Speaker 1: a lot of people, and many of those people contributed 268 00:15:44,800 --> 00:15:48,440 Speaker 1: in very meaningful ways to the things that he had invented. 269 00:15:49,000 --> 00:15:52,600 Speaker 1: So we really should mention that a lot of Edison's 270 00:15:52,640 --> 00:15:55,640 Speaker 1: inventions were truly collaborative efforts, at least when it got 271 00:15:55,640 --> 00:15:58,280 Speaker 1: to the part of taking an idea and making it 272 00:15:58,360 --> 00:16:01,120 Speaker 1: a real thing. Now, that's not to take away from Edison. 273 00:16:01,480 --> 00:16:04,560 Speaker 1: He really was a remarkable innovator. He did come up 274 00:16:04,600 --> 00:16:07,960 Speaker 1: with these amazing ideas. But we do need to also 275 00:16:08,000 --> 00:16:11,640 Speaker 1: credit the other people who contributed, and they should get 276 00:16:11,680 --> 00:16:14,520 Speaker 1: some props for their work well. According to the story, 277 00:16:15,080 --> 00:16:18,400 Speaker 1: Edison first got the idea for what would become the 278 00:16:18,440 --> 00:16:22,920 Speaker 1: phonograph by accident. He had been working on a completely 279 00:16:23,040 --> 00:16:27,280 Speaker 1: different piece of technology that was designed to record incoming 280 00:16:27,280 --> 00:16:31,480 Speaker 1: Morse code messages from a telegraph machine. So his invention 281 00:16:31,560 --> 00:16:36,520 Speaker 1: consisted of paper that was wrapped around a rotating drum 282 00:16:36,560 --> 00:16:41,040 Speaker 1: and a stylus connected to the incoming telegraph messages would 283 00:16:41,120 --> 00:16:44,200 Speaker 1: move against the paper as the drum rotated, and it 284 00:16:44,200 --> 00:16:48,120 Speaker 1: would make indentations that would indicate the dots and dashes 285 00:16:48,320 --> 00:16:52,040 Speaker 1: from the Morse code. Edison told his buddy Edward H. 286 00:16:52,160 --> 00:16:55,760 Speaker 1: Johnson about it, and how when Edison rotated the drum 287 00:16:55,840 --> 00:16:59,640 Speaker 1: quickly and the stylists vibrated against those indentations that it 288 00:16:59,760 --> 00:17:04,119 Speaker 1: may it would create this sort of humming noise. And 289 00:17:04,240 --> 00:17:07,560 Speaker 1: Edison theorized that he could use a device like that 290 00:17:08,160 --> 00:17:11,320 Speaker 1: if he fitted it with a diaphragm as opposed to 291 00:17:11,440 --> 00:17:14,240 Speaker 1: having it connected to a telegraph machine, he might be 292 00:17:14,280 --> 00:17:16,919 Speaker 1: able to record sound directly to a physical medium and 293 00:17:16,960 --> 00:17:20,000 Speaker 1: play it back. The diaphragm would vibrate, the stylist would 294 00:17:20,000 --> 00:17:24,119 Speaker 1: move against the paper drum, and then if you spun 295 00:17:24,160 --> 00:17:26,440 Speaker 1: it again, like if you reset the needle at the top, 296 00:17:26,480 --> 00:17:28,720 Speaker 1: and you spun the drum again, then it would cause 297 00:17:28,800 --> 00:17:33,200 Speaker 1: that needle or that stylist to vibrate, transmit those vibrations 298 00:17:33,200 --> 00:17:35,720 Speaker 1: to the membrane, and then you would have the sound again. 299 00:17:36,240 --> 00:17:39,240 Speaker 1: Now he was doing this independently. He had not read 300 00:17:39,320 --> 00:17:43,200 Speaker 1: of Crow's work, so this was not him copying someone else. 301 00:17:43,480 --> 00:17:47,000 Speaker 1: He was just kind of theorizing to his buddy, and 302 00:17:47,560 --> 00:17:51,000 Speaker 1: he thought that's a neat idea. Well, Edward Johnson thought 303 00:17:51,000 --> 00:17:53,360 Speaker 1: it was way more than a neat idea. He actually 304 00:17:53,400 --> 00:17:57,880 Speaker 1: went and wrote to the journal Scientific American UH, which 305 00:17:57,960 --> 00:18:00,879 Speaker 1: published the letter that said Edison was working on a 306 00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:05,840 Speaker 1: quote speaking telegraph in the quote device. Now this put 307 00:18:06,160 --> 00:18:09,000 Speaker 1: a bunch of pressure on Edison. He was in a pickle. 308 00:18:09,240 --> 00:18:12,280 Speaker 1: He needed to either get to work on actually inventing 309 00:18:12,359 --> 00:18:14,760 Speaker 1: this thing he had sort of just been kind of 310 00:18:15,080 --> 00:18:19,639 Speaker 1: hypothesizing about to his friend, or risk facing a public 311 00:18:19,680 --> 00:18:22,560 Speaker 1: failure in in not doing so. So he began to 312 00:18:22,600 --> 00:18:25,680 Speaker 1: work in Earnest on creating a gadget capable of recording 313 00:18:25,760 --> 00:18:30,159 Speaker 1: sound to physical media. Edison created a design based on 314 00:18:30,240 --> 00:18:33,399 Speaker 1: his ideas and then sent that design to a machinist 315 00:18:33,440 --> 00:18:37,439 Speaker 1: in his employee named John Crucy. Crucy had worked for 316 00:18:37,480 --> 00:18:40,840 Speaker 1: the Singer Sewing Machine Company before Edison hired him away, 317 00:18:41,160 --> 00:18:45,360 Speaker 1: and he had impressed Edison with his astounding skill at 318 00:18:45,359 --> 00:18:50,200 Speaker 1: fabricating machine parts that could bring to life Edison's ideas. 319 00:18:50,680 --> 00:18:54,320 Speaker 1: The phonograph was no exception. With little more instruction from 320 00:18:54,400 --> 00:18:58,840 Speaker 1: Edison than build this, Crucy got to work fabricating the 321 00:18:58,880 --> 00:19:03,240 Speaker 1: pieces necessary to make the first phonograph prototype. The original 322 00:19:03,240 --> 00:19:07,399 Speaker 1: phonograph had a cylindrical drum upon which Edison would wrap 323 00:19:07,440 --> 00:19:11,240 Speaker 1: a sheet of tin foil. A needle would rest against 324 00:19:11,359 --> 00:19:13,760 Speaker 1: the tin foil, and when Edison would turn a crank, 325 00:19:14,040 --> 00:19:17,359 Speaker 1: the cylinder would rotate and the needle would move along 326 00:19:17,400 --> 00:19:21,000 Speaker 1: the length of the cylinder, slowly, creating a spiral groove 327 00:19:21,040 --> 00:19:23,280 Speaker 1: as it did so. The needle was connected to a 328 00:19:23,320 --> 00:19:28,000 Speaker 1: simple microphone's diaphragm, and by speaking very loudly into the microphone, 329 00:19:28,040 --> 00:19:32,240 Speaker 1: which was essentially a trumpet, Edison can make the diaphragm vibrate, 330 00:19:32,359 --> 00:19:35,520 Speaker 1: transmitting those vibrations to the needle, which would then create 331 00:19:35,640 --> 00:19:39,399 Speaker 1: indentations in the tin foil, so the needles path and 332 00:19:39,440 --> 00:19:42,919 Speaker 1: that spiral would vary according to those vibrations. On that 333 00:19:43,040 --> 00:19:47,560 Speaker 1: first try, Edison recorded a nursery rhyme Mary had a 334 00:19:47,600 --> 00:19:51,080 Speaker 1: little lamb. After turning the crank and speaking loudly into 335 00:19:51,119 --> 00:19:55,280 Speaker 1: the microphone, Edison stopped. He removed the needle from the cylinder. 336 00:19:55,520 --> 00:19:58,399 Speaker 1: He raised the cylinder back to its starting point, placed 337 00:19:58,440 --> 00:20:02,560 Speaker 1: a slightly different needle attachment against the tinfoil, which was 338 00:20:02,640 --> 00:20:06,199 Speaker 1: connected to a small loudspeaker, and then turned the crank 339 00:20:06,280 --> 00:20:09,800 Speaker 1: and the machine began to rotate the drum again, and 340 00:20:10,960 --> 00:20:15,320 Speaker 1: the most amazing thing happened, the machine reproduced Edison's words. 341 00:20:15,840 --> 00:20:20,440 Speaker 1: According to Edison, everyone was astonished that the device actually worked, 342 00:20:20,800 --> 00:20:24,199 Speaker 1: and Edison himself said he was always terrified by inventions 343 00:20:24,240 --> 00:20:27,240 Speaker 1: that worked the first time he tried them. Edison would 344 00:20:27,280 --> 00:20:29,800 Speaker 1: create several more phonographs in this way, most of which 345 00:20:29,800 --> 00:20:34,680 Speaker 1: were reserved for demonstration purposes. Those invention, while serviceable, had 346 00:20:34,720 --> 00:20:37,159 Speaker 1: some big drawbacks, and one of those was that it 347 00:20:37,240 --> 00:20:41,040 Speaker 1: was pretty fragile. Specifically, the tinfoil was really fragile. It 348 00:20:41,080 --> 00:20:44,359 Speaker 1: would rip easily after just a couple of playbacks, and 349 00:20:44,560 --> 00:20:47,239 Speaker 1: it would take some other innovative folks to come up 350 00:20:47,280 --> 00:20:50,960 Speaker 1: with an alternative to tinfoil to push the the invention 351 00:20:51,000 --> 00:20:53,760 Speaker 1: a little further. I'll talk about them in just a second, 352 00:20:54,040 --> 00:20:57,160 Speaker 1: but first let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. 353 00:21:03,800 --> 00:21:06,159 Speaker 1: Hey guys, it's Jonathan and before we jump into the 354 00:21:06,160 --> 00:21:08,240 Speaker 1: rest of this show, I just want to give a 355 00:21:08,320 --> 00:21:11,200 Speaker 1: quick shout out to a new podcast that's come out 356 00:21:11,240 --> 00:21:15,960 Speaker 1: from How Stuff Works, the soundtrack show hosted by David Collins, 357 00:21:16,400 --> 00:21:18,959 Speaker 1: and I just thought it was thematically linked to the 358 00:21:19,000 --> 00:21:23,639 Speaker 1: whole turntable idea. This is a show that's specifically about 359 00:21:23,760 --> 00:21:28,320 Speaker 1: movie scores and soundtracks and how they affect the way 360 00:21:28,359 --> 00:21:32,120 Speaker 1: we perceive the films, the life they have beyond films, 361 00:21:32,160 --> 00:21:35,359 Speaker 1: the inspiration and influences that went into the creation of 362 00:21:35,359 --> 00:21:40,120 Speaker 1: those soundtracks. This is my jam, guys. I love soundtracks. 363 00:21:40,280 --> 00:21:43,760 Speaker 1: So if you are really passionate about music in general 364 00:21:43,840 --> 00:21:46,879 Speaker 1: and movie music in particular, check it out. It's the 365 00:21:46,960 --> 00:21:49,879 Speaker 1: Soundtracks Show. You can find it on iTunes or wherever 366 00:21:49,920 --> 00:21:53,399 Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. And now back to the show. Alright. 367 00:21:53,440 --> 00:21:57,440 Speaker 1: So Edison's invention was met with enthusiasm, but others also 368 00:21:57,480 --> 00:22:00,919 Speaker 1: wondered how the design might be proved upon to get 369 00:22:00,920 --> 00:22:03,800 Speaker 1: a better quality of audio and more robust recordings that 370 00:22:03,800 --> 00:22:06,800 Speaker 1: could last longer than a couple of playbacks, and a 371 00:22:06,840 --> 00:22:10,840 Speaker 1: couple of scientists named Charles Sumner Tainter and chi Chester 372 00:22:11,040 --> 00:22:13,960 Speaker 1: Bell proposed an alternative. By the way to Jester. Bell 373 00:22:14,280 --> 00:22:17,480 Speaker 1: was a cousin of Alexander Graham Bell, and they both 374 00:22:17,560 --> 00:22:22,479 Speaker 1: worked for Alexander Graham Bell's Volta Laboratory. Alexander Graham Bell 375 00:22:22,600 --> 00:22:26,960 Speaker 1: got a ten thousand dollar grant as the inventor of 376 00:22:27,000 --> 00:22:29,800 Speaker 1: the telephone and he set up this volta laboratory using 377 00:22:29,800 --> 00:22:32,919 Speaker 1: that money. They said that instead of using a sheet 378 00:22:33,040 --> 00:22:36,359 Speaker 1: of tinfoil wrapped around the cylinder, they were going to 379 00:22:36,560 --> 00:22:40,960 Speaker 1: use a cylinder of cardboard that would be coded with wax. 380 00:22:41,520 --> 00:22:44,280 Speaker 1: Another difference between the two methods was that the wax 381 00:22:44,359 --> 00:22:48,720 Speaker 1: cylinder phonographs would etch or engrave patterns on the wax, 382 00:22:48,720 --> 00:22:52,720 Speaker 1: whereas the tin foil predecessors depended upon indentations in the 383 00:22:52,760 --> 00:22:56,200 Speaker 1: tin foil. So think of it as you know, as 384 00:22:56,359 --> 00:23:00,640 Speaker 1: as going left and right across a surface, as opposed 385 00:23:00,680 --> 00:23:04,360 Speaker 1: to in and out of it using more or less 386 00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:08,280 Speaker 1: pressure from a stylus. The cylinders, as I said, were 387 00:23:08,320 --> 00:23:12,480 Speaker 1: made of cardboard coated in wax. Uh. They had a 388 00:23:12,720 --> 00:23:16,720 Speaker 1: spring powered motor that in at least the later versions 389 00:23:16,840 --> 00:23:19,520 Speaker 1: of this methodology, they used a spring powered motor to 390 00:23:19,640 --> 00:23:22,720 Speaker 1: provide power to move the components, which meant you no 391 00:23:22,760 --> 00:23:26,359 Speaker 1: longer had to depend upon a hand crank to turn everything, 392 00:23:26,520 --> 00:23:30,159 Speaker 1: because if you're trying to keep a steady pace turning 393 00:23:30,160 --> 00:23:32,440 Speaker 1: a hand crank, chances are you're gonna slow down or 394 00:23:32,480 --> 00:23:35,040 Speaker 1: speed up at different parts. That's going to affect the 395 00:23:35,160 --> 00:23:37,680 Speaker 1: quality of the recording. They wanted to have a better 396 00:23:37,720 --> 00:23:42,960 Speaker 1: way of maintaining consistency, so they went with this spring motor. 397 00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:45,040 Speaker 1: Now you still had to wind up the motor. So 398 00:23:45,080 --> 00:23:48,720 Speaker 1: if you've ever seen any images of people winding up 399 00:23:49,160 --> 00:23:53,119 Speaker 1: gramophone very quickly and then allowing it to start to 400 00:23:53,160 --> 00:23:56,080 Speaker 1: turn and then using the needle, that's essentially what's happening here. 401 00:23:56,280 --> 00:23:58,760 Speaker 1: It's kind of like winding up the clockwork in a 402 00:23:58,840 --> 00:24:03,800 Speaker 1: clock This was aldd in more even and replicable recording 403 00:24:03,800 --> 00:24:07,359 Speaker 1: in playback sessions. The speed of those cylinders was faster 404 00:24:07,560 --> 00:24:11,040 Speaker 1: than what you would find with vinyl record players decades later. 405 00:24:11,359 --> 00:24:13,960 Speaker 1: That typical device would spin a cylinder at a hundred 406 00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:17,520 Speaker 1: twenty revolutions per minute. So why would you want to 407 00:24:17,560 --> 00:24:20,520 Speaker 1: go fast? Why not go slower? Why not record sound 408 00:24:20,600 --> 00:24:24,080 Speaker 1: at a slower rpm? The main reason was due to volume. 409 00:24:24,680 --> 00:24:27,800 Speaker 1: It turned out that if you turn these cylinders at 410 00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:32,600 Speaker 1: a slower rate, it would generate a much lower volume. 411 00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:36,480 Speaker 1: The amplitude of the sound would be lower, and it'd 412 00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:38,800 Speaker 1: be harder to hear. So you had to create a 413 00:24:38,840 --> 00:24:44,120 Speaker 1: faster speed, which would create stronger vibrations when the playback 414 00:24:44,160 --> 00:24:48,120 Speaker 1: needle is running across this groove in a wax cylinder, 415 00:24:48,640 --> 00:24:52,560 Speaker 1: and then that would result in the membrane vibrating more 416 00:24:52,840 --> 00:24:56,119 Speaker 1: and you would have greater amplitude or volume in the sound. 417 00:24:56,440 --> 00:24:59,040 Speaker 1: So it's really just a practical concern. It wasn't that 418 00:24:59,600 --> 00:25:03,200 Speaker 1: there any other reason, like any specific mechanical reason why 419 00:25:03,200 --> 00:25:05,240 Speaker 1: it had to be a hundred and twenty revolutions per minute. 420 00:25:05,520 --> 00:25:08,560 Speaker 1: It was all about why can we do that will 421 00:25:08,880 --> 00:25:12,399 Speaker 1: give us the best quality versus volume of sound, And 422 00:25:12,440 --> 00:25:15,400 Speaker 1: at the time, that was pretty much it. The largest 423 00:25:15,520 --> 00:25:18,159 Speaker 1: cylinders would you would allow you to record up to 424 00:25:18,240 --> 00:25:22,080 Speaker 1: about three minutes of continuous sound at that rotational speed, 425 00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:26,200 Speaker 1: although very few cylinders actually had a full three minutes 426 00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:28,360 Speaker 1: of sound. Most of them were closer to two minutes. 427 00:25:28,800 --> 00:25:32,520 Speaker 1: The wax would wear away or tear off after a 428 00:25:32,560 --> 00:25:36,719 Speaker 1: couple of dozen playbacks, so you were still limited and 429 00:25:36,760 --> 00:25:39,840 Speaker 1: how frequently you could listen to any given wax cylinder. 430 00:25:39,880 --> 00:25:43,560 Speaker 1: It was better than tinfoil, but it still would degrade 431 00:25:43,600 --> 00:25:46,159 Speaker 1: each time you listen, So really you would think about 432 00:25:46,359 --> 00:25:49,000 Speaker 1: every time you listen to one of these cylinders there 433 00:25:49,040 --> 00:25:52,080 Speaker 1: was wear and tear on that cylinder. You were effectively 434 00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:55,679 Speaker 1: decreasing the number of playbacks by one every time you 435 00:25:55,720 --> 00:25:58,160 Speaker 1: listen to it. And if you weren't gentle with them, 436 00:25:58,359 --> 00:26:01,200 Speaker 1: you could break them. Pieces of cylinder could break off, 437 00:26:01,240 --> 00:26:03,760 Speaker 1: and then you would lose that part of the recording, 438 00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:08,760 Speaker 1: So there still wasn't perfect. The Volta Lab fellas called 439 00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:13,200 Speaker 1: their invention the graphophone. Edison, who by this time had 440 00:26:13,240 --> 00:26:18,119 Speaker 1: moved on to work on other projects, namely the incandescent lightbulb, 441 00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:21,760 Speaker 1: heard of the graphaphone and decided that he would give 442 00:26:21,760 --> 00:26:25,680 Speaker 1: his phonograph idea another go. Originally, the Volta Labs came 443 00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:30,560 Speaker 1: to Edison and proposed a collaboration. Edison, being a little 444 00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:34,159 Speaker 1: more independently minded. If he wasn't in charge, he didn't 445 00:26:34,160 --> 00:26:37,480 Speaker 1: necessarily want to be part of it this side. Instead, 446 00:26:37,560 --> 00:26:40,440 Speaker 1: he would work on improving the phonograph on his own 447 00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:45,439 Speaker 1: rather than collaborate with other inventors. So he chose to 448 00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:49,520 Speaker 1: use cylinders made entirely out of wax instead of a 449 00:26:49,600 --> 00:26:54,200 Speaker 1: cardboard cylinder with wax coding. This way, after the play 450 00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:56,280 Speaker 1: surface had degraded to a point where it was no 451 00:26:56,320 --> 00:27:00,159 Speaker 1: longer desirable, you could actually shave down the outside right 452 00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:03,960 Speaker 1: of the cylinder to create a new smooth recording surface, 453 00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:06,600 Speaker 1: so you could put a whole new recording on there. 454 00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:09,119 Speaker 1: The old recording would be lost because you shaved it, 455 00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:11,919 Speaker 1: but you would be able to put new stuff on 456 00:27:11,960 --> 00:27:14,679 Speaker 1: the old cylinder, so you could reuse cylinders and make 457 00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:18,160 Speaker 1: them a little more useful. A typical cylinder was four 458 00:27:18,400 --> 00:27:21,480 Speaker 1: point to five inches long, which is about ten point 459 00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:24,800 Speaker 1: eight centimeters, and it was two point one eight seven 460 00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:28,920 Speaker 1: five inches in diameter, or about five point six centimeters. 461 00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:31,359 Speaker 1: Those cylinders were the ones that could hold about two 462 00:27:31,440 --> 00:27:34,400 Speaker 1: minutes worth of stuff on them. In eighteen nine nine, 463 00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:37,680 Speaker 1: Edison introduced a model of the phonograph that could play 464 00:27:37,720 --> 00:27:41,159 Speaker 1: cylinders that were the same length as in They were 465 00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:44,040 Speaker 1: still four point to five inches long, but now they 466 00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:46,960 Speaker 1: were thicker. They were five inches in diameter that's about 467 00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:50,720 Speaker 1: twelve point seven centimeters. They could hold more recorded material, 468 00:27:51,160 --> 00:27:54,760 Speaker 1: but they were also more expensive, as was the special 469 00:27:54,800 --> 00:27:58,600 Speaker 1: phonograph that could play these cylinders, and because of that expense, 470 00:27:58,760 --> 00:28:01,200 Speaker 1: not a whole lot of bought them. Not a whole 471 00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:05,000 Speaker 1: lot of people or businesses bought them. It's just prohibitively expensive. 472 00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:09,720 Speaker 1: Edison's cylinders were made of a combination of bees wax, 473 00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:16,399 Speaker 1: sterec acid, and saracen now sterec or steric wax I 474 00:28:16,400 --> 00:28:19,480 Speaker 1: guess i should say, combines steric acid, which is a 475 00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:22,639 Speaker 1: fatty acid from vegetable oil or from tallow which is 476 00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:27,000 Speaker 1: from animal fat. And the steric acid helps hold waxes shape, 477 00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:29,240 Speaker 1: so you would combine it with wax, and that allows 478 00:28:29,280 --> 00:28:32,439 Speaker 1: it when it hardens to maintain its relative shape. It 479 00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:35,119 Speaker 1: doesn't lose that over time, because you could think of 480 00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:38,200 Speaker 1: wax is sort of like a very very viscous fluid. 481 00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:43,360 Speaker 1: Saracen is a paraffin wax, that means it's a petroleum product. 482 00:28:43,880 --> 00:28:46,920 Speaker 1: So you would take that and combine that with the 483 00:28:46,920 --> 00:28:50,320 Speaker 1: bees wax, which was clearly wax from bees, and the 484 00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:53,760 Speaker 1: ysteric wax, and that's what Asen used to make his 485 00:28:53,840 --> 00:28:57,160 Speaker 1: cylinders that were better suited for phonographs. People began to 486 00:28:57,200 --> 00:29:02,000 Speaker 1: call cylinders with recordings on them reck kords, So originally 487 00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:07,240 Speaker 1: records in the sense of audio meant these wax cylinders, 488 00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:10,600 Speaker 1: not the discs that we associate with the word today. 489 00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:12,800 Speaker 1: So you would have a record and it would be 490 00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:17,080 Speaker 1: a wax cylinder. The various models of graphophones and phonographs 491 00:29:17,120 --> 00:29:21,680 Speaker 1: had different output devices. Some graphophones, the earlier ones had 492 00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:25,440 Speaker 1: sort of stethoscope like hearing attachments, so you would plug 493 00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:27,640 Speaker 1: these directly into your ears. They would have a tube 494 00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:32,760 Speaker 1: that would go straight to the graphophone and the sounds 495 00:29:32,760 --> 00:29:34,680 Speaker 1: would travel through the tubes to your ears. They were 496 00:29:34,720 --> 00:29:39,200 Speaker 1: kind of like old timey predecessors to today's earbuds others. 497 00:29:39,640 --> 00:29:43,120 Speaker 1: The later models would use a trumpet, a sound trumpet 498 00:29:43,120 --> 00:29:47,040 Speaker 1: through which sound would emerge. Phonographs were very similar. These 499 00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:51,720 Speaker 1: devices used acoustics to amplify sound as best they could, 500 00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:54,640 Speaker 1: and in an upcoming episode, we'll talk more about the 501 00:29:54,680 --> 00:29:59,520 Speaker 1: invention of speakers and how that changed things dramatically. A 502 00:29:59,560 --> 00:30:04,560 Speaker 1: business and named Jesse H. Lippincott purchased an exclusive license 503 00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:07,600 Speaker 1: from the American Graphophone Company that was headed by the 504 00:30:07,640 --> 00:30:12,280 Speaker 1: Volta Lab Fellas. Then he acquired the Edison Phonograph Company 505 00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:16,880 Speaker 1: from Edison, so he essentially had acquired one company and 506 00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:20,640 Speaker 1: gotten the exclusive license from that company's competitor, which many 507 00:30:20,720 --> 00:30:23,640 Speaker 1: had a united front and the two companies could share 508 00:30:23,680 --> 00:30:26,920 Speaker 1: best practices across each other. He would go on to 509 00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:30,080 Speaker 1: purchase other companies in a similar fashion and created the 510 00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:35,840 Speaker 1: North American Phonograph Company in eight Lippincott thought that the 511 00:30:35,880 --> 00:30:39,920 Speaker 1: technologies only real application at that time was for business, 512 00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:45,400 Speaker 1: essentially for taking dictation, but he encountered some resistance, specifically 513 00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:48,720 Speaker 1: from stenographers. They did not like the idea of being 514 00:30:48,920 --> 00:30:51,320 Speaker 1: pushed out of a job by a machine, which is 515 00:30:51,400 --> 00:30:55,680 Speaker 1: a familiar story throughout all of the Industrial Revolution and 516 00:30:55,800 --> 00:30:58,400 Speaker 1: leading up to even today. Automation is still a big 517 00:30:58,440 --> 00:31:01,760 Speaker 1: topic when it comes to the impact on the job market. Well, 518 00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:05,240 Speaker 1: the same was true in the eighteen eighties, and business 519 00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:08,440 Speaker 1: wasn't great for this new company. Within a couple of years, 520 00:31:08,760 --> 00:31:12,400 Speaker 1: Lippincott was struggling and his health was failing as well. 521 00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:16,400 Speaker 1: So Edison, who had been a lender to Lippincott the 522 00:31:16,440 --> 00:31:21,320 Speaker 1: majority lender, uh ended up assuming control of the company, 523 00:31:21,520 --> 00:31:25,440 Speaker 1: and by e two he had increased the appeal of 524 00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:30,400 Speaker 1: cylinders by branching into entertainment. He wasn't just producing business machines, 525 00:31:30,480 --> 00:31:34,520 Speaker 1: but he would record people playing musical instruments, or singing 526 00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:38,600 Speaker 1: an aria from an opera, or delivering a comedic monologue, 527 00:31:38,960 --> 00:31:42,760 Speaker 1: and so he was really kind of pushing the phonograph 528 00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:45,720 Speaker 1: as an entertainment device as well as a business device. 529 00:31:45,760 --> 00:31:49,680 Speaker 1: He didn't abandon business, he just added to it. His 530 00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:53,480 Speaker 1: cylinders became known as brown wax, which is kind of 531 00:31:53,480 --> 00:31:55,720 Speaker 1: funny because that was not always the actual color of 532 00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:58,880 Speaker 1: the cylinders, but it did end up sticking. From here, 533 00:31:59,040 --> 00:32:02,040 Speaker 1: things get a bit more business ee rather than technological. 534 00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:06,200 Speaker 1: Edison would declare bankruptcy for the phonograph company. That gave 535 00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:09,080 Speaker 1: him the opportunity to buy back the rights to the 536 00:32:09,120 --> 00:32:13,040 Speaker 1: phonograph itself, the technology, and he did that in eight 537 00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:18,880 Speaker 1: It took two years for this bankruptcy business to work 538 00:32:18,920 --> 00:32:22,520 Speaker 1: its way through the entire process, so he wasn't allowed 539 00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:27,920 Speaker 1: to sell phonographs until that concluded, which meant from eight 540 00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:32,560 Speaker 1: he continued working on developing the phonograph and improving the technology, 541 00:32:32,560 --> 00:32:35,719 Speaker 1: but he couldn't actually sell any of them. In eighteen six, 542 00:32:35,840 --> 00:32:39,920 Speaker 1: he was making phonographs for home users. Before, phonographs had 543 00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:43,440 Speaker 1: either been business equipment or they had been restricted to 544 00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:46,400 Speaker 1: places like bars or penny arcades as sort of a 545 00:32:46,440 --> 00:32:48,480 Speaker 1: novelty entertainment system. You can think of them as sort 546 00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:52,080 Speaker 1: of a proto juke box, so people could go and 547 00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:54,560 Speaker 1: listen to music. They put like a nickel in the 548 00:32:54,600 --> 00:32:56,840 Speaker 1: machine and then it would play for them a little song, 549 00:32:57,160 --> 00:32:59,160 Speaker 1: but you wouldn't own one in your own home at 550 00:32:59,200 --> 00:33:01,720 Speaker 1: that point. Now Edison was trying to change that. He 551 00:33:01,760 --> 00:33:04,640 Speaker 1: was trying to create a home market for this technology, 552 00:33:04,720 --> 00:33:07,720 Speaker 1: so he's bringing recorded music into the home, at least 553 00:33:08,440 --> 00:33:12,240 Speaker 1: a home that could afford such a luxury. Mass manufacturing 554 00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:15,640 Speaker 1: helped make this possible. In the early eighteen nineties, a 555 00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:19,960 Speaker 1: phonograph would set you back a hundred fifty dollars now 556 00:33:20,040 --> 00:33:23,720 Speaker 1: according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index, 557 00:33:24,120 --> 00:33:27,640 Speaker 1: that would be equivalent to about three thousand, nine hundred 558 00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:31,440 Speaker 1: dollars today for a phonograph that could play two minute 559 00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:36,200 Speaker 1: long recordings on wax cylinders. By the late eighteen nineties, 560 00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:40,080 Speaker 1: so one decade later, Edison had brought that price down 561 00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:43,720 Speaker 1: on the standard phonograph to twenty dollars. That would be 562 00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:46,240 Speaker 1: about the same as five hundred sixty three dollars in 563 00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:50,040 Speaker 1: today's money. Or you could go bargain bin shopping and 564 00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:52,520 Speaker 1: you could buy a model that they offered that was 565 00:33:52,560 --> 00:33:56,760 Speaker 1: called the gem G E M. This one cost the 566 00:33:57,080 --> 00:34:00,680 Speaker 1: bargain basement price of seven dollars fifty cents. Now in 567 00:34:02,360 --> 00:34:05,880 Speaker 1: that amount was still pretty considerable. If we convert that 568 00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:08,960 Speaker 1: for today's money, you're talking about two eleven dollars, so 569 00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:12,640 Speaker 1: still pretty expensive, but more in the realm of affordability. 570 00:34:12,719 --> 00:34:17,680 Speaker 1: For at least a larger portion of potential customers. The cylinders, 571 00:34:17,719 --> 00:34:20,919 Speaker 1: by the way, cost about fifty cents each. That would 572 00:34:20,920 --> 00:34:23,640 Speaker 1: be about fourteen dollars in today's money. Now keep in 573 00:34:23,680 --> 00:34:26,840 Speaker 1: mind this was for a cylinder that could hold two 574 00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:29,640 Speaker 1: or maybe three minutes of material, So it's kind of 575 00:34:29,680 --> 00:34:33,400 Speaker 1: like buying a single from a musical artist for fourteen bucks. 576 00:34:34,040 --> 00:34:36,919 Speaker 1: And those larger cylinders I mentioned earlier, if you wanted 577 00:34:36,960 --> 00:34:39,200 Speaker 1: to get one that could hold more information on it, 578 00:34:39,760 --> 00:34:44,719 Speaker 1: that would set you back uh about four dollars per cylinders. 579 00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:46,600 Speaker 1: So if we adjust that for inflation, you're talking a 580 00:34:46,680 --> 00:34:50,600 Speaker 1: hundred and thirteen dollars per cylinder. Now keep in mind 581 00:34:50,640 --> 00:34:54,759 Speaker 1: those are reusable. Once you wear out the recording that 582 00:34:54,920 --> 00:34:57,480 Speaker 1: was imprinted on the cylinder, you could have it shaved 583 00:34:57,480 --> 00:34:59,840 Speaker 1: down and you could record something new on it, but 584 00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:02,520 Speaker 1: you would still lose the first recording that was on there. 585 00:35:02,880 --> 00:35:08,360 Speaker 1: So it's a tough cell. Now. The wax cylinders were 586 00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:12,239 Speaker 1: expensive relatively because even though they were made out of 587 00:35:12,239 --> 00:35:16,560 Speaker 1: inexpensive materials, wax was not hard to come by. They 588 00:35:16,600 --> 00:35:22,080 Speaker 1: weren't easy to mass produce. You could mass produce them eventually, 589 00:35:22,120 --> 00:35:25,560 Speaker 1: but it was never an easy process. In fact, Edison 590 00:35:25,600 --> 00:35:29,080 Speaker 1: didn't hit upon a mass production method for his cylinders 591 00:35:29,600 --> 00:35:34,560 Speaker 1: until nineteen o one. Previously, every single cylinder went through 592 00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:38,719 Speaker 1: an engraving process to have a recording set on that cylinder. 593 00:35:39,239 --> 00:35:43,239 Speaker 1: The new method involved using a mold rather than engraving. 594 00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:46,160 Speaker 1: It also meant the cylinders were made of a harder wax. 595 00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:49,640 Speaker 1: So first you would create a master mold using gold 596 00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:53,960 Speaker 1: electrodes to carve away the bits that don't represent sound. 597 00:35:54,719 --> 00:35:58,120 Speaker 1: This was called a gold mold. You would then pour 598 00:35:58,560 --> 00:36:02,080 Speaker 1: this into or cast it as a mold. You would 599 00:36:02,080 --> 00:36:05,320 Speaker 1: pour wax into the mold, and you allow the mold 600 00:36:05,520 --> 00:36:08,520 Speaker 1: to harden or the wax to harden within the mold. Rather, 601 00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:11,640 Speaker 1: a single mold could create up to a hundred fifty 602 00:36:11,760 --> 00:36:15,239 Speaker 1: cylinders every day. Well, that made it possible to bring 603 00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:17,960 Speaker 1: the price for the cylinders down to about thirty five 604 00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:20,600 Speaker 1: cents per cylinder in nineteen o four, which would be 605 00:36:20,640 --> 00:36:23,880 Speaker 1: about six dollars and sixty cents in today's cash, so 606 00:36:23,960 --> 00:36:27,719 Speaker 1: a little more reasonable. Uh. Before that, though, it was 607 00:36:27,760 --> 00:36:30,680 Speaker 1: just a painstaking process which kept the price high. While 608 00:36:30,680 --> 00:36:33,120 Speaker 1: all this was going on, the competitor to the cylinder 609 00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:36,440 Speaker 1: was gaining popularity, and that would be the disc format, 610 00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:39,880 Speaker 1: which eventually would evolve into the vinyl records we know 611 00:36:40,040 --> 00:36:43,279 Speaker 1: and love today. But in their earliest days, there was 612 00:36:43,320 --> 00:36:46,840 Speaker 1: no guarantee that they would win out in the format wars. 613 00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:50,160 Speaker 1: We can trace the history of the record disc to 614 00:36:50,239 --> 00:36:55,400 Speaker 1: its birth on November eight seven. That's when Emil Berliner, 615 00:36:55,719 --> 00:36:59,320 Speaker 1: a German who had moved to Washington, d C. Patented 616 00:36:59,440 --> 00:37:03,440 Speaker 1: his own system for sound recording. Berliner has got a 617 00:37:03,520 --> 00:37:07,000 Speaker 1: really fascinating past. He had originally worked for a dry 618 00:37:07,040 --> 00:37:09,839 Speaker 1: goods store when he immigrated to the United States and 619 00:37:10,000 --> 00:37:13,040 Speaker 1: began living in Washington, d C. Later, he took on 620 00:37:13,080 --> 00:37:18,440 Speaker 1: a job as a laboratory cleaning staff member for Constantine Falberg. 621 00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:22,880 Speaker 1: Fallberg was the man who discovered and named the compound saccharin. 622 00:37:23,440 --> 00:37:26,720 Speaker 1: While working for Fallberg, Berlinard became interested in the idea 623 00:37:26,719 --> 00:37:30,719 Speaker 1: of experimentation and innovation. Berlinar would go on to work 624 00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:34,520 Speaker 1: for the American Bell Telephone Company. He even invented a 625 00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:38,440 Speaker 1: loose contact telephone transmitter, which I think is quite a 626 00:37:38,520 --> 00:37:43,480 Speaker 1: leap from a laboratory janitor, and by eighteen eighties six 627 00:37:43,760 --> 00:37:46,480 Speaker 1: he started thinking about a device that would evolve into 628 00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:50,040 Speaker 1: what we now call the gramophone. While Edison and the 629 00:37:50,080 --> 00:37:54,560 Speaker 1: Volta Boys were working with wax cylinders. Berlinnard proposed the 630 00:37:54,719 --> 00:37:58,920 Speaker 1: flat disc as an alternative medium for sound recording. His 631 00:37:58,960 --> 00:38:02,200 Speaker 1: original discs were made of glass, and he actually used 632 00:38:02,200 --> 00:38:06,800 Speaker 1: a method similar to Scott's fanatograph, tracing a pattern onto 633 00:38:06,800 --> 00:38:10,719 Speaker 1: glass and then using a process called photo engraving to 634 00:38:10,880 --> 00:38:15,560 Speaker 1: transfer those traced patterns onto a sturdier disc. This was 635 00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:19,399 Speaker 1: in fact the methodology that Miss R. Charles Crow had 636 00:38:19,400 --> 00:38:23,319 Speaker 1: suggested back in eighteen seventy seven, but Berlinard was not 637 00:38:23,480 --> 00:38:28,040 Speaker 1: aware of Crow's work, so he came to the solution independently. 638 00:38:28,160 --> 00:38:31,879 Speaker 1: So you've got both Edison and now you've got uh, 639 00:38:32,120 --> 00:38:35,680 Speaker 1: you've got Berliner, both coming up with similar ideas based 640 00:38:35,760 --> 00:38:38,319 Speaker 1: upon something that someone else had had thought of, well 641 00:38:38,320 --> 00:38:40,560 Speaker 1: not based upon it, but similar to what someone else 642 00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:43,319 Speaker 1: had thought of a decade earlier. And it's just kind 643 00:38:43,320 --> 00:38:48,960 Speaker 1: of remarkable how these ideas were independently arrived at. So 644 00:38:49,320 --> 00:38:52,640 Speaker 1: Crow himself had never built a working device to bring 645 00:38:52,680 --> 00:38:55,600 Speaker 1: his idea to life. Berliner actually took that step, and 646 00:38:55,640 --> 00:38:58,040 Speaker 1: the photo engraving process is pretty cool. I'll give you 647 00:38:58,040 --> 00:39:00,839 Speaker 1: a quick overview first. What you would do is you 648 00:39:00,880 --> 00:39:04,080 Speaker 1: take the material you plan to engrave, and you code 649 00:39:04,160 --> 00:39:08,440 Speaker 1: it with a light sensitive photo resist chemical. So it's 650 00:39:08,480 --> 00:39:11,759 Speaker 1: a chemical that when you expose that stuff to light 651 00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:16,319 Speaker 1: will harden material. So you take the glass with the 652 00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:19,399 Speaker 1: patterns traced on them, and you would use that as 653 00:39:19,400 --> 00:39:24,480 Speaker 1: a mask against this blank disk of material. The material 654 00:39:24,560 --> 00:39:29,120 Speaker 1: you're playing on engraving, the blacked out part on your 655 00:39:29,200 --> 00:39:32,120 Speaker 1: glass disc, the part where the needle did not touch, 656 00:39:32,920 --> 00:39:36,640 Speaker 1: that becomes a shield. It shields the light from hitting 657 00:39:36,880 --> 00:39:40,800 Speaker 1: your blank disc. But the part where the needle traced 658 00:39:41,160 --> 00:39:44,240 Speaker 1: is a little clear section and light can pass through 659 00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:47,960 Speaker 1: that and hit the material underneath. So you expose this 660 00:39:48,040 --> 00:39:50,719 Speaker 1: combination to light. Typically these days we would use very 661 00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:54,600 Speaker 1: powerful ultra violet light, and the light moves through those 662 00:39:54,640 --> 00:39:57,440 Speaker 1: those patterns that the needle made on the lamp black 663 00:39:58,080 --> 00:40:02,640 Speaker 1: and it then hardens that chemically treated material. Then you 664 00:40:02,680 --> 00:40:05,719 Speaker 1: would use a special type of acid to dissolve some 665 00:40:05,800 --> 00:40:09,000 Speaker 1: of the non hardened material. You end up with raised 666 00:40:09,040 --> 00:40:13,280 Speaker 1: portions that represent the etchings that were on your glass master. 667 00:40:13,680 --> 00:40:16,239 Speaker 1: You can then use that to create a mold and 668 00:40:16,280 --> 00:40:19,759 Speaker 1: then you can start creating copies. But this method did 669 00:40:19,800 --> 00:40:24,279 Speaker 1: not produce commercially viable results. Berliner realized that he was 670 00:40:24,320 --> 00:40:27,279 Speaker 1: gonna need some other methodology to make stuff that was 671 00:40:27,280 --> 00:40:31,120 Speaker 1: gonna be good enough to sell. So he then switched 672 00:40:31,200 --> 00:40:35,600 Speaker 1: to a zinc disc and etching process that involved coding 673 00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:39,560 Speaker 1: the zinc with a mixture of bees wax and cold gasoline. 674 00:40:39,600 --> 00:40:42,680 Speaker 1: Believe it or not, he used a stylus attached to 675 00:40:42,719 --> 00:40:46,440 Speaker 1: a diaphragm to etch the recorded sounds onto the coding. 676 00:40:46,760 --> 00:40:50,080 Speaker 1: So again, you would make sounds into a trumpet. Those 677 00:40:50,080 --> 00:40:52,279 Speaker 1: sounds would travel down the length of the trumpet, make 678 00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:55,360 Speaker 1: a tiny membrane vibrate, and on the other end of 679 00:40:55,360 --> 00:40:58,960 Speaker 1: the vibrante the vibrating membrane was a stylus that would 680 00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:03,480 Speaker 1: rest against this coding and cause etchings to happen in it. 681 00:41:03,840 --> 00:41:06,239 Speaker 1: He would actually coat the blank side of the disc 682 00:41:06,719 --> 00:41:11,640 Speaker 1: with varnish. Now remember at this point records were one sided. 683 00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:15,640 Speaker 1: They did not have grooves on both sides. One side 684 00:41:15,680 --> 00:41:18,200 Speaker 1: was was completely smooth, and one side would have a 685 00:41:18,239 --> 00:41:21,320 Speaker 1: recording on it. So the varnish would protect the blank 686 00:41:21,440 --> 00:41:24,359 Speaker 1: side from what happens next, which was an acid bath. 687 00:41:24,680 --> 00:41:27,520 Speaker 1: The acid would etch the lines made by the stylus 688 00:41:27,520 --> 00:41:29,960 Speaker 1: into the grooves of the record. The rest of the 689 00:41:30,000 --> 00:41:33,680 Speaker 1: disc would be still coated in bees wax mixture on 690 00:41:33,760 --> 00:41:36,479 Speaker 1: that one side and varnish on the other, and thus 691 00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:38,960 Speaker 1: they would remain unaffected by the acid. They would have 692 00:41:39,000 --> 00:41:41,520 Speaker 1: this protective layer on top of them, so the result 693 00:41:41,719 --> 00:41:46,080 Speaker 1: was a playable record. Unlike the wax cylinder devices which 694 00:41:46,080 --> 00:41:49,120 Speaker 1: could be used to record or play back a cylinder, 695 00:41:49,440 --> 00:41:54,400 Speaker 1: Berliner's method required two separate devices, one for recording and 696 00:41:54,480 --> 00:41:58,160 Speaker 1: one for playback. The playback one was the gramophone, which 697 00:41:58,160 --> 00:42:01,160 Speaker 1: had its own playback needle. The needle was attached to 698 00:42:01,719 --> 00:42:05,840 Speaker 1: the speaker or trumpet of the gramophone via an arm, 699 00:42:05,960 --> 00:42:07,799 Speaker 1: So you have an arm on the end of which 700 00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:09,800 Speaker 1: is a needle. The other end of the arm moves 701 00:42:09,880 --> 00:42:13,000 Speaker 1: into this trumpet. When you put the needle against one 702 00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:16,960 Speaker 1: of these discs and it's rotating, the etchings on the 703 00:42:17,000 --> 00:42:20,080 Speaker 1: disc would cause the needle to vibrate. The needle would 704 00:42:20,120 --> 00:42:23,400 Speaker 1: transmit those vibrations through the arm of the device to 705 00:42:23,520 --> 00:42:27,400 Speaker 1: a membrane connected to the trumpet, and then sound would 706 00:42:27,440 --> 00:42:29,840 Speaker 1: emit from the trumpet and you would hear the playback. 707 00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:34,160 Speaker 1: Berlinar would phase the zinc disks out in favor of 708 00:42:34,560 --> 00:42:38,600 Speaker 1: vulcanized rubber disks, and then later on for discs that 709 00:42:38,640 --> 00:42:43,600 Speaker 1: were essentially plastic. The discs had two big advantages over cylinders. 710 00:42:43,719 --> 00:42:47,279 Speaker 1: They held together better for repeat playings, and they could 711 00:42:47,320 --> 00:42:51,120 Speaker 1: easily be mass produced through pressings. You'd create a master 712 00:42:51,239 --> 00:42:54,000 Speaker 1: recording on a special disc, you would make molds of 713 00:42:54,040 --> 00:42:57,440 Speaker 1: that master recording, and then you would use blank discs 714 00:42:57,560 --> 00:43:01,360 Speaker 1: and put those into the molds to create copies. So 715 00:43:01,400 --> 00:43:05,120 Speaker 1: you could do this relatively quickly, especially compared to wax cylinders. 716 00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:10,320 Speaker 1: Berliner built a prototype gramophone in eight and he demonstrated 717 00:43:10,320 --> 00:43:14,680 Speaker 1: it at the Franklin Institute. The record he demonstrated was 718 00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:18,520 Speaker 1: a seven inch disc, meaning it measured about eighteen centimeters 719 00:43:18,600 --> 00:43:21,800 Speaker 1: across its diameter, and again it only had a recording 720 00:43:21,920 --> 00:43:25,200 Speaker 1: on one side. The other side was smooth. The gramophone 721 00:43:25,200 --> 00:43:28,280 Speaker 1: he used at that time was still a hand crank device. 722 00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:31,440 Speaker 1: He had not yet worked with a machinist to create 723 00:43:31,480 --> 00:43:35,160 Speaker 1: the spring motor version, and it was designed to rotate 724 00:43:35,200 --> 00:43:38,160 Speaker 1: the disc thirty times per minute. That would end up 725 00:43:38,200 --> 00:43:41,920 Speaker 1: changing as well, because again like the wax cylinders, these 726 00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:46,360 Speaker 1: slower rotations meant that you had lower volume. As a result, 727 00:43:47,640 --> 00:43:50,480 Speaker 1: the desk had a limit of about two minutes of 728 00:43:50,520 --> 00:43:53,919 Speaker 1: recording on it. In that prototype. So you might ask 729 00:43:53,920 --> 00:43:58,040 Speaker 1: yourself what was on that first disk during the demonstration, Well, 730 00:43:58,400 --> 00:44:01,640 Speaker 1: it was it's hipped to be square by Huey Lewis 731 00:44:01,640 --> 00:44:04,399 Speaker 1: and the News, which was a remarkable achievement because Huey 732 00:44:04,480 --> 00:44:09,080 Speaker 1: Lewis wouldn't be born for another sixty two years. I'm kidding. 733 00:44:09,440 --> 00:44:11,279 Speaker 1: I don't know what was on the disk. It was 734 00:44:11,320 --> 00:44:14,320 Speaker 1: likely some sort of spoken word presentation. But I couldn't 735 00:44:14,360 --> 00:44:17,279 Speaker 1: find an account of what was actually recorded on this 736 00:44:17,360 --> 00:44:21,360 Speaker 1: demonstration disk. So if you happen to know what Emil 737 00:44:21,480 --> 00:44:25,520 Speaker 1: Berliner recorded on his demonstration disc for the Franklin Institute, 738 00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:27,720 Speaker 1: make sure you send me a message, because I couldn't 739 00:44:27,719 --> 00:44:30,480 Speaker 1: find it. But he did make a deal with a 740 00:44:30,480 --> 00:44:35,080 Speaker 1: German company called Camera and Reinhardt to produce a toy 741 00:44:35,280 --> 00:44:39,680 Speaker 1: version of his invention for hand turned gramophone players. The 742 00:44:39,880 --> 00:44:43,440 Speaker 1: company produced small runs of the device and disks, but 743 00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:46,760 Speaker 1: it was really nothing more than a novelty at that point. 744 00:44:47,320 --> 00:44:50,480 Speaker 1: So how did the gramophone find commercial success beyond that 745 00:44:50,600 --> 00:44:53,880 Speaker 1: small market in Germany? And what did it have to 746 00:44:53,920 --> 00:44:59,839 Speaker 1: do with the phonograph And how did this combined technology 747 00:45:00,080 --> 00:45:04,200 Speaker 1: nearly die before it's time? Well, I'll answer all those 748 00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:06,720 Speaker 1: questions in the next section, but first let's take another 749 00:45:06,800 --> 00:45:18,880 Speaker 1: quick break to thank our sponsor. By Berliner was ready 750 00:45:18,920 --> 00:45:21,839 Speaker 1: to take the next big step. First, he got some 751 00:45:21,920 --> 00:45:24,920 Speaker 1: investment money from some New York backers and created the 752 00:45:24,960 --> 00:45:29,520 Speaker 1: American Gramophone Company. This venture was a bit premature, and 753 00:45:29,560 --> 00:45:32,520 Speaker 1: it failed to make any real progress. In fact, for 754 00:45:32,600 --> 00:45:35,040 Speaker 1: a long time it was just lost to obscurity. No 755 00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:37,800 Speaker 1: one even remembered it was a thing. It resurfaced only 756 00:45:37,840 --> 00:45:41,240 Speaker 1: in the nineteen nineties when a researcher named Raymond wild 757 00:45:41,440 --> 00:45:45,480 Speaker 1: rediscovered evidence for it. But that failure did not stop Berliner. 758 00:45:45,600 --> 00:45:50,040 Speaker 1: He then created the United States Gramophone Company, and his 759 00:45:50,320 --> 00:45:54,960 Speaker 1: goal was to create commercial disc players for the average person. 760 00:45:55,280 --> 00:45:57,640 Speaker 1: The first discs he tried to market were made from 761 00:45:57,760 --> 00:46:01,279 Speaker 1: vulcanized rubber. A few of them were made out of celluloid, 762 00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:05,120 Speaker 1: but that did not hold up very well, and by 763 00:46:05,239 --> 00:46:08,279 Speaker 1: He then began to switch to a version that was 764 00:46:08,320 --> 00:46:10,880 Speaker 1: made out of shellac compound to create the discs. It 765 00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:13,279 Speaker 1: was harder, uh it was easier to work with in 766 00:46:13,400 --> 00:46:16,600 Speaker 1: the vulcanized rubber. It's around this time that a machinist 767 00:46:16,960 --> 00:46:21,400 Speaker 1: named Eldredge Johnson improved upon Berliner's design by adding that 768 00:46:21,520 --> 00:46:24,799 Speaker 1: spring motor I had mentioned earlier to drive the turntable. 769 00:46:24,960 --> 00:46:27,600 Speaker 1: That removed the necessity to hand crank the device, although 770 00:46:27,600 --> 00:46:30,200 Speaker 1: you still had to wind up the motor. The commercial 771 00:46:30,239 --> 00:46:32,480 Speaker 1: discs were meant to be played back at a speed 772 00:46:32,560 --> 00:46:36,160 Speaker 1: of between sixty and seventy five repetitions per minute, with 773 00:46:36,200 --> 00:46:39,320 Speaker 1: seventy being the most common speed. This kept the seven 774 00:46:39,360 --> 00:46:42,759 Speaker 1: inch disks to about two minutes of music. Now, how 775 00:46:42,760 --> 00:46:46,200 Speaker 1: could those speeds, which were faster, more than twice as 776 00:46:46,280 --> 00:46:50,240 Speaker 1: fast than Berliner's prototype, hold that same amount of music 777 00:46:50,440 --> 00:46:54,400 Speaker 1: as the prototype. Shouldn't they be able to hold less 778 00:46:54,400 --> 00:46:57,000 Speaker 1: than that? If? If they're if they're traveling faster than 779 00:46:57,040 --> 00:47:00,279 Speaker 1: the needle goes through the spiral faster? Right? What was? 780 00:47:00,320 --> 00:47:03,320 Speaker 1: Because Berliner had refined the method of creating the spiral 781 00:47:03,360 --> 00:47:05,240 Speaker 1: path on the discs, he was able to make those 782 00:47:05,600 --> 00:47:08,799 Speaker 1: spirals tighter and maximize the amount of information he could 783 00:47:08,800 --> 00:47:11,080 Speaker 1: store on a single side of a seven inch disc. 784 00:47:11,640 --> 00:47:13,799 Speaker 1: So why those higher speeds? While I mentioned that the 785 00:47:13,840 --> 00:47:17,120 Speaker 1: higher speed would produce more intense vibrations in the playback needle, 786 00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:20,240 Speaker 1: which increased the amplitude of the sound wave, so again 787 00:47:20,719 --> 00:47:24,960 Speaker 1: that was driven by necessity. There was no electronic amplification, 788 00:47:25,239 --> 00:47:29,920 Speaker 1: so you had to rely upon physics just basic vibrations 789 00:47:29,960 --> 00:47:32,840 Speaker 1: to create the sound, and you weren't really able to 790 00:47:32,840 --> 00:47:36,440 Speaker 1: turn up the volume, so you had a consistent limitation 791 00:47:36,480 --> 00:47:38,279 Speaker 1: on the amount of information you could put on a 792 00:47:38,360 --> 00:47:41,080 Speaker 1: disk because the needle would travel the full length of 793 00:47:41,080 --> 00:47:43,600 Speaker 1: the spiral groove in the disk in about two minutes. 794 00:47:44,120 --> 00:47:47,680 Speaker 1: So how did the disk went out over the wax cylinder, 795 00:47:47,680 --> 00:47:49,800 Speaker 1: which had already been on the market for a while. 796 00:47:50,239 --> 00:47:54,960 Speaker 1: Several advantages helped seal the deal. First, wax cylinders were 797 00:47:55,000 --> 00:47:59,080 Speaker 1: still pretty fragile. They would break after a few dozen playbacks. 798 00:47:59,360 --> 00:48:03,880 Speaker 1: Typically that meant that you had to start all over again. 799 00:48:03,960 --> 00:48:06,960 Speaker 1: You could create a new recording, but your old one 800 00:48:07,000 --> 00:48:09,640 Speaker 1: was gone. They were also harder to store. The wax 801 00:48:09,640 --> 00:48:12,680 Speaker 1: cylinders were more difficult to store safely. They took up 802 00:48:12,719 --> 00:48:14,920 Speaker 1: more space, and you would have to put them in boxes, 803 00:48:14,960 --> 00:48:18,200 Speaker 1: perhaps with additional protection around each cylinder if you wanted 804 00:48:18,239 --> 00:48:22,040 Speaker 1: to make sure you weren't damaging them between playthroughs. There 805 00:48:22,080 --> 00:48:25,160 Speaker 1: was no easy way to label the cylinders on the 806 00:48:25,200 --> 00:48:29,120 Speaker 1: actual wax cylinder itself, which meant if you lost a label, 807 00:48:29,239 --> 00:48:31,160 Speaker 1: like if you had a little container that the cylinder 808 00:48:31,160 --> 00:48:33,800 Speaker 1: would sit in and somehow you lost the container. You 809 00:48:33,840 --> 00:48:36,560 Speaker 1: would have no idea what was actually on that cylinder, 810 00:48:36,600 --> 00:48:38,040 Speaker 1: and the only way to find out would be to 811 00:48:38,120 --> 00:48:41,279 Speaker 1: insert it into a machine and started up to hear 812 00:48:41,360 --> 00:48:44,640 Speaker 1: what was on there. And just that act would reduce 813 00:48:44,719 --> 00:48:46,920 Speaker 1: the number of times you could listen to the wax 814 00:48:47,000 --> 00:48:50,640 Speaker 1: cylinder because you're putting wear and tear on it. So 815 00:48:50,719 --> 00:48:53,880 Speaker 1: cylinders were also more expensive because again they were harder 816 00:48:53,920 --> 00:48:59,280 Speaker 1: to mass produce. In contrast, record desks were easy to store. 817 00:48:59,480 --> 00:49:01,680 Speaker 1: You could up a label on each one, or you 818 00:49:01,719 --> 00:49:05,440 Speaker 1: could stamp a label on each one at the center 819 00:49:05,520 --> 00:49:07,719 Speaker 1: to indicate what was on the record, so you knew 820 00:49:07,760 --> 00:49:12,000 Speaker 1: immediately whatever was recorded on the thing. They were easy 821 00:49:12,040 --> 00:49:14,359 Speaker 1: to mass produce, which brought down the price and made 822 00:49:14,440 --> 00:49:18,160 Speaker 1: it more economical than wax cylinders, and the early record 823 00:49:18,200 --> 00:49:20,880 Speaker 1: discs were made out of pretty strong stuff, meaning they 824 00:49:20,880 --> 00:49:23,799 Speaker 1: weren't likely to be damaged and they could withstand far 825 00:49:23,920 --> 00:49:27,719 Speaker 1: more play throughs than a wax cylinder. Two other big 826 00:49:27,719 --> 00:49:31,240 Speaker 1: elements helped make the gramophone and more importantly, the record 827 00:49:31,320 --> 00:49:35,200 Speaker 1: disc a success. One was that Berliner wasn't just a 828 00:49:35,280 --> 00:49:39,000 Speaker 1: keen inventor. He was a pretty astute businessman. In those 829 00:49:39,000 --> 00:49:42,520 Speaker 1: early days, he had his United States Grammophone Company in 830 00:49:42,640 --> 00:49:45,960 Speaker 1: d C. But he also licensed his designs to a 831 00:49:45,960 --> 00:49:49,640 Speaker 1: group of entrepreneurs in Pennsylvania and they founded the Berliner 832 00:49:49,760 --> 00:49:54,160 Speaker 1: Grammophone Company of Philadelphia. That group, in turn hired a 833 00:49:54,200 --> 00:49:58,040 Speaker 1: man named Frank C. Man ce Man created the National 834 00:49:58,080 --> 00:50:02,719 Speaker 1: Gramophone Company in New York. Now, manufacturing for the players 835 00:50:02,719 --> 00:50:05,759 Speaker 1: mainly took place in d C and also a little 836 00:50:05,760 --> 00:50:08,959 Speaker 1: bit in Philadelphia, as did the disc production. But these 837 00:50:09,000 --> 00:50:15,040 Speaker 1: regional companies sort of acted as distributors for Berliner's technology, 838 00:50:15,120 --> 00:50:19,000 Speaker 1: so there was no real easy way to get these 839 00:50:19,000 --> 00:50:22,560 Speaker 1: inventions to other markets otherwise. Right, It's not like there 840 00:50:22,560 --> 00:50:26,799 Speaker 1: were vast networks of stores that you could send these two. 841 00:50:26,960 --> 00:50:30,440 Speaker 1: This is still in the days where the department store 842 00:50:30,560 --> 00:50:34,439 Speaker 1: was starting to take form, but it was still pretty rare. 843 00:50:34,560 --> 00:50:37,400 Speaker 1: You had a lot of dry goods stores and little 844 00:50:37,520 --> 00:50:41,200 Speaker 1: tiny shops, so it was hard to get a national presence, 845 00:50:41,239 --> 00:50:42,719 Speaker 1: and this was one way of doing it, was to 846 00:50:42,760 --> 00:50:47,759 Speaker 1: create various companies that all would work together. By the 847 00:50:47,840 --> 00:50:53,040 Speaker 1: late eight nineties, uh, the gramophone extended beyond the United States. 848 00:50:53,520 --> 00:50:57,000 Speaker 1: The another trend that was helping drive that demand, So 849 00:50:57,120 --> 00:51:00,520 Speaker 1: you had other countries suddenly saying hey, we want gramophones too, 850 00:51:00,920 --> 00:51:07,320 Speaker 1: and that helped the economic output of this particular industry. 851 00:51:07,360 --> 00:51:10,719 Speaker 1: But there was another thing that was a really important 852 00:51:10,800 --> 00:51:15,600 Speaker 1: element that made the gramophone popular, and that was industrialization. 853 00:51:16,360 --> 00:51:20,440 Speaker 1: With industrialization, people began to have more free time during 854 00:51:20,480 --> 00:51:23,160 Speaker 1: a day because they used to have to work a 855 00:51:23,200 --> 00:51:26,200 Speaker 1: full day. What what would be spent in labor all 856 00:51:26,280 --> 00:51:28,759 Speaker 1: day long could now be spent, at least in part 857 00:51:29,000 --> 00:51:32,120 Speaker 1: in leisure. You didn't have as many working hours because 858 00:51:32,719 --> 00:51:35,200 Speaker 1: machines took a lot of the load off of you, 859 00:51:35,880 --> 00:51:38,719 Speaker 1: so you didn't necessarily return home after twelve hours of 860 00:51:38,760 --> 00:51:41,360 Speaker 1: work and then you ate something and then you collapsed 861 00:51:41,360 --> 00:51:44,040 Speaker 1: in bed. Now you actually had a few extra hours 862 00:51:44,080 --> 00:51:47,080 Speaker 1: to fill, and that created a demand for a whole 863 00:51:47,120 --> 00:51:52,240 Speaker 1: new industry, the entertainment business. Gramophones met this demand allowed 864 00:51:52,239 --> 00:51:56,200 Speaker 1: people to enjoy music or comedy, or even lectures if 865 00:51:56,200 --> 00:51:58,680 Speaker 1: they wanted to, in their own homes, although in very 866 00:51:58,760 --> 00:52:02,120 Speaker 1: short bursts because you were limited to about two minutes 867 00:52:02,120 --> 00:52:06,719 Speaker 1: of recorded stuff per disk. Berliner's businesses went on to 868 00:52:06,800 --> 00:52:09,560 Speaker 1: face copycats, two of which the company was able to 869 00:52:09,560 --> 00:52:13,480 Speaker 1: shut down through legal moves, but the third, the Zona phone, 870 00:52:13,920 --> 00:52:17,560 Speaker 1: represented a bit of a betrayal. Two executives who had 871 00:52:17,600 --> 00:52:21,920 Speaker 1: been working at the National Gramophone Corporation, including Frank Cman, 872 00:52:22,400 --> 00:52:29,000 Speaker 1: became executives of a competitor company called Universal Talking Machine Company, 873 00:52:29,160 --> 00:52:31,880 Speaker 1: and they were still working for the National Gramophone Corporation. 874 00:52:32,360 --> 00:52:35,239 Speaker 1: So the Berliner Company in Philadelphia took issue with this. 875 00:52:35,360 --> 00:52:39,120 Speaker 1: They said, this is a conflict of interest. But the 876 00:52:39,239 --> 00:52:42,000 Speaker 1: whole mess eventually went to the courts, and the court 877 00:52:42,120 --> 00:52:47,360 Speaker 1: ultimately passed an injunction on the Berliner Gramophone Company that 878 00:52:47,480 --> 00:52:51,560 Speaker 1: effectively shut them down. Berliner himself decided he wanted to 879 00:52:51,600 --> 00:52:55,359 Speaker 1: get out of this cutthroat business and work on other things, 880 00:52:55,440 --> 00:52:59,360 Speaker 1: so he eventually passed his patent rights on to the 881 00:52:59,400 --> 00:53:03,000 Speaker 1: machinist Eldrich R. Johnson, that's the guy who created the 882 00:53:03,120 --> 00:53:06,960 Speaker 1: spring motor for the early grammophone. Johnson would then go 883 00:53:07,520 --> 00:53:11,480 Speaker 1: take the remains of the Berlinard Gramophone Company of Philadelphia 884 00:53:11,560 --> 00:53:16,560 Speaker 1: and create a new company called the Victor Talking Machine 885 00:53:17,080 --> 00:53:21,799 Speaker 1: Company Victor for short. Victor would become the biggest and 886 00:53:21,920 --> 00:53:26,360 Speaker 1: most famous record company in the world. Over time. In 887 00:53:26,400 --> 00:53:29,799 Speaker 1: the United States, people began to use the term phonograph 888 00:53:30,160 --> 00:53:35,000 Speaker 1: or phonogram to refer to gramophones, the gramophone name itself 889 00:53:35,040 --> 00:53:37,960 Speaker 1: began to fade from memory. In the United States and 890 00:53:38,040 --> 00:53:41,160 Speaker 1: other countries, people still used gramophone to describe the disc 891 00:53:41,239 --> 00:53:45,160 Speaker 1: based record machines, but in the US the gramophones old 892 00:53:45,280 --> 00:53:49,279 Speaker 1: rival became the generic term for playback machines. However, the 893 00:53:49,320 --> 00:53:52,799 Speaker 1: gramophone did lend its name to an award. The Grammys 894 00:53:52,840 --> 00:53:55,960 Speaker 1: take their name from the Gramophone. One other thing Berlinard 895 00:53:56,040 --> 00:53:59,400 Speaker 1: did that made a literal stamp on the record industry 896 00:53:59,600 --> 00:54:02,600 Speaker 1: was the c ation of a registered trademark. While he 897 00:54:02,640 --> 00:54:05,640 Speaker 1: was in London, Berlinard saw a painting that showed a 898 00:54:05,760 --> 00:54:09,120 Speaker 1: small terrier sitting in front of a gramophone. The terrier's 899 00:54:09,200 --> 00:54:11,440 Speaker 1: head is cocked a little bit to the side as 900 00:54:11,480 --> 00:54:13,560 Speaker 1: it appears to listen to whatever was coming out of 901 00:54:13,600 --> 00:54:18,360 Speaker 1: the gramophones trumpet. An English artist named Francis Barraud had 902 00:54:18,480 --> 00:54:22,000 Speaker 1: painted this portrait, and he used his own dog, Nipper 903 00:54:22,440 --> 00:54:26,120 Speaker 1: in the model. Berliner purchased a copy of this painting, 904 00:54:26,320 --> 00:54:29,080 Speaker 1: brought it back over to the United States, and immediately 905 00:54:29,120 --> 00:54:35,080 Speaker 1: applied to create a registered trademark for the image. Now, 906 00:54:35,080 --> 00:54:37,680 Speaker 1: by the time he was granted this trademark, it was 907 00:54:37,719 --> 00:54:42,520 Speaker 1: too late because the Berliner Gramophone Company of Philadelphia had 908 00:54:42,560 --> 00:54:45,680 Speaker 1: the injunction against it, but he went on and passed 909 00:54:45,800 --> 00:54:50,040 Speaker 1: the trademark on to Eldridge Johnson. So Eldridge Johnson made 910 00:54:50,080 --> 00:54:53,600 Speaker 1: it the image for the Victor Record Company and they 911 00:54:53,680 --> 00:54:56,440 Speaker 1: used it from that point forward, and the trademark has 912 00:54:56,480 --> 00:55:00,600 Speaker 1: the well known name his Master's Voice. Oh and after 913 00:55:00,640 --> 00:55:04,239 Speaker 1: all that, Berliner went on to develop other technologies like 914 00:55:04,360 --> 00:55:07,960 Speaker 1: the helicopter, but that's a subject for another show. In 915 00:55:09,040 --> 00:55:13,000 Speaker 1: Berliner's method was given additional credence because the Edison Company 916 00:55:13,040 --> 00:55:16,840 Speaker 1: began to produce disc players and the Edison disc record 917 00:55:17,480 --> 00:55:20,560 Speaker 1: At that stage, the records were still pretty short, their 918 00:55:20,560 --> 00:55:23,520 Speaker 1: price had dropped, but something else was emerging that would 919 00:55:23,560 --> 00:55:27,239 Speaker 1: nearly eliminate the market for the record player for the 920 00:55:27,280 --> 00:55:30,760 Speaker 1: home consumer and also record discs for the home consumer. 921 00:55:31,120 --> 00:55:35,200 Speaker 1: That's something that nearly wiped out the whole industry was radio. Now. 922 00:55:35,200 --> 00:55:37,719 Speaker 1: I've talked about the history of radio before, about how 923 00:55:37,760 --> 00:55:42,080 Speaker 1: people like Nicola, Tesla, and Marconi were instrumental in getting 924 00:55:42,080 --> 00:55:45,000 Speaker 1: the technology out of the laboratory and into the real world. 925 00:55:45,520 --> 00:55:49,160 Speaker 1: The Tesla Marconi story is another one filled with drama, 926 00:55:49,280 --> 00:55:53,480 Speaker 1: as Tesla was originally granted patents in the US regarding 927 00:55:53,600 --> 00:55:56,600 Speaker 1: radio in advance of Marconi, but then the Patent Office 928 00:55:56,600 --> 00:56:00,719 Speaker 1: would eventually overturn Tesla's patents in faye for for the 929 00:56:00,800 --> 00:56:04,279 Speaker 1: better connected Marconi's submissions. But we're not going to get 930 00:56:04,320 --> 00:56:06,719 Speaker 1: into that story here. It is good to point out 931 00:56:06,960 --> 00:56:11,120 Speaker 1: that Marconi's first demonstration of a wireless communications device took 932 00:56:11,120 --> 00:56:15,040 Speaker 1: place on December twelfth, eighteen nine six. He used radio 933 00:56:15,080 --> 00:56:18,160 Speaker 1: waves to send a signal across a room. Five years 934 00:56:18,280 --> 00:56:21,680 Speaker 1: later he'd repeat that demonstration on a much grander scale 935 00:56:21,920 --> 00:56:25,640 Speaker 1: by sending a radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean. But 936 00:56:25,680 --> 00:56:29,520 Speaker 1: at that stage radio wasn't something the common person would 937 00:56:29,520 --> 00:56:33,400 Speaker 1: ever have any experience with. The foundation for commercial radio 938 00:56:33,600 --> 00:56:36,839 Speaker 1: was laid in nineteen o six on Christmas Eve, when 939 00:56:36,960 --> 00:56:42,120 Speaker 1: Reginald Fastender sent a voice transmission across radio to wireless 940 00:56:42,160 --> 00:56:45,360 Speaker 1: operators on board ships off the coast of New England. 941 00:56:45,840 --> 00:56:48,560 Speaker 1: Up to that point, the only signals that had been 942 00:56:48,600 --> 00:56:52,120 Speaker 1: sent via radio were the beeps of Morse code messages. 943 00:56:52,719 --> 00:56:57,120 Speaker 1: Voice transmission created an entirely new opportunity. For the next 944 00:56:57,160 --> 00:57:00,200 Speaker 1: decade and a half, radio was used for commerce and 945 00:57:00,280 --> 00:57:04,319 Speaker 1: for experimental purposes, and some average citizens got to play 946 00:57:04,360 --> 00:57:08,919 Speaker 1: with radio they became amateur radio operators HAM operators. When 947 00:57:09,000 --> 00:57:11,960 Speaker 1: World War One broke out, it suddenly became very important 948 00:57:12,000 --> 00:57:15,959 Speaker 1: to be able to produce radios in support of military efforts. 949 00:57:16,040 --> 00:57:21,560 Speaker 1: So governments began to build out enormous manufacturing facilities or 950 00:57:22,000 --> 00:57:27,040 Speaker 1: fund manufacturing facilities. Those all began staff by people. They 951 00:57:27,160 --> 00:57:29,600 Speaker 1: learned how to make radios. They began to churn radios 952 00:57:29,600 --> 00:57:31,520 Speaker 1: out for the military. But after the war was over, 953 00:57:31,880 --> 00:57:34,560 Speaker 1: it meant that you had the building blocks for a 954 00:57:34,600 --> 00:57:38,360 Speaker 1: brand new industry just waiting to happen. They could produce 955 00:57:38,520 --> 00:57:43,840 Speaker 1: radios for the average citizen. In nine Dr Frank Conrad, 956 00:57:43,880 --> 00:57:48,000 Speaker 1: who was an amateur radio enthusiast in Pittsburgh, had started 957 00:57:48,040 --> 00:57:52,040 Speaker 1: to take to playing records over the radio for the 958 00:57:52,160 --> 00:57:55,840 Speaker 1: entertainment of his fellow hobbyists. He got a message from 959 00:57:55,880 --> 00:57:59,360 Speaker 1: the company Westinghouse. Now Westinghouse was in the business of 960 00:57:59,400 --> 00:58:02,600 Speaker 1: making radios, and they wanted to nurture this potential new 961 00:58:02,640 --> 00:58:07,960 Speaker 1: business of consumer radios. Together, Conrad and Westinghouse created the 962 00:58:07,960 --> 00:58:13,080 Speaker 1: world's first commercial broadcast radio station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They 963 00:58:13,120 --> 00:58:16,440 Speaker 1: received the designation k d k A, and it started 964 00:58:16,480 --> 00:58:20,960 Speaker 1: broadcasting on November two, nineteen twenty, which was election Day 965 00:58:20,960 --> 00:58:24,560 Speaker 1: in the United States. They chose that day because they 966 00:58:24,560 --> 00:58:28,760 Speaker 1: figured they could actually broadcast the election results to listeners 967 00:58:28,800 --> 00:58:32,440 Speaker 1: and beat out all the newspapers by spreading the word early, 968 00:58:32,800 --> 00:58:36,720 Speaker 1: and that would cement how important the consumer radio would 969 00:58:36,760 --> 00:58:40,480 Speaker 1: be as a viable product. It worked, and soon the 970 00:58:40,600 --> 00:58:44,560 Speaker 1: radio became an incredibly popular piece of home entertainment technology. 971 00:58:44,800 --> 00:58:47,880 Speaker 1: The radio gave listeners a chance to tune into totally 972 00:58:47,920 --> 00:58:50,840 Speaker 1: different stations and get lots of different types of programming. 973 00:58:51,280 --> 00:58:54,560 Speaker 1: Some of those stations would play music off of records. Well, 974 00:58:54,600 --> 00:58:58,080 Speaker 1: that removed the necessity to have a home record player. 975 00:58:58,240 --> 00:59:01,080 Speaker 1: There was no reason to have a phonogram in your 976 00:59:01,080 --> 00:59:03,040 Speaker 1: house because you could just turn on the radio and 977 00:59:03,080 --> 00:59:05,960 Speaker 1: listen to music that way for free. You purchased the radio, 978 00:59:06,080 --> 00:59:08,320 Speaker 1: and once you've done that, you have access to all 979 00:59:08,320 --> 00:59:11,160 Speaker 1: sorts of music, whereas if you bought a phonogram, you 980 00:59:11,200 --> 00:59:13,120 Speaker 1: would still have to go out and buy the individual 981 00:59:13,200 --> 00:59:15,840 Speaker 1: disks to listen to any sort of music. So a 982 00:59:15,880 --> 00:59:17,480 Speaker 1: lot of people said, well, why do I want to 983 00:59:17,480 --> 00:59:19,800 Speaker 1: do that? There's no reason, I'll just I'll just get 984 00:59:19,840 --> 00:59:22,880 Speaker 1: my music now. If this sounds familiar, you might think, wait, 985 00:59:23,000 --> 00:59:26,680 Speaker 1: that sounds a lot like the way music is today, 986 00:59:26,680 --> 00:59:29,680 Speaker 1: whether you go out and you buy a digital album, 987 00:59:30,000 --> 00:59:32,800 Speaker 1: or you even buy a CD or vinyl album, or 988 00:59:32,920 --> 00:59:37,040 Speaker 1: you just stream music using a popular streaming service, similar 989 00:59:37,240 --> 00:59:41,280 Speaker 1: to what was happening in the nineteen twenties. It was 990 00:59:41,320 --> 00:59:43,960 Speaker 1: a time where people said, well, I could go and 991 00:59:44,000 --> 00:59:46,440 Speaker 1: purchase all that music, or I can just listen to 992 00:59:46,480 --> 00:59:49,680 Speaker 1: stuff over the radio. Now, granted it wasn't on demand 993 00:59:49,920 --> 00:59:54,000 Speaker 1: like it is today with streaming. You were stuck with 994 00:59:54,000 --> 00:59:59,080 Speaker 1: whatever the DJs would play for you, but same basic principle. 995 00:59:59,400 --> 01:00:03,920 Speaker 1: The photograph industry faced a sharp decline once radio caught on, 996 01:00:04,000 --> 01:00:06,320 Speaker 1: and it did not take long for radio to catch on. 997 01:00:06,560 --> 01:00:09,160 Speaker 1: By nineteen twenty four, just four years after the first 998 01:00:09,160 --> 01:00:12,880 Speaker 1: commercial radio station, there were more than six hundred commercial 999 01:00:12,960 --> 01:00:16,800 Speaker 1: radio stations across the United States. So how did the 1000 01:00:16,800 --> 01:00:20,440 Speaker 1: phonogram make a return to popularity How did it become 1001 01:00:21,480 --> 01:00:26,480 Speaker 1: a home entertainment system again after the rise of radio. 1002 01:00:26,840 --> 01:00:29,120 Speaker 1: How did it avoid the fate of becoming a device 1003 01:00:29,320 --> 01:00:32,320 Speaker 1: just used by radio stations and no one else. We'll 1004 01:00:32,320 --> 01:00:35,400 Speaker 1: explore that in our next episode, So look forward to 1005 01:00:35,400 --> 01:00:38,080 Speaker 1: the next episode where we continue the story of the 1006 01:00:38,160 --> 01:00:42,240 Speaker 1: evolution of the turntable, how it became a staple piece 1007 01:00:42,320 --> 01:00:46,240 Speaker 1: of electronics in homes for many decades, how it then 1008 01:00:46,360 --> 01:00:49,360 Speaker 1: faded from popularity, and how it returned, as well as 1009 01:00:49,920 --> 01:00:52,720 Speaker 1: what the heck do all those do hickeys on a 1010 01:00:52,800 --> 01:00:56,080 Speaker 1: DJ's turntable? What do they do and how do they work? 1011 01:00:56,360 --> 01:00:58,280 Speaker 1: We're gonna cover all that in our next episode. I 1012 01:00:58,280 --> 01:01:00,720 Speaker 1: hope you guys enjoyed this one. If you have suggestions 1013 01:01:01,000 --> 01:01:04,000 Speaker 1: for future episodes, I'm doing a whole bunch of shows 1014 01:01:04,040 --> 01:01:06,360 Speaker 1: based off listener suggestions. I would love to see more 1015 01:01:06,400 --> 01:01:09,720 Speaker 1: of them. Send me an email. The addresses tech Stuff 1016 01:01:09,880 --> 01:01:12,600 Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com, or you can drop 1017 01:01:12,640 --> 01:01:14,880 Speaker 1: me a line on Facebook or Twitter. The handle of 1018 01:01:14,960 --> 01:01:17,520 Speaker 1: both of those is tech Stuff hs W. Head over 1019 01:01:17,560 --> 01:01:19,960 Speaker 1: to Instagram. We've got an Instagram account. Make sure you 1020 01:01:20,000 --> 01:01:22,800 Speaker 1: follow us there, and remember you can watch me record 1021 01:01:22,840 --> 01:01:27,200 Speaker 1: the show live on Wednesdays and Friday's at twitch dot 1022 01:01:27,240 --> 01:01:29,920 Speaker 1: tv slash tech Stuff. Just go to that U r L. 1023 01:01:30,240 --> 01:01:32,440 Speaker 1: You'll see the schedule there. I hope to see you 1024 01:01:32,520 --> 01:01:34,560 Speaker 1: over there in the chat room. I love to see 1025 01:01:34,720 --> 01:01:37,480 Speaker 1: listeners join in conversations over there. There are a lot 1026 01:01:37,520 --> 01:01:40,880 Speaker 1: of fun and I'll talk to you again really soon. 1027 01:01:46,240 --> 01:01:48,680 Speaker 1: For more on this and Bathans of other topics. Is 1028 01:01:48,680 --> 01:01:59,720 Speaker 1: it how staff works? Dot com