WEBVTT - Vinyl Records: Black Magic at Work 0:00:00.480 --> 0:00:05.720 Hey, everybody, big special announcement at long last, we are 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:08.000 going back on the road to do live shows. And 0:00:08.880 --> 0:00:13.240 I could not be more excited. I too, am fairly excited. 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:16.480 I could tell it's gonna be great. Chuck. We're gonna 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:18.880 be back live on stage for the first time in 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:26.079 to three years. Uh. We were on stage in but 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:30.840 at the very beginning of and we're going to yeah three, Yeah, 0:00:31.040 --> 0:00:33.880 three years since we've trod the boards and we're about 0:00:33.880 --> 0:00:37.720 to trod them boards again, Chuck. On February first, second, 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:41.120 and third, we're going to Seattle in Portland, or Portland 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:43.959 and Seattle, and then for sure on February three, we're 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:46.599 going to wind the whole thing up in San Francisco. Right, 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:51.120 that's right, We're going back to sketch Fest are usually 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:54.720 January home, but early February home this year, for my money, 0:00:54.800 --> 0:00:59.000 the best uh comedy festival in the world, and we're 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:01.480 gonna be going to sketch Us. And again, we're not 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:03.920 sure the order yet. We don't have ticket links yet, 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:06.000 but we do have a little bit more information. We 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:08.680 just couldn't wait to tell you guys. So tickets are 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:11.400 actually going to be on sale very soon. October six, 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:14.000 there's going to be a pre sale with a password 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:16.640 UH and we will probably put those out on our 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:19.160 social links. I'm not sure how you'll find out, but 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:21.800 you'll find out, and then on October seven there will 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:24.760 be general sale. We'll give you more information as we 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:26.960 get it. But again, we just couldn't wait to tell you, guys, 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:29.440 because we're too excited. That's right, and you know what 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:32.120 we're doing. We've got a great uh working with some 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:35.080 great new people with our social media stuff. So you 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:38.000 might have noticed that our Instagram and our Facebook have 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:40.119 some new and exciting things happening. So that's a great 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:43.280 place to find information about the tours. Very nice. So 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:46.399 we'll see you guys in the Northwest coast this February 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:50.240 and the rest of you, who knows, could be a 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:55.480 wild year. Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production 0:01:55.640 --> 0:02:04.280 of I Heart Radio. Y hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:08.720 I'm Josh, There's Chuck, Jerry's here, and Jack Black's lurking around, 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:12.640 which makes this stuff you should know. We got the 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:18.760 facts on wax w s y s K. That's pretty great. Sorry, 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:24.280 pretty you should have been a radio personality. I used 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:26.040 to want to be I wanted to be a DJ. 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:29.799 You came awfully close. Man. I have to say that 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:32.440 was a pretty pretty close to a realized dream if 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:35.760 you ask me. Uh well, and what's funny is is 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:40.640 the saying wax and like are one of our local 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:45.000 record stores. Here's wax and facts and old DJ saying wax. 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:49.840 In this episode you will find out why they say wax. Yeah, 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:54.600 it's hopelessly outdated, but yeah, it's still still applies to 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:57.679 us the next time. Let's do this. This is pretty fun. 0:02:57.680 --> 0:02:59.519 I'm excited. Do you collect final, Lenny? I think you 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:02.239 do a little bit right, Yeah, a little bit. Um. 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:05.160 I don't like collected. I just buy stuff that I want. 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:09.360 But you know, I'm vinyl, but I'm not just like, look, everybody, 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:13.720 check out my collection. I just have a selection of records. 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:17.600 How about that? Yeah? My deal is I have my records, 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:20.839 most of my records that I had growing up. Never 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:23.919 got rid of him, moved him every time like a dummy. 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:32.360 I got uh inherited while still alive my um stepfather's 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:36.080 record collection. He didn't pass away, but he just said here, 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:39.320 I'm done with these. I'm so sick of music. It's ridiculous. 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:41.240 But that's where I got all that good Like he 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:44.000 has all the all that prog rock from the seventies. 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:47.560 He was way into that stuff. Uh. And then I 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:53.680 started buying just sort of classic favorites of mine, basically 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:57.000 kind of filling out newer classic favorites from when I 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:01.080 stopped buying records up to this point. So I'm kind 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:03.800 of running out of room on my little three banger shelf, 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:09.000 so I'm slowing down the rate of purchase. But it's 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:11.880 it's good, and through the miracle of modern technology, I 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:15.720 can play a record through a Bluetooth set of Bluetooth speakers. 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:19.400 That is amazing, but it's also a tragedy. Well, yeah, 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:22.000 I wish I had a plugged in what hi fi 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:26.200 system I've got them. I've got some like just Rockford 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:30.200 or rock File or whatever shelf speakers that are plugged 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:33.120 into an UM I guess a post amp or preamp, 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:34.680 I don't know, one of the amps, but it's not 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:37.679 part of the record player and the record players plugged 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:40.599 into that. And it seems clugy enough that I'm like, Okay, 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:43.360 this seems pretty authentic. Yeah, I mean, you can tell 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:45.960 we're experts here with our use of Rockford Files and 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:51.360 pre post SAMP, right, so, I but I mean still, 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:53.120 you don't have to be a total expert to to 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:57.160 talk about vinyl, although there will certainly be um record 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:01.240 store guys, the music equivalent of com book guy, who 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:03.680 will right in and tell us how how much we 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:06.640 just totally suck forever and like just got every single 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:09.360 thing wrong. But this is not for those people. It's 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:11.520 for everybody else who just wants to know how vinyl 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:15.240 records work. How about that? I think that's great? Uh, 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:16.919 And I think a few of these stats before we 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:19.440 dive into the history or in order thanks to Dave 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:26.359 Rouse who pointed out that obviously in the uh fifties, sixties, seventies, 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:30.240 and into the eighties some um, certainly into the eighties, 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:33.599 vinyl records were sort of the thing, uh, and their 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:38.400 peak in the seventies there were more than fifth, sorry 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:44.160 and thirty million records bought each year each year, which 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:47.040 is about six with eight track making up for the rest. 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:49.560 Because of course you had to play something in your 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:54.200 conversion van, right, you couldn't really, most most cars weren't 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:58.600 outfitted with record players, that's right. But then the cassette 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:03.000 came along and the c D and all but killed Vinyl. Uh. 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:06.880 They accounted for point one percent of music sales at 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:10.279 some point in the nineties, which is a pretty big drop, 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:13.240 I would say, but then made a comeback in the 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:18.839 two thousand's because of nostalgia and because of hipsters and 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:23.640 audio files and certain movies and Record Store Day and 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:26.640 all other reasons. Yes, But I mean like if you 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:31.159 if you could rewind back to seven and you asked 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:33.799 somebody if if they would ever, you know, see Vinyl 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:35.760 albums again, they would just laugh in your face like 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:38.920 they were done. They were goners, right, And so the 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:41.840 idea that it came back is pretty it's pretty remarkable 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:45.480 as far as comebacks go. And then in twenty I 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:50.000 believe Vinyl Records outsold CDs for the first time since 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:54.400 Night six. That's a check of a comeback. And that's 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:56.600 not even to say that CDs were doing that poorly. 0:06:56.640 --> 0:07:00.320 CDs actually had increased in sales over the past few 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:02.760 years as well, So it wasn't like CDs were just 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:06.400 tumbling downward while Vinyl was kind of slowly creeping upward. 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:09.920 They were both creeping up and Vinyl just overtook CDs. 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:14.240 I think in the year that vinyl overtook CDs UM, 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:18.080 twenty seven and a half million Vinyl records were sold 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:21.880 around the world. One it jumped up to forty one 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:26.000 point seven million. Yeah, baby, So yeah, Vinyl is definitely back, 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:29.000 and there's a lot of reasons why it's back, And um, 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:31.040 I say we start with the history of the whole 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:33.680 thing to maybe explain why people like vinyl. I think 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:35.760 that's where you kind of find the birth of the 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:39.000 whole thing. Uh, totally some other good news by the way, 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:42.119 just to drag that out a bit, is that cool 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:45.760 video I sent you from how It's made? Uh? They 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:49.960 went to that music record that record pressing plant in Nashville, 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:52.640 which is, as thinks, still one of the biggest ones, 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:56.200 and they had to re expand and they were like, hey, everybody, 0:07:56.520 --> 0:07:59.840 remember when we shut down almost Well we're we have 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:03.280 open up a bigger place now, which is awesome and 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:05.640 it's a great comeback story. Yeah. And I would guess 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:08.440 the people who were buying the point one percent of 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:11.920 music sales as vinyl in the eighties and nineties, I 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:16.920 had to just be exclusively DJs, right, Oh No, I 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:20.520 mean there were always Vinyl collectors. Um, they were just 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:24.520 not nearly as many. For a while. It wasn't exclusively 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:28.920 DJs because did DJ and they didn't even use records anymore, 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:31.920 did they. I mean, that's a pretty recent phenomenon. They 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:35.439 were using vinyl like throughout the eighties and nineties for sure. 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:38.079 When I guess we should look into that, like when 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:41.640 they switched to the carts, Um, I would say in 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:47.079 the tens maybe, really, I'm just guessing. But if it 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:49.559 gets a response like that out if you all guess 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:51.760 every time, I don't think so. I think they've had 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:56.400 the carts for a while. So the two thousand odds, 0:08:57.640 --> 0:08:59.480 I mean, I think before that someone will know and 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:03.480 tell us. Whatever I do work for a major radio company, 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:06.439 we should just ask somebody. We'll ask somebody, We'll get 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:09.600 him on the phone, we'll call in will be the caller. 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:14.520 I love it. So we're talking the history now, Chuck, 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:17.280 I'd say, um, and we're talking vinyl records. But you 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:20.200 can't really talk about vinyl records without like the beginning 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:23.640 of records a recorded sound in general. Um, And most 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:27.600 people say, who came up with recorded and played back sound? 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:32.560 Thomas Edison, Of course it was you know, the last 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:36.600 quarter of the nineteenth century, I think, And you're right, like, yes, 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:40.400 Thomas Edison definitely gave us what we kind of understand 0:09:40.480 --> 0:09:43.480 is recorded and played back sound. But um, there was 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:46.080 a guy who came a good twenty years before him, 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:49.240 although apparently Edison wasn't aware of his work. But he 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:54.160 was a guy from France, Edward Leon Scott de martin Ville. Yes, 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:57.400 and um, I've seen him referred to as Scott apparently 0:09:57.440 --> 0:09:59.679 that's his last name, and I guess he's from Martinville. 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:04.120 Frank Okay, oh, that would makes sense. So, um, Scott 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:08.880 was tinkering around with something called a phone autograph and 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:11.240 if you um look into it and we'll talk about 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:14.440 how how vinyl records are made later, but like he 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:17.559 basically said, here's how we're going to make records from 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:21.000 here on out. Here's the at least the rough contours 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:25.319 of the whole thing. Yeah, and it's it's very rudimentary. 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:28.160 But as you will see when we describe it compared 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:30.760 to what they did later on, it's sort of the 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:33.720 same idea, which is, and we'll get into how he 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:38.320 did it, but which is basically using a vibrating tool 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:42.600 to cut and it vibrates because of sound, and it 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:46.800 makes a vibrating representation of whatever sound you're making and 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:50.640 cuts that into something. Yeah, what's astounding. This is the 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:53.480 most astounding thing that I've learned in a really long time, 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:59.040 is what is captured on record is a natural language 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:03.520 of sound that humans stumbled upon. And one of the 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:06.280 first people, possibly the first person to stumble upon it 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:10.440 is is edwardley On Scott to Martinville and like, like, 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:13.280 this is this has always existed, we just never tried 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:15.800 to capture it. It It just didn't occur to us. But 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:18.720 when you look at a record, you are you are 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:23.480 holding in your hands a captured, encoded representation of a 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:26.160 sound that was made at some point in time. And 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:28.360 Scott was the first person to figure out how to 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:32.360 capture this. Yeah, And it's funny, even after having learned this, 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:37.000 watched all the videos, being able to regurgitate how it's done, 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:41.320 it's still a bit like black magic to me. How 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:44.679 you say something into a microphone and it ends up 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:48.439 being cut into a vinyl record and a needle can 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:50.480 bring that sound back out. It's it's still just sort 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:52.920 of mind blowing to me. Yeah, there is like definitely 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:55.160 a certain amount of black magic to it. And it's 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:57.240 pretty cool. Like it's the cool kind, you know what 0:11:57.240 --> 0:11:59.480 I'm saying. It's not the kind where like somebody breaks 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:02.680 a leg because of it. All right, So should we 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:06.760 talk about the phone autograph? Yeah, So what Scott did 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:09.040 was he took a um and I'm not quite sure 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:11.440 what inspired him to do this, but he took an 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:14.360 acoustic trumpet, you know, like the old gramphone the crank 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:16.720 record players that had like the big horn coming out 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:19.679 of it. Why did you say, Sonny? Exactly, that's an 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:23.120 acoustic trumpet. And he put a little membrane over the 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:27.080 small and the narrow end of it, and he attached 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:31.320 a boar's hair, one single boar's hair to that membrane, 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:35.520 and then, uh, the boar's hair was touching a glass plate, 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:37.440 i think. And on the glass plate he had put 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:41.920 something called um lampblack, which is like soot basically, just 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:44.520 put a nice coating of it. And then he spoke 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:47.920 into the large end of that acoustic trumpet and that 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:52.480 black magic started, That's right. And so what happened is 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:58.000 that boar's hair bristle would uh wiggle and vibrate along, 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:01.800 you know, to match whatever sound he was making, and 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:05.960 it drew basically what Dave refers to I think astuteley 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:10.040 as a sonic fingerprint. Uh. Through that soot, it drew 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:16.680 sort of the visual representation of sound for the first time. Um. 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:20.319 At the time, I think he called it a natural stenography, 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:23.160 is what Scott called it. But at the time he 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:26.160 was like so great. Um, I promised that this thing 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:29.400 maybe one day we'll be able to make a sound, 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:31.880 but we don't know how to do that, and everyone went, 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:36.319 what are you even talking about, dude? Um. But through 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:40.280 the miracle of science, they actually got a computer to 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:45.200 uh virtually play virtually as in you know, not like 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:49.480 virtually like it actually did, but they use a virtual 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:54.680 digital stylists to actually be able to play these early 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:59.120 recordings of this dude like singing French songs and saying things, 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.160 oh yeah frera jacka and all that. It wasn't far 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:05.559 a jacka, it was well then who cares? Now I've 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:08.719 got the song in here somewhere. But uh, I mean, 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:10.640 you know, it's kind of creepy sounding, but it is. 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:13.400 And then some of it is just sort of hums 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:17.840 and noises, but it is a human being. Uh, it's 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:21.680 all Claire de la loun. Uh. It is a actual 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:26.320 human being speaking words and singing words. And long before 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:30.040 Edison did so. Yeah, it's a good twenty years before Edison. 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:32.640 And there was one other thing that Scott figured out, 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:36.240 UM that was really important, and he figured it out 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:39.280 right out of the gate. Is that when you um 0:14:39.440 --> 0:14:43.760 are are etching on that um, that glass plate covered 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:46.880 in lamp black with the boar's hair, the boar's hair 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:49.600 is just kind of wiggling right. The sound vibrations are 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:54.280 making it wiggle, and that wiggle is transferring acoustic waves 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:59.200 into mechanical energy that's being captured in those etchings. But 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:02.720 since the boy as um the boar's hair is just 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:05.520 in one place, you have to move that glass plate 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:09.120 and you can't just move it at any rate. It 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:11.560 has to be a specified rate. And he figured out 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:14.480 how to move that glass plate and I think one 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:18.960 m a second, which is really fast, UM. And that 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:22.000 means that if you read, if you put that thing 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:26.880 the other direction, UM at one m a second, then 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:28.840 it would play. And what he figured out was that 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:32.320 RPMs rotations per minute what would come to to be 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:35.880 a huge part of record playing was essential because if 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:38.160 you do it too fast, you have the same amount 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:42.000 of information, it's just compressed time wise, because you're moving 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:44.600 that glass plate faster than one meter a second, so 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:47.160 it comes out sounding like Alvin and the Chipmunks. If 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:49.880 you move it too slow, less than one meter a second, 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:52.480 it's that same amount of information, but it takes up 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:54.840 a longer amount of time and you come out sounding 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:58.240 like us on you know, half speed or something like that, 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:01.560 which people like to do when they marijuana cigarettes. I here, 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:05.520 although to be clear, he was not using revolutions because 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:10.120 it wasn't spinning yet know what as RPMs, But it 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:13.320 has to do with adjusting like a set frequency. It's 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:16.600 extraordinarily important that the playback and the recording are done 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:18.960 at the same frequency. And Scott figured that out out 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:21.760 of the gate. That's right, so put a pin in that. Uh. 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:27.360 Edison comes along and um wasn't really working from Scott's work, 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:33.600 but was arrival of Alexander Graham Bell and was working 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:38.880 on telephone products and decided to try and record phone calls. 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:42.160 And he had a big breakthrough when he attached the 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:46.160 stylust to a diaphragm, a lot like Scott did. And 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:48.920 I keep wanting to call him Martinville. I know Scott 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:53.920 from Martinville. Sure, um, And then the you know, exactly 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:56.840 in the same way the vibrations of the diaphragm were 0:16:56.920 --> 0:17:00.720 etched in this case onto a sheet of paraffin wax 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:04.440 with a needle. And he was basically like, wait a minute, 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:07.080 we can record. It doesn't just have to be phone calls. 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:09.199 We can record all kinds of things, like one day 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:12.720 there shall be rock and roll. And he figured that out. 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:14.960 He was like, yeah, no, forget the phone. I'm doing 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:18.280 something else with this. So he moved from that paraffin 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:22.760 wax sheet to metal cylinders wrapped in aluminum floor right. Yeah. 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:25.919 And it's it's almost like the I mean sort of 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:28.080 in a way, it's almost like the inverse of how 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:31.760 a music box works. Like it's a metal cylinder, but 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:35.800 with a music box they're little nubs that uh prick 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:39.040 metal combs of different pitches. In this case, you're you're 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:42.320 cutting a groove. Uh. And you know, if you had 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:44.320 a sheet of tinfoil at home and got a toothpick, 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:47.639 you know you can drag it along and make an impression. 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:51.040 That's essentially what he was doing, right, So the fact 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:54.480 that he moved over to cylinders was pretty progressive. That 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:59.199 actually was um, the way that music was captured and 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:02.800 played back for a while, UM was on these cylinders. 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:06.840 And Alexander Graham Bell was the one who took these 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:12.600 cylinders and changed them from aluminum foil into wax. Yeah, 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:16.040 so wax cylinders were really popular. That was how you 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:18.560 listen to music back then, how you recorded music and 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:21.680 listened to it. And UM, I have a little anecdote 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:25.040 from you me. Actually she found out that when she's 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:29.280 she I'm gonna tell it on her behalf, but I'll 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:31.040 put on a wig and try to tell him a 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:35.960 higher pitch before. So, Um, she found out that this 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:38.800 some guy who had like the best record collection in 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:42.359 the country, possibly the world, lived like thirty minutes away 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:44.800 from her. So she and some friends went and visited. 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:47.639 This guy's name is Joe Bussard, and he's still around 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:51.679 and he still has this fantastic record collection, um, and 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:54.960 most of it is pre nineteen fifties stuff, but he 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:59.080 has original whax cylinders, like from the nineteenth century that 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:01.520 he played for them, and she said they were like 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:05.240 African American spiritual. She's like, it was clearly people sitting 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:08.080 on a porch singing this stuff. And it was like, 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:11.840 did they these people had sung this in one take 0:19:12.160 --> 0:19:15.080 on a porch in like the eighteen nineties or something 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:17.560 like that. And there she wasn't you know, two thousand 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:20.600 whatever listening to it played back, which is pretty sweet, 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:24.560 and she said, this is lame. I want to hear 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:28.320 some rock indoor rule. Uh, that's an awesome story we had. 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:30.920 It made me think, or remember rather that we had 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:36.080 a a hand crank phonograph growing up in my house. 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:38.720 My I guess my dad got it at some point 0:19:39.440 --> 0:19:41.560 and it was cool. You know, we had old records 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:44.280 and we didn't sit around and listen to him, but 0:19:44.359 --> 0:19:46.000 my brother and I would put on one of those 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:47.800 old records and crank it up every now and then, 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:52.080 and uh, you know, it's cool. It sounds kind of 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:55.200 like a horror movie, but it's like it's just it's 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:57.720 a neat experience to see sort of the early technology 0:19:57.760 --> 0:20:01.760 at work. There is something really unsettling about a nineteen 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:05.840 twenties record being played. There's just something about it. It's like, 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:08.800 for some reason, it always seems like the singer wants 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:12.199 to harm you, but it's pretending they don't, I know, 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:16.879 even especially because they're they're always singing about times a 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:18.639 little like warble and you're like, no, no no, no, you 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:22.360 got a knife in your hand exactly, slick back hair 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:27.800 and some crazy huge smile. Um. Alright, so Edison uh 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:30.960 and Bell are both working on this stuff. Bell has 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:34.720 got his wax cylinder going. Um. He played it back 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:38.959 on something called a graphophone. This was an eight seven. 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:42.960 You crank that handle, it rotates that wax cylinder and 0:20:43.080 --> 0:20:46.840 it plays it back through an acoustic trumpet um which 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:49.439 I think we had one on ours. That was just 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:52.399 for show, but there was an actual kind of rudimentary 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:56.440 speaker underneath, and that's what amplified the sound. And then 0:20:56.560 --> 0:20:58.879 of course later on the hand crank was replaced with 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:01.639 a motor. And just to explain the hand crank too, 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:04.520 you don't have to keep cranking it. You would crank 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:06.919 it a bunch and then kind of hit go and 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:10.159 then it would store up that mechanical energy and rotate 0:21:10.240 --> 0:21:14.879 the player. Right, But that was still cylinder, right, That 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:17.440 was still the wax cylinder. Not obviously at my house, 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:19.919 we didn't have those but yeah, but still we're working 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:22.800 not even necessarily just wax, but we're working with cylinder. 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:25.960 That was how you played back or recorded sound. And 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:28.480 it was like that until a guy came along, I 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:31.399 think in the eight nineties named Emil Berliner. He was 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:34.440 German American and he came up with the gramma phone, 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:40.320 which probably sounds familiar because Berlinard's invention, which was shellac records, 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:42.520 he was the first one to say, forget these cylinders, 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:45.920 let's put let's put the stuff on disks and come 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:48.360 up with rotations per minute and just he made all 0:21:48.359 --> 0:21:53.880 these innovations. Um, his invention was the standard from the 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:57.200 nineties to nineteen fifty. That was how you listen to music. 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:00.919 Was this guy's invention, the gramaphone, Yeah, which you know. 0:22:01.240 --> 0:22:03.360 The main reason why is because you could actually reproduce 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:06.840 these on mass You could create like thousands of copies 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:10.640 of disc records, which was not something you could really 0:22:10.680 --> 0:22:13.119 do with the wax cylinders. It was very expensive, it 0:22:13.160 --> 0:22:15.960 took a lot of time to reproduce them. Uh. He 0:22:16.080 --> 0:22:19.359 figured out how to make these molds of a master 0:22:19.440 --> 0:22:23.080 recording and press them into records. Which is it really 0:22:23.119 --> 0:22:25.080 set the stage. I mean things have changed a little bit, 0:22:25.119 --> 0:22:27.160 but it really set the stage for how we still 0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:30.720 do it today. Yeah, I mean it's it's virtually the same. 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:32.639 It's just you know, a little more advanced today. But 0:22:32.680 --> 0:22:36.320 the principles are were certainly the same. The big difference though, 0:22:36.840 --> 0:22:39.119 is this was not vinyl that this guy was making. 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:42.159 Like I said, it's shelack, and shelac is a natural substance. 0:22:42.520 --> 0:22:45.720 That was basically, uh, it's a natural polymer. It's like 0:22:45.800 --> 0:22:49.080 natural plastic. Basically it comes out of the lack bug, 0:22:49.119 --> 0:22:51.840 which I think is native to Southeast Asia, if I'm 0:22:51.880 --> 0:22:55.479 not mistaken. So it was expensive to produce to shelack 0:22:55.640 --> 0:22:58.000 enough shellack to make a record, because again, the stuff's 0:22:58.000 --> 0:23:01.520 coming out of a bug, not gen on that it 0:23:01.560 --> 0:23:03.640 was from the female lack. Is that why it's called 0:23:03.680 --> 0:23:08.840 she lack? Maybe? I think it is. That's pretty great. 0:23:08.960 --> 0:23:11.720