WEBVTT - Two Turntables and a TechStuff Episode 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.200 Get in text with technology with tech Stuff from half 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:13.760 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:16.840 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm a host and a 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:20.720 producer and I love all things tech and this here 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:22.840 show is the one where I talk about what is 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:26.360 technology and how it affects us. Now. In our last episode, 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:30.120 we followed the development of the predecessors to the modern 0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:33.680 turntable leading up to the conclusion of World War One, 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:35.080 and I'm gonna have to do a little bit of 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:39.440 backtracking in this episode, because oddly enough, history does not 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:43.600 unfold as a single series of events one after the other. 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:46.919 There's a lot of stuff that's all happening concurrently, and 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:49.760 that makes it difficult to talk about various developments. But 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:52.800 we're gonna chat a little bit about what was happening 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:55.240 at the end of that era. At that time, due 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:57.760 to the war, manufacturing facilities were ready to go into 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:01.080 full production mode for non war time use, and you 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:04.240 suddenly had all these factories and pieces of equipment and 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:08.960 processes and stuff like that in place to make stuff. 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:11.119 Originally it was going to be military stuff, but now 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:14.280 it could be turned to making consumer stuff for the 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:18.759 average citizen, and people finally finding themselves with more spare 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:21.760 time at their disposal thanks to industrialization. It was the 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:24.919 perfect time for entertainment technology to make its way into 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:28.560 the home. Now. If it hadn't been for radio, the 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:31.720 predecessors to the modern turntable would likely have found their 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:35.880 foothold in the common household at that time. But radio 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:39.760 gave people the chance to experience all sorts of different programming. 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:42.680 They weren't limited to whatever songs they could find pressed 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:46.080 on record discs or carved into wax cylinders, and the 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:48.720 recording media at that time was still limited in how 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:52.880 much information it could actually carry. Typically, a recording could 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:55.240 be no longer than a couple of minutes on either 0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:59.400 cylinders or discs. Even in nineteen o one, when Eldridge 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:02.600 Johnson produced the ten inch record disc, you could only 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:05.440 fit about three minutes of audio on the records. The 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:08.920 playback speed for recorded media was not standardized at this 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:12.160 time and could range between sixty and a hundred thirty 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:16.440 revolutions per minute. Now, that depended both on the medium 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:20.040 and the equipment you played the media on. Right, so 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:22.520 a wax cylinder might say that it needs to be 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:25.880 played back at seventy revolutions per minute, so you'd have 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:29.680 to have a player that could play at that speed. 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:32.720 And there were a lot of issues at that time 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:37.200 of these non standard formats, and it created a lot 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:42.200 of incompatibilities across systems. The physical records just could not 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:46.200 hold more than a couple of minutes of audio, largely 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:49.720 because the grooves in the records. We could talk about cylinders, 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:53.880 but I'm specifically talking about record discs. The groups were 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:57.200 pretty large by today's standards, so you couldn't fit as 0:02:57.240 --> 0:03:00.120 many lines of grooves. Remember, a group is essentially a 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:02.799 spiral carved into the surface of a disk, and it 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:06.920 spirals from the outer edge to the inner edge, and 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:11.040 you couldn't make those grooves too tight. Back in those days, 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:14.600 we didn't have the precision there. So the gramophone and 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:17.120 phonograph and other such devices started to fall out of 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:20.880 favor as far as home use is concerned. While the 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:23.919 recording and playback speeds weren't standardized yet. The technology that 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:28.280 would make that possible did emerge in eight so this 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:31.400 is before well before World War One. That tech was 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:34.639 called a governor, and the governor is a general term 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:40.320 for various types of mechanical devices. Typically it is something 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:43.600 that regulates speed within a system. So you have governors 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:46.560 and all sorts of things, including vehicles. There are governors 0:03:46.600 --> 0:03:50.720 that are in place and vehicles that top out how 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:53.920 fast a car can go, for example, and if you 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:56.880 were to remove that governor, you could, in theory, push 0:03:56.880 --> 0:03:59.840 your vehicle to move faster than what it was rated for, 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:03.560 although you do so at your own peril because you 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:06.360 could cause some pretty bad damage, and not to mention, 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:09.440 have a vehicle that doesn't control very well at those 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:15.600 high speeds. Now, the governor in would eventually allow for 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:18.080 standardized playback speeds, but it took a few decades to 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:21.640 become adopted universally. So people started to put them into 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:25.919 their various machines like the phonograph and the gramophone to 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:30.440 make sure that the revolutions per minute we were regular, 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:34.800 that that they kept at that specific speed, because otherwise 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:39.359 you would have issues where the revolutions might speed up 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:41.520 or they might slow down, and that would affect the 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:46.320 playback recording, the playback quality. You would have the playback 0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:48.880 speed up or slow down, so suddenly everyone starts sounding 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:52.320 like their chipmunks or that they're on barbiturous or whatever, 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:55.680 so you wanted to have a way of regulating that 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:59.520 and keeping it nice and steady. Another limitation in the 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:03.680 technology g was in sound quality and amplification. From their 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:07.520 introduction to the nineteen twenties, these various gadgets relied on 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:11.760 either stethoscope like earpieces which you would plug into your ears, 0:05:11.839 --> 0:05:14.920 kind of like earbuds, or they would have an acoustic 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:19.320 horn that would convey sound from a diaphragm to a room. Now, 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:23.320 in some implementations of the invention, the vibrations passed directly 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:26.279 from a needle to a membrane, So you would have 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:28.680 a membrane and there'd be a needle mounted to the 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:31.560 middle of the membrane, and as the needle moved across 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:35.440 the recording service and vibrated due to the actual recording 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:39.080 in the groove, it would transmit those vibrations to the membrane, 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:41.839 which would then create the sound that you would hear, 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:45.080 but it would be a very low volume because there 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:48.599 was no amplification there apart from acoustic amplification due to 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:53.719 there being a horn. In other implementations, however, there was 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:58.000 another component in which compressed air would cause the membrane 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:01.560 to vibrate, allowing you to have a separate horn speaker 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:04.400 connected by cable to the device. So you could have 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:10.480 this implemented directly into the case for a phonograph or 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:12.839 a gramaphone, or it could be a separate thing. But 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:15.480 it might make you wonder how these things actually work. 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:21.080 How did this compressed air speaker function. Well, first, imagine 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:23.040 that you have a cabinet. We're going to talk about 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:26.040 a big integrated system. Here on the top of the 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:29.360 cabinet is the platter. That's the surface upon which you 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:32.560 would place a record, uh, and it's the surface that 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:37.880 rotates around. There's the arm that has the stylus or 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:41.120 needle at the end of it. There it is connected 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:45.000 to a horn apparatus. The horn access your loud speaker. Now, 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:47.039 depending upon the model of device you might have, you 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:50.360 might wind up a spring motor by turning a crank 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:53.880 and that would allow there the spring motor to coil 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:58.000 and then provide the energy necessary to rotate the platter. 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:00.479 Or you might have it connected to an elect motor, 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:03.520 in which case the electric motor provides the rotational force. 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:06.880 But either way you get something that's going to turn 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:09.160 the platter around. That's only the tip of the iceberg. Though. 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:12.000 Inside the cabinet, if you were to open up, you 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:14.680 would find a blower, which in turn would typically be 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:17.880 connected to an air canister. Uh, that would be your 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:21.360 compressor part. And in earlier versions of the technology, you'd 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:24.160 have a hand crank and a spring motor for the 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:27.920 blower itself, whereas later versions used an electric motor to 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:30.640 operate the blower. Turning on the motor would cause it 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:33.680 to blow air into the canister, thus compressing the air. 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:35.640 Now this gives me a chance to talk about how 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:39.560 blowers work. In these early incarnations, the blowers would typically 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:43.560 use a centrifugal fan. Now, imagine a fan sort of 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:46.520 like a water wheel. In fact, a water wheel isn't 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:49.120 a bad analogy. The fan is made up of two 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:54.600 parallel discs joined together by blades set between the two discs. Now, 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:57.480 that's the fan wheel. The fan wheel is set inside 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:01.840 a housing which has an intake and an output section. 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:06.120 Air comes into the fan through the central hub the intake, 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:10.360 and as the fan rotates, it changes the directional force 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:14.239 of the air into a rotational forces. Trivigal force pushes 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:18.040 it out. I know that that's being really free with 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:21.200 the term force there, but just bear with me, and 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:23.840 the air gets pushed out towards the edge and then 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:26.160 it makes its way through the output. So imagine air 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:29.480 coming straight into the center of this wheel inside of housing, 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:33.200 then being forced out towards the edges of the housing interior. 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:36.120 But you've only got one way out of the housing, 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:39.080 which is the output valve, and that's all the incoming 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:41.959 air is forced out of there. The canister acts as 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:45.880 the holding space for compressed air, and valves allow air 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:49.080 to pass from the intake, but not to go back out, 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:52.840 so air keeps coming into the canister cannot escape back 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:55.559 the way it came in. As you crambore air into 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:58.439 the canister, of the pressure inside the canister increases. That 0:08:58.480 --> 0:09:01.800 creates potential energy to do work, and we use compressors 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:04.319 for all sorts of stuff. Compressed air at very high 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:07.720 pressure can provide the energy needed to operate a jackhammer, 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:11.720 for example, but your typical record player didn't need quite 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:16.280 that much power, even for heavy metal music, which had 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:20.079 not been invented yet. A connector from the canister would 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:22.680 lead to a part of the horn on the top 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:26.839 of the whole apparatus. Typically, the needle on the record 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:29.800 would control a valve and that would allow compressed air 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:34.240 to pass through, impacting a membrane and creating the vibrations. 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:37.360 So the compressed air was able to create the same 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:39.719 sort of vibrations that the needle would if it were 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:42.240 directly connected to the membrane, but it would do so 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:45.920 with much more force, and that would result with higher 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:50.240 amplitude sounds. Thus you would have louder sounds of increase 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:56.480 the volume considerably. Uh it was really loud. Actually, the 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:59.400 motor and blower would be really loud. The sound was 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:02.120 really loud. So you ended up with a very noisy 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:04.400 device overall, and there was no way to control the 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:07.680 volume apart from turning off the compressor. And if you 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:09.600 did that, the only power you would get for sound 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:12.880 would be from the needle creating vibrations and the membrane alone, 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:16.360 just by making the air molecules vibrate a little, making 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:18.839 the membrane vibrate a little, So any sound that came 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:21.600 out of the horn would be really really quiet. If 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:25.439 you turned on the compressor, that sound would be increased dramatically. 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:28.960 But so you would also get the noise of the 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:32.760 the blower and the compressor UH as well as whatever 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:36.960 the the music was or the audio was, so it 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:40.600 was either too quiet for you to really hear, or 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:42.679 so loud that you would never want it in your house. 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:46.520 It was more meant for large public spaces than for 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:49.680 UH inside a home. It had just been a really 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:53.440 loud nuisance inside any house. An example of this type 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:55.000 of setup. By the way, if you ever want to 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:57.480 look it up, there are videos on YouTube where you 0:10:57.480 --> 0:11:01.040 can actually listen to one of these devices and see 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:03.680 a full explanation of how it works. Look up the 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:08.040 Victor oxta phone a U x E T O P 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:10.600 H O N E that was produced in the early 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:14.320 nineteen hundreds, and there are videos on YouTube of restorers 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:17.199 who have these and have shown how they work, and 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:20.160 it's pretty fascinating stuff. Now, the lack of volume control 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:23.360 was another limitation that made those early record blayers less 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:25.520 than ideal for your average consumer, and to be honest, 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:29.200 earlier radio had the same problem. Earlier radio was also 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:34.520 using speakers similar to what these early phonographs and gramophones 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:37.160 were using. It wasn't until the invention of the electric 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:41.040 driven amplification that things really got going now. I'll go 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:44.760 more into detail about that in the upcoming tech stuff 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:48.320 episode on speakers and headphones, but here's a quick overview. 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:52.439 Experiments and electromagnetic loudspeakers began in the late nineteenth century, 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:55.160 but the first practical ones arrived on the scene about 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:59.800 two decades later in nineteen fifteen, and then um those 0:11:59.840 --> 0:12:03.120 were made by Peter Jensen and Edwin Priddham, who get 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:05.240 the credit for making those. It took another decade for 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:07.600 refinements and improvements to the tech to make it not 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:10.679 just practical on its own, but also preferable to the 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:14.960 air compressor amplifiers that were already in use. In general. 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:17.800 Electric got a patent for such an implementation, designed by 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:21.640 researchers Chester Rice and Edward Kellogg, and i'll talk more 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:24.960 about all of these people in the speakers episode. The 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:28.480 benefits of this technology were huge. Eventually they get playback 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:32.319 audio at different volume levels without compromising on sound quality. 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:35.240 Audio distortion wasn't nearly as big an issue with these 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:38.120 speakers as was the case with earlier ones. In fact, 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:41.680 the basic design that ge patented is still pretty much 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:44.160 how speakers work to this day, more or less I 0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:47.560 say more or less because they become more sophisticated over time, 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:50.160 but they still work on the same principles, and you 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:53.440 don't need an acoustic horn louds loudspeaker anymore, which is 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:56.160 pretty cool. This is as good a time as any 0:12:56.200 --> 0:12:59.839 to address something else that purists get particular about. Now. 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:03.960 I've used turntable and record player a bit interchangeably here, 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:06.440 and that's largely because a lot of people do the 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:08.719 same thing. It's a common practice where people will use 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:10.800 one or the other to refer to the same sort 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:13.600 of thing. But I need to acknowledge there is a 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:18.160 technical distinction. A record player contains a turntable as one 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:21.240 of its components, but also has a built in amplifier 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:25.960 and speakers. A turntable by itself does not have those elements, 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:29.080 and instead it's a component that you would hook up 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:32.200 to a larger sound system in order to listen to 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:35.080 the output. But let's face it, y'all, I'm probably gonna 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:39.480 end up using these terms interchangeably, so just prepare yourselves 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:45.160 for slight misinformation in that respect, because a lot of 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:47.680 people do it, and and and old habits die hard. 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:51.160 At the same time, it became possible to make electrical 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:55.920 recordings of music using microphones. Microphones has been around for 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:59.000 a while. People started to understand the microphone effect towards 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:02.080 the end of the ninet century, but again it hadn't 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:05.920 really been perfected until about the nineteen twenties. And I 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:07.760 know I've said before, I'll just repeat it here. A 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:11.760 microphone is essentially a speaker in reverse. The two technologies 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:15.200 are closely related. Before the microphone, all recordings were made 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:18.920 directly into acoustic horns to create the vibrations used to 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:21.800 cut a master record. So you would have a big 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:25.240 horn uh connected down to a membrane that had a 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:29.480 needle attached to it, and you would uh move a 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:35.480 blank record that was easily etched um around in a circle. 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:38.400 The needle would continue through the groove in the record. 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:41.640 You would shout or play music or whatever into the 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:44.800 acoustic horn. That would make the membrane vibrate, and that 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:47.680 vibration would be transmitted to the needle, which would carve 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:50.720 into the record as it went through the groove the 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:53.760 little bitty notches that would represent sound. So it's the 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:57.360 exact opposite approach as what was happening when the needle 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:01.240 was reading sound off of a record. Some of the 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:04.920 biggest stars in those early years of sound recordings were 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:09.160 opera singers. Henrico Caruso was particularly popular as the tenor 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:12.120 could sing in very clear tones at a very high volume, 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:15.160 and that was great for those early recording sessions. Other 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:18.680 famous stars were Billy Murray, not the comedic actor, but 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:21.400 the guy Who's Sang Over There, which was written by 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:24.760 George M. Cohen in support of America's war effort in 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:28.720 World War One. The first jazz record was the Livery 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:31.920 Stable Blues by the original Dixie Land Jazz Band in 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:37.000 nineteen seventeen. The first hit country record was Little Old 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:41.240 Log Cabin in the Lane by Fiddland John Carson, which 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:47.960 debuted in nineteen twenty three. Using the microphones would then 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:52.520 really transform things. Those early recordings were mostly done through 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:57.400 the acoustic corn section, but the microphones changed things up dramatically. 0:15:57.440 --> 0:15:59.360 I'll get to that in just a second. With the 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:02.960 invention of the electric loud speakers and microphones, uh, we 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:07.200 really started seeing the recording industry transform. And this is 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:10.480 sort of tangentially related to turntables, but you have to 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:13.960 understand that the development of the recording industry is largely 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:17.440 what made the turntable business possible. So it's really hard 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:20.520 to cover one without also talking at least a little 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:22.960 bit about the other. So I'm gonna try and keep 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:27.400 the recording industry history stuff to a minimum, but I 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:30.000 need to incorporate it a little bit in this discussion 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:34.680 to understand why the record player and turntable industries developed 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:37.680 as they did. So just a little bit more before 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:41.760 I go back to talking about record players. In the 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:45.800 famous crooner Bing Crosby recorded his first record, which is 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:49.080 called I've Got the Girl, and he used a carbon 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:51.760 microphone for the recording. I'll talk more about that in 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:55.880 the Speakers and Headphones episode as well. Bell Labs developed 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:58.120 this microphone, and Crosby would go on to become a 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:02.480 superstar in recording with expanding not only music but also film. 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:05.479 His popularity helped drive a lot of interest in the 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:08.439 recording industry. And while all this was happening, there was 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:12.040 another revolution, so to speak, in the record player world, 0:17:12.080 --> 0:17:14.159 and this has had to do with the transition from 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:18.800 spring motors to electric motors. One of the earliest such 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:23.439 record players was the Brunswick Panetrope, which debuted in nineteen 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:27.720 had an electrically driven turntable as well as vacuum tube 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:31.720 amplifiers and electric speakers, and even had an apparatus that 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:34.640 could drop a new disk down once an old one finished, 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:37.959 and this would become a common feature and a lot 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:41.359 of record players moving forward, this sort of automatic record changer, 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:45.800 which would just hold records at a certain height. When 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:48.720 the arm had reached the end of its of its 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:54.280 uh motion moving inwards from the outer edge of a record, 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:58.119 then that would automatically make the arm move back to 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:02.600 its original starting position, up a new album on top 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:04.840 of the first one, and then you could start again. 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:08.320 So the pane trope actually allowed you to have up 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:11.560 to five discs stored in this way, which was helpful 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:13.840 because again, these discs could only hold a few minutes 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:16.280 of music each, so if you wanted to listen to, 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:19.480 say a symphony, you have to have a whole bunch 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:22.240 of these to get from one section to the next, 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:24.199 and this way you could line them all up and 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:28.000 listen to them in sequence. Again, I'll cover vacuum tubes 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:30.919 and why why they are important and amplification in an 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:33.640 upcoming episode. Just know that those were a very important 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:36.560 invention to help make things like consumer radios and record 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:40.080 players possible. Now we've set the stage for the rise 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:44.199 of the DJ which happened in between the two World Wars, 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:46.360 and when we come back, I'll talk about the original 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:48.960 disc jockeys and how the record player was able to 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:53.080 cover from the blow dealt by commercial radio stations. But 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:56.200 first let's take a quick break and thank our sponsor. 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:06.000 Hey guys, it's Jonathan And before we jump into the 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:08.119 rest of this show, I just want to give a 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:11.080 quick shout out to a new podcast that's come out 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:15.800 from How Stuff Works, the Soundtrack Show, hosted by David Collins, 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:18.800 and I just thought it was thematically linked to the 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:23.480 whole turntable idea. This is a show that's specifically about 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:28.160 movie scores and soundtracks and how they affect the way 0:19:28.200 --> 0:19:32.000 we perceive the films, the life they have beyond films, 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:35.199 the inspiration and influences that went into the creation of 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:39.960 those soundtracks. This is my jam, guys. I love soundtracks, 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:43.640 So if you are really passionate about music in general 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:46.720 and movie music in particular, check it out. It's the 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:49.720 Soundtracks Show. You can find it on iTunes or wherever 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:53.520 you get your podcasts and now back to the show. Okay. 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:57.480 So N was a huge year for the recording industry 0:19:57.480 --> 0:20:00.959 in general and ultimately for record player is in particular. 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:04.320 The development of electric amplification, coupled with the move to 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:08.040 electric motors, helped bring sound quality up dramatically and reduce 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:12.800 the amount of noise record players created. Meanwhile, companies like Edison, 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:17.040 Columbia and Victor were working on extending the playing time 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:20.080 of disks, making improvements to the technology to push three 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:23.119 or four minutes of audio to seven or eight minutes. 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:26.399 Western Electric was able to squeeze ten minutes of audio 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:28.840 on a disc when the company began to develop tech 0:20:28.960 --> 0:20:33.359 for real films, as in real to real films that 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:36.880 would have sound accompanying them, so the record player industry 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:41.040 also actually ties in with the film industry. These improvements 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:43.439 did increase the amount of audio you could record to 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:45.800 a disc, but in general the sound quality was not 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:49.439 as good as what was on the shorter earlier discs, 0:20:49.840 --> 0:20:53.800 and so the short form approach was preferable in most applications. 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:59.560 In N Charles Brush offered the first piezo electric featherweight 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:02.520 style lists. The stylist is what a lot of people 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:05.480 would refer to as the needle, but it's more appropriately 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:07.760 called the stylus. This is the part of the record 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:10.600 player that settles into the groove on the record. The 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:13.840 information recorded in that groove causes the needle to vibrate. 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:17.160 In a piece of electric stylus, the needle is made 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:20.439 of a crystal or ceramic that generates an electric charge 0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:23.800 when it experiences applied mechanical stress. That's the piece of 0:21:23.880 --> 0:21:28.640 electric effect. So stuff like quartz experiences this. If you 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:32.760 apply a mechanical stress to quartz, it will then generate 0:21:32.800 --> 0:21:36.720 an electric charge. If you apply an electric charged quarts, 0:21:36.760 --> 0:21:40.920 it will actually exert a mechanical stress. It will actually vibrate, 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:44.160 and so that's why quartz crystals are used in watches, 0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:48.119 for example. So as the stylus moves through the groove, 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:51.399 it encounters the variations inside the groove that represent the 0:21:51.440 --> 0:21:55.720 audio recording. The stylist's movements caused the crystal to generate 0:21:55.800 --> 0:21:59.120 this electric charge, which then can drive the electric speaker. 0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:02.479 Usually an amplifier in there too. But you get the idea. 0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:05.960 No longer did the needle have to transmit vibrations directly 0:22:06.200 --> 0:22:09.680 to a membrane, right, You didn't have to do that anymore. 0:22:10.080 --> 0:22:13.400 Now the energy can move from kinetic form into electric, 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:18.240 so you didn't have just physical motions, you had electric ones. Later, 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:22.159 cartridges which consists of the stylists and some other components, 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:24.480 could have other types of pickups. So this was a 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:27.760 piece of electric pickup. But there are other kinds. There's magnetic, 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:31.320 dynamic and capacityance, and I'll have to cover those in 0:22:31.359 --> 0:22:34.080 a different episode at some point, because honestly, I ran 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:37.080 out of time to cover all the different types of pickups. 0:22:37.119 --> 0:22:39.919 But piece of electric is important because it meant that 0:22:40.000 --> 0:22:44.080 you could switch to a different method of playing back music. 0:22:44.680 --> 0:22:47.239 This also meant that you can develop lighter types of 0:22:47.240 --> 0:22:50.679 stylus so that you weren't causing as much wear and 0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:53.400 tear on the discs every time you listen to them, 0:22:53.520 --> 0:22:56.439 and you increase the utility of those discs. All of 0:22:56.440 --> 0:22:59.719 these steps are things that made record players more attractive 0:22:59.720 --> 0:23:02.879 in the eyes of consumers. Further down the road, another 0:23:02.920 --> 0:23:05.200 big part of the problem with records was the physical 0:23:05.320 --> 0:23:09.960 stuff the records were made from. At this stage the 0:23:10.000 --> 0:23:14.840 early twentieth century, the go to material was shellack. Shellac 0:23:15.160 --> 0:23:18.880