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Speaker 1: This is a journey pop up.

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Speaker 2: The Boule Clezy releases The History of Sound. Oh.

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Speaker 3: This week we're going to look at the history of

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Speaker 3: sound and the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia

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Speaker 3: have currently teamed up with us to talk about it.

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Speaker 3: Today we're going right back to the start with the

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Speaker 3: phonograph cylinder and welcome Torston Kating, the curator at the

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Speaker 3: National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.

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Speaker 2: Hallow Torstonston Welcome, great to be with you.

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Speaker 3: Thank you for joining us. Now let's start with the

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Speaker 3: first question. What is a phonograph cylinder.

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Speaker 1: That's a very good question.

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Speaker 4: So phonograph cylinder is the first really attempt at recording

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Speaker 4: sound that actually worked and was able to be played back.

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Speaker 4: If you think of the phonograph, if you think of

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Speaker 4: like a wooden box about the size.

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Speaker 1: Of a small sewing machine.

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Speaker 4: Onto that you put a cylinder which is checked a

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Speaker 4: little bit like the inside of a toilet role And

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Speaker 4: originally they were made out of wax, and you put

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Speaker 4: a needle on that and there'd be a huge horn

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Speaker 4: coming off it and you could both record and play

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Speaker 4: back sound off of it.

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Speaker 5: It was quite phenomenal. I mean, how did the actual

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Speaker 5: recording process work. I mean, what's the magic.

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Speaker 4: The magic is it's entirely acoustic, so the ris is

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Speaker 4: pre amplification, pre electricity, no microphones involved. Someone would go

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Speaker 4: up to the machine and they would yell or play

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Speaker 4: something down the horn, which would then move air down.

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Speaker 4: It would go onto a membrane which had a needle

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Speaker 4: on it. That needle would cut into the wax around

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Speaker 4: the cylinder, and when you wanted to play it back,

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Speaker 4: you put a different membrane and needle on it and

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Speaker 4: it would play back the sound out of that horn.

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Speaker 3: Wow, do you know what? The first thing recorded on one?

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Speaker 3: Was something by Keith Richards?

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Speaker 4: I imagine possibly possibly, No, that's a real big point

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Speaker 4: of contention. Weren't wax, They were actually made out of tinfoil,

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Speaker 4: so and those tin foil ones don't survive, so we

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Speaker 4: don't really know. And claims it was him singing a

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Speaker 4: nursery rhyme on it, but we don't know for sure.

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Speaker 3: Edison was always putting his name up for his hand up.

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Speaker 3: Don't what kind of crazy mind does this you know?

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Speaker 3: Coming to and that first? Who thought I'm going to

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Speaker 3: make a cylinder from tinfoil?

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Speaker 2: And we're going to record songs on it. It's or

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Speaker 2: is it a mistake? Incredible?

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Speaker 4: It was, It wasn't a mistaken And to his credit,

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Speaker 4: Edison did take credit for a lot of things, but

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Speaker 4: he was an idiot. No, no, but he was actually

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Speaker 4: the first one to do that. The recording sound, so

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Speaker 4: that was around eighteen seventy seven, about twenty years beforehand,

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Speaker 4: they had were the first attempts at recording sound, but

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Speaker 4: they were using magnetic devices to do that, but that

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Speaker 4: never really came to fruition. So Edison eighteen seventy seven,

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Speaker 4: with his tinfoil tube was the first one.

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Speaker 3: Imagine he shared to Austin, what was the maximum length

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Speaker 3: of you know that you could record on them?

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Speaker 4: Well, to start off with, when the first wax cylanders

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Speaker 4: came out, because about ten years after the tinfoil they

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Speaker 4: moved to wax, which was much more robust. You're looking

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Speaker 4: at about two to three minutes. And it's no real

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Speaker 4: coincidence that the length of pop songs ever since there's

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Speaker 4: around about two to three minutes.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, had the Beatles on them for sure. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: no long die straight album tracks.

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Speaker 1: On the road, that's the one.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and how many times could you play them over

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Speaker 2: to the wax ones.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, when they first came out in the eighteen eighties

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Speaker 4: early eighteen nineties, you'd get a couple of dozen plays

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Speaker 4: because every time the needle went into the wax, it

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Speaker 4: just took a little bit of that wax out. Yes,

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Speaker 4: but they were actually were designed initially for dictation, and

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Speaker 4: you could actually shave.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you could shave the wax.

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Speaker 4: Off and re record on them, which is what people

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Speaker 4: would do. But as they got better at the technology

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Speaker 4: and moved into away from wax and started to use

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Speaker 4: an early form of plastic accelios nitrate. Yes, you could

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Speaker 4: get hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of plays out of them,

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Speaker 4: and we're still able to play them today.

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Speaker 2: Oh that is amazing.

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Speaker 3: I did read that they may have been used in

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Speaker 3: some very early jukeboxes.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, there were lots of different ways that they were used,

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Speaker 4: but they really quite fragile.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, even the cellulose ones, so.

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Speaker 4: That never really worked as well as the flat discs.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 5: Well that's incredible. How much do people know about this stuff?

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Speaker 5: And we're getting educated here today, but people obviously very

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Speaker 5: curious about this kind of stuff, and do people know

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Speaker 5: much about it?

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Speaker 1: Touston.

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Speaker 4: There's lots of people that know a huge amount about

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Speaker 4: the cylinders, and they were sold in huge quantities by

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Speaker 4: the end of their sort of run, So we're talking

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Speaker 4: about the early nineteen teens to nineteen fifteen.

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Speaker 1: They were sold in.

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Speaker 4: Hundreds of thousands all around the world, so they're still

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Speaker 4: everywhere now.

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Speaker 1: We still get offers of people who are.

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Speaker 4: Cleaning out garages and sheds who have huge amounts of

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Speaker 4: wax and cellulose cylinders that they want to donate to us.

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Speaker 2: Gosh, they'd go up. There was a fire that Gamble

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Speaker 2: Price movie Tawston. Are they used in any way for

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Speaker 2: any reason today?

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Speaker 4: No, they're really obsolete now. Once once the flat disc

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Speaker 4: came in and took over from them, they were used

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Speaker 4: for quite a long time as for dictation. Ironically, what

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Speaker 4: Edison's originally had them for anyone who knows the long

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Speaker 4: running radio series Blue Hills, every episode of that was

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Speaker 4: the script was recorded on wax cylinders as as a dictaphone. Yeah,

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Speaker 4: but nowadays no, it's just for the people who are

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Speaker 4: a little bit obsessed with them.

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Speaker 2: We've we've re recorded music.

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Speaker 4: On wax cylinders at the National Film and Sound Dark Eyed.

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Speaker 1: People like the basics with with Gottcha.

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Speaker 4: Did a recording for us on wax have done as well.

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Speaker 4: So yeah, people go to our website at the FSA

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Speaker 4: dot dot au look up wax cylinders. You can actually

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Speaker 4: go and listen to those record and listen to how

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Speaker 4: different acoustic recording is compared to amplified recording.

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Speaker 2: Incredible cylinder. I used to know. Yeah, it was it

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Speaker 2: just a bit tinny?

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Speaker 1: Was it?

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Speaker 2: The bad is?

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Speaker 4: It's really interesting. Some instruments are really hard to record

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Speaker 4: because it's about pushing air down that that horn, So

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Speaker 4: things like guitars, violins really difficult, whereas brass instruments.

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Speaker 1: That's the one.

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Speaker 4: Marches and comic songs and brass bands were really popular

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Speaker 4: on cylinders because they all produced enough air to move

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Speaker 4: that needle and get a great soundback.

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Speaker 2: Well, fascinating.

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Speaker 3: It's a lot easier to store music today than this

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Speaker 3: would have been a room full of cylinders. Justin thank

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Speaker 3: you for getting us away on the beginning of our

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Speaker 3: history of soundburg.

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Speaker 2: To talk to you again later in the week.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely pleasure, Thank.

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Speaker 2: You, Thankshustin. Bye. Now I learned about it things had

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Speaker 2: no idea.

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Speaker 3: About that, Clarzy, do we do you have an example

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Speaker 3: there of a nineteen ten recording of a song that

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Speaker 3: we all know?

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Speaker 2: Of course on New yearsy it feels like New Years,

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Speaker 2: doesn't that all? You're free to sing along, it's not.

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Speaker 2: It's okay, it's not twenty twenty five years, a little

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Speaker 2: bit crackly good.

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Speaker 1: The Queen, Oh.

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Speaker 2: God, my place, Oh God, broad Wow, it's amazing.

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Speaker 5: So that's nineteen ten, as you mentioned, yeah.

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Speaker 2: By Frank C. Stanley Free first World War. That's amazing,

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Speaker 2: isn't it? Well, that is amazing.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, So we've learned a hell of a lot there,

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Speaker 5: but we will learn more throughout the week as we

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Speaker 5: go through. You know, the time sequence with sound.

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Speaker 3: You know you always avoided getting your thumbprints on your vinylize.

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Speaker 3: Imagine putting your thumb on your wax. I mean it

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Speaker 3: had just did a catch.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I'll mentioned the kids melting them down. Just I

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Speaker 5: was trying to make candle man