Re: [ARSCLIST] NY Times: Researchers Play Tune Recorded before Edison

[Dave Lewis <dlewis@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I remember the description of the ticker tape machine in Gelatt's "The
Fabulous Phonograph,"
but have never seen the device or a representation of it. I have seen
the one that came in
between that one and the finished, 1877 phonograph though - it's here in
Michigan. This was
a dual turntable device that used square, flat copper plates that were
screwed down in place.

This device took telegraph key pulses from over a wire and engraved them
onto the copper plate.
I'm not sure how it actually worked - the model I saw was behind a glass
case, and it had the
square copper "records" placed on both turntables. But I think you were
supposed to take the 
engraved record off the first turntable and move it over to the second,
where it would relay
the message elsewhere. The grooves on the copper records were easily
recognizable to the naked
eye as having "hill and dale" type pulses - I would love to hear them
played back. 

This thing looks more like a "record player" than the 1877 phonograph
did. David Giovannini commented
to the press that Edison was the first to play back a record, but not to
record one, and this new
phonautograph recording was like having a photograph taken 17 years
before a proper camera was 
invented. I agree, but add that Edison likewise discovered a method of
playback before he had a
record to play on it.  


David N. Lewis
Assistant Classical Editor, All Music Guide
 
Maybe music was not intended to satisfy the curious definiteness of man.
Maybe it is better to hope that music may always be transcendental
language in the most extravagant sense. ~ Charles Ives


-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
[mailto:ARSCLIST@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Steve Abrams
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 5:57 AM
To: ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] NY Times: Researchers Play Tune Recorded before
Edison

I am no expert on this matter but I do know that Edison included disc
records in his original patent specifications.  Also, Edison's first
sound recording device, described at the time in the Scientific
American, was not the tinfoil phonograph, but a mechanical tape
recorder, which, I think, used a variety of ticker tape.  Edison
originally set out to make a telephone repeater.

Steve Abrams

----- Original Message -----
From: "Steven C. Barr(x)" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 5:43 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] NY Times: Researchers Play Tune Recorded before
Edison


> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Howard Friedman" <hsf318@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>> And I just read somewhere that the Supreme Court back in the 2nd or 
>> 3rd decade
> of the last century credited Emile Berliner (you know, that German 
> Jewish
> guy!)
> with many of the inventions usually attributed to Thomas A. and other 
> WASPs.
>>
> What Emile Berliner perfected...to be exact...was the lateral-cut flat

> disc record/player...! Edison had apparently experimented with both, 
> but being a perfectionist, figured out that the fidelity of a flat 
> record would vary slightly between first and last turn of the
spiral...
> while a cylinder record would play at the same rate from first to last

> turn (especially if the reproducer was driven across the cylinder by a

> feedscrew...!). The difference was that flat disc records could be 
> stamped out in quantity, while cylinders were not moulded until early 
> in the 20th century...!
>
> Of course, Edison DID eventually produce disc records...but when he 
> did, they were 1/4" thick and the reproducer was feedscrew-driven!
> In the meantime, Berliner wound up driven into a corner by the usual 
> phalanx of lawyers, and packed up and moved to Montreal...?!
>
> Steven C. Barr