History of Recording Technology

Invention of Recording:

• 1877-Tin Foil Recording, Edison
• 1886-Wax Cylinders, Chichester A. Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter patent
• 1887
  • Wax Cylinder Phonograph, Edison
  • Graphophone (wax cylinders), Bell and Tainter
  • Gramophone, Berliner
• 1900-Consolidated Talking Machine Company formed (took over Berliner's patent rights to disc recording),
• 1901-Consolidated Talking machine Company changed to Victor Talking Machine Company
  

• Chronology of Phonograph and Mechanical Recording Technologies--timeline of the history of recording
• Early Recorded Sounds and Wax Cylinders--describes processes of making wax cylinders
• Emile Berliner and the Birth of the Recording Industry, American Memory at the Library of Congress
• Hear Edison
• Experimental Recordings--hear Edison's early attempts, Edison National Historic Site
• Inventing Entertainment--Edison's invention of the phonograph, American Memory at the Library of Congress; includes many audio files

Victor Company

• Victor Talking Machine Co. at Menlo Park in Edison, New Jersey--Audio files of very early recordings, including first song written for Gramophone, sung by Caruso, recorded in 1903; also includes wax cylinder recordings
• Old Time Victrola Music--early recordings transferred to tape or CD; Real Audio files online for preview
• Victor Victrola Page--information about the early phonographs

Early Recording Artists

• Enrico Caruso recorded song, 1919
• Centennial of the First Recording of Enrico Caruso--Caruso's premiere for the Victor Talking Machine; includes women artists

References

Emile Berliner and the Birth of the Recording Industry, American Memory at the Library of Congress

Inventing Entertainment--Edison's invention of the phonograph, American Memory at the Library of Congress