1: What Is Music Recording?
Phonograph to DAW
In 1877, Thomas Edison invented his Phonograph, the first-ever sound recording device. What made the phonograph stand apart from other inventions at the time was the ability of the phonograph to not just record sound, but play it back.
Phonograph Recordings
Watch this video from The Henry Ford demonstrating recording and playback on a 1903 Edison Phonograph. Notice the physical nature of the recording process and the significant presence of noise in the recording.
Despite the low fidelity of the recording, phonographs shocked the world. In a time when all music was enjoyed live, hearing music from a machine was radical and captured the imagination of musicians, composers, and industries.
The phonograph also forever changed the way music was made. Emile Berliner invented his own sound machine called the Gramophone ten years after Edison in 1887. The Gramophone was more commercially viable than the Phonograph because it used hard shellac discs instead of Edison’s tin cylinders.
Three Major Eras
Acoustic Era
From the late 19th century until about 1950, all recording was done acoustically using mechanical devices. This type of recording was done direct-to-disc, meaning there was no editing or processing done to the music. Acoustic recordings were recorded to hard wax or plastic records, most famously, the LP. Consumers could listen to these records on record players or over the radio.
Electric Era
With the invention of the microphone, vacuum tube amplifier, and eventually the transistor, electric recording took over the music industry. Post-WWII, the British discovered German tape recording technology and this quickly came into use in radio and music recording. Many of our favorite records were created using only analog gear and massive tape machines!
Digital Era
Digital audio became mainstream in the 1980s, paving the way for the CD and, eventually, the MP3. The quality of digital recordings initially lacked the depth and emotion of analog recordings, but demand for the convenience of digital audio pushed the industry for better solutions. Digital audio is essential for modern music production recording and editing techniques.
Read More
Download this PDF to read more about the history of music production through its three major eras. I break down in greater detail the different technologies and techniques used in these periods and mark distinctive developments in the music industry's growth.