You'd be surprised by the fidelity of some of those early 2 minute cylinders. Seriously. If you heard one in mint condition on the right phonograph you would be shocked.
Please do videos for the others! Cassettes, CDs, mp3s, etc. I teach a hs music tech class, and this is great material for my class. Thanks for your hard work
One detail, and a bit broader point supporting it further: - It's a bit misleading when @ 5:45 it states "recording quality improved with cassette tapes" Cassettes were only an improvement in convenience. The 1/8" @ 1 7/8"/sec format is very low spec even compared to some early stereo recorders of the '40s. Cassettes improved some over a few decades, but never exceeded ~ 9 bits of dynamic range - even with the best type-IV formula in, say, a Nakamichi Dragon. There is simply no compensation for higher speed and more magnetic material per track. - Some of the tube gear of the '20s and '30s (the ones badged as 'Western Electric' and 'Dept of Commerce' are two such examples) exhibits _incredible sound quality._ The more cost-conscious reproduction media and amplification was often (and in some cases, still is) where things fell apart. Degradation and generational copies of the original (often lost) recordings - and their often sub-optimal tape and disc formulae - is what made us assume that pre-stereo audio quality was so dark, compressed and noisy. Also, using current tube gear while being unaware of impedance-matching can sound murky, too. Simply connecting a 4 Ohm guitar's speaker into the 8 or 16 Ohm tube-amplifier's output will significantly lowpass-filter the resultant sound.
I just discovered your channel and I'm enjoying it. I have a few comments on this video: Manufacturing LPs in both mono and stereo was most likely due to price, not technological need. Thanks to lateral cut (mentioned by another viewer), a stereo record "degrades gracefully" into properly sounding mono on a mono player. However, cutting in mono is probably cheaper -- or you can simply ask a higher price for a stereo version because it's "better". I don't have solid data on this, though. Trying to sound the same live as in the studio isn't universal and I'm not certain audiences really expect that. Sure, high profile artists with a lot of money (say, Pink Floyd) could afford to attempt that but otherwise many live performances were even deliberately different. With technology improving matching studio sound on stage has probably become more commonplace. "A genre we all know and love" is a bit of a broad assumption. 😄 No genre is universally loved. (BTW, I'm old enough to remember when rap was a "stupid fad that will soon go away" and "something you do when you can't sing" to a lot of people.)
I wonder if people were hired to sit there and turn the phonograph when someone wanted to listen to music that might have been recorded on the sleeves before they had wider access to small electric engines.
11:48 It’s definitely wrong to show Apple products with different names under them. iPod and iPhone changed music even though they were not first to play music, obviously.
The unintended result of early recorded audio storage is it forced music to adopt very short performance duration times. Live concerts were very lengthy and could not be captured in reproduction. This hurtle wasn’t really totally overcome until magnetic tape was developed.
even today songs tend to be between 2 and 4 minutes long, which was once the standard length for songs on phonographs, i guess that's just the length people became accustomed to?
The medium also made specific technical demands that could easily spell disaster in the hands of the less-aware and untrained. The musicians and engineers were under far more pressure to get the best take as early as possible. There was no possibility of altering in post-production, no dubbing or splicing, excessive dynamics and/or frequencies making the cutting head jump out and so ruining the master, all that tube-powered gear being very hot and unreliable - and many more variables, which we can practically take for granted as non-issues today.
I agree with most of this but I think the forest was missed due to the trees! The biggest influence recorded music had was the ability for people (musicians) to hear music from lands far away. Musicians in Asia could hear European music and they in turn could hear African music and that's when music began to really change up. To the point we have new musical eras about every decade now. Although I must say I'm disappointed 2000 on-wards everything sounds the same. Compared to 50s...60s.. 70s...80s and then 90's that all had their own unique vibes!
I agree with you - I actually did say that right around @11:15 I think there's some truth to your comment about decades from a certain point of view, but it's also sort of an illusion. There's tons of incredible music made since the 90s that simply wasn't/isn't mainstream. I won't get into it here, but I know exactly who's to blame for that and its not musicians!
The recording in 7:11 has nothing to do with any phonograph or gramophone. This was the recording of “Au claire de la lune” on the phonautograph in 1857. The phonautograph was a totally different device than the phonograph.
I think you’ve misunderstood. This recording is played to demonstrate how the phonograph improved the sound quality of previous sound recording machines. I was not stating that the recording was done by a phonograph.
Sorry for misunderstanding, but I mentioned this because you played the phonautograph audio after mentioning the limitations of phonograph recordings including having to play into a large horn and that the frequencies of violins and female voices were notoriously inaccurate.@@MusicTheoriesChannel
You may find these short articles I am working on about the history of recorded sound through the patents. historic-musings.com/edison-to-vinyl-a-history-of-recorded-sound-through-patents/
@@jawwwp428 ahh yes, I see what you’re saying. That’s a good point. Edison certainly wasn’t the only one to be working on a sound machine. But the important detail in his specifically was that it could play the sound back after it was recorded. The phonautograph was the first to record sound, but wasn’t able to play those sounds out loud. There wasn’t technology available at the time to replay phonautograms. De martinville’s machine was mainly built to be used to study acoustics. Thank you for bringing this up! I think it’s important to mention other inventions that were also instrumental in the timeline of music technology. It’s very possible that Edison wouldn’t have thought of the phonograph without the phonautograph!
Music Theories yeah Edison combined the speaking machine by von wolf kampelin(I don’t know his name that well) and the phonautograph which made the phonograph there were vibration recording but that doesn’t really count
The cylinder records weren't that bad and also not the early brown wax ones. They were realy fragile and the recording lost every time a bit of its quality because the wax was so soft. The later ones like the gold moulded cylinder and the 4 min blue amberols were much more stable and almost unbreakable. Also to mention not only the Graphophone company produced brown wax cylinders, also Edison did.
You have missed Berliner's other contribution to sound recording: the lateral cut method. Like the disc record, the lateral cut method (as opposed to Edison's hill and dale cut method) easily allowed for mass production from a single master disc. Edison's phonograph, even his disc records, still used hill and dale cut method, which required each recording to be made separately. And even Edison gave up on hill and dale, but not until after Berliner died in 1929. (Berliner was my mother's grandfather.)
Holy cow! That’s incredible. Thank you so much for pointing this out. There’s always so much to cover with each topic, it’s hard to include everything 🥴 but I so appreciate you contributing this information. It’s definitely important to know, and helps me to learn more as well!
Lateral cut on a disc (Berliner's system) was very much key do mass production of good quality sound to be sure, and of course Disc > Cylinder is obvious, not only were discs easier to mass produce, they are less fragile and more space efficient. And the allow two sides! But in the end BOTH cutting methods COMBINED allowed stereo from one groove! That whole thing STILL amazes me. Tape uses two distinct magnetic tracks for stereo as well as two heads, A single stereo stylus moving back and forth AND up & down does it in 1 "track"!
Someone else brought this up a while ago, so I'll copy paste what I wrote before: Edison certainly wasn’t the only one to be working on a sound machine. But the important detail in his specifically was that it could play the sound back after it was recorded. The phonautograph was the first to record sound, but wasn’t able to play those sounds out loud. There wasn’t technology available at the time to replay phonautograms. De martinville’s machine was mainly built to be used to study acoustics. Thank you for bringing this up! I think it’s important to mention other inventions that were also instrumental in the timeline of music technology. It’s very possible that Edison wouldn’t have thought of the phonograph without the phonautograph!
Music 🎶 🎶 🎼 🎼 🎵 🎵 🎵 question 🙋♂️ do you have to ignore the runtime/duration/timecode when the music 🎼 🎼 🎼 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎶 🎶 starts like 0:00 until it ends like what’s the frequency Kenneth starts at 0:00 and then it ends at 3:59 but do I have to look 👀 at the runtime with my eye 👁 the whole entire time or just enjoy 😉 😊 ☺️ the music 🎼 🎼 🎶 🎵 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 and just don’t look 👀 at the runtime with my eye 👁 and just enjoy 😉 the music 🎶?
This is everything! Beautiful work
I have NO idea why you don't have thousand of subscribers yet....bites me!!! great work!
This is great! I learned so much from this. These videos are really interesting! I cannot wait until your next one!
thank you for your continued support (:
crushed this vid
thank you so much!
You'd be surprised by the fidelity of some of those early 2 minute cylinders. Seriously. If you heard one in mint condition on the right phonograph you would be shocked.
I really hope I get to hear one someday!!
You're earned another sub! So informative. I have been binge watching your videos today
Thank you!!
well done video particularly from someone who seems to be younger.
Please do videos for the others! Cassettes, CDs, mp3s, etc. I teach a hs music tech class, and this is great material for my class. Thanks for your hard work
Ah I love this so much! I definitely will try to get those up ASAP! Thanks for watching
One detail, and a bit broader point supporting it further:
- It's a bit misleading when @ 5:45 it states "recording quality improved with cassette tapes" Cassettes were only an improvement in convenience. The 1/8" @ 1 7/8"/sec format is very low spec even compared to some early stereo recorders of the '40s. Cassettes improved some over a few decades, but never exceeded ~ 9 bits of dynamic range - even with the best type-IV formula in, say, a Nakamichi Dragon. There is simply no compensation for higher speed and more magnetic material per track.
- Some of the tube gear of the '20s and '30s (the ones badged as 'Western Electric' and 'Dept of Commerce' are two such examples) exhibits _incredible sound quality._ The more cost-conscious reproduction media and amplification was often (and in some cases, still is) where things fell apart. Degradation and generational copies of the original (often lost) recordings - and their often sub-optimal tape and disc formulae - is what made us assume that pre-stereo audio quality was so dark, compressed and noisy.
Also, using current tube gear while being unaware of impedance-matching can sound murky, too. Simply connecting a 4 Ohm guitar's speaker into the 8 or 16 Ohm tube-amplifier's output will significantly lowpass-filter the resultant sound.
How do you only have 25 subs? Keep this up, you'll blow up one day.
Ha, the algorithm, I guess 😆 thank you for the encouragement and for watching!
I was thinking the same thing
I just discovered your channel and I'm enjoying it. I have a few comments on this video:
Manufacturing LPs in both mono and stereo was most likely due to price, not technological need. Thanks to lateral cut (mentioned by another viewer), a stereo record "degrades gracefully" into properly sounding mono on a mono player. However, cutting in mono is probably cheaper -- or you can simply ask a higher price for a stereo version because it's "better". I don't have solid data on this, though.
Trying to sound the same live as in the studio isn't universal and I'm not certain audiences really expect that. Sure, high profile artists with a lot of money (say, Pink Floyd) could afford to attempt that but otherwise many live performances were even deliberately different. With technology improving matching studio sound on stage has probably become more commonplace.
"A genre we all know and love" is a bit of a broad assumption. 😄 No genre is universally loved. (BTW, I'm old enough to remember when rap was a "stupid fad that will soon go away" and "something you do when you can't sing" to a lot of people.)
I wonder if people were hired to sit there and turn the phonograph when someone wanted to listen to music that might have been recorded on the sleeves before they had wider access to small electric engines.
great question! I'll have to look into that
They used spring wound motors to power the phonographs.
Upload more
I have recently uploaded and have another coming soon :D thank you so much for the support!
You just earned a sub, keep it up!!
Thanks for subbing!
This was awesome.
thank you! I appreciate the support (:
11:48
It’s definitely wrong to show Apple products with different names under them.
iPod and iPhone changed music even though they were not first to play music, obviously.
The unintended result of early recorded audio storage is it forced music to adopt very short performance duration times. Live concerts were very lengthy and could not be captured in reproduction. This hurtle wasn’t really totally overcome until magnetic tape was developed.
This is such an important point! Thank you!
even today songs tend to be between 2 and 4 minutes long, which was once the standard length for songs on phonographs, i guess that's just the length people became accustomed to?
The medium also made specific technical demands that could easily spell disaster in the hands of the less-aware and untrained.
The musicians and engineers were under far more pressure to get the best take as early as possible. There was no possibility of altering in post-production, no dubbing or splicing, excessive dynamics and/or frequencies making the cutting head jump out and so ruining the master, all that tube-powered gear being very hot and unreliable - and many more variables, which we can practically take for granted as non-issues today.
Wow!
Think about it: Thomas Edison was the first father of hip hop. More than a century before.
Haha right!
I agree with most of this but I think the forest was missed due to the trees! The biggest influence recorded music had was the ability for people (musicians) to hear music from lands far away. Musicians in Asia could hear European music and they in turn could hear African music and that's when music began to really change up. To the point we have new musical eras about every decade now. Although I must say I'm disappointed 2000 on-wards everything sounds the same. Compared to 50s...60s.. 70s...80s and then 90's that all had their own unique vibes!
I agree with you - I actually did say that right around @11:15
I think there's some truth to your comment about decades from a certain point of view, but it's also sort of an illusion. There's tons of incredible music made since the 90s that simply wasn't/isn't mainstream. I won't get into it here, but I know exactly who's to blame for that and its not musicians!
Thanks! This is great! Suscribed!
Awesome, thank you!
Awesome, thank you!
The recording in 7:11 has nothing to do with any phonograph or gramophone. This was the recording of “Au claire de la lune” on the phonautograph in 1857. The phonautograph was a totally different device than the phonograph.
I think you’ve misunderstood. This recording is played to demonstrate how the phonograph improved the sound quality of previous sound recording machines. I was not stating that the recording was done by a phonograph.
Sorry for misunderstanding, but I mentioned this because you played the phonautograph audio after mentioning the limitations of phonograph recordings including having to play into a large horn and that the frequencies of violins and female voices were notoriously inaccurate.@@MusicTheoriesChannel
Great video but the inclusion of the phonautograph recording is misleading
thank you! I appreciate the feedback (: could I ask you to elaborate a little? It might help me avoid the same mistake in the future!
You may find these short articles I am working on about the history of recorded sound through the patents.
historic-musings.com/edison-to-vinyl-a-history-of-recorded-sound-through-patents/
Yes longer lol
The phonograph isn’t really that original
Haha an interesting thought. What makes you say that?
Music Theories the name is similar to the phonautograph by scott de Martinville also used a cylinder shape to record and uses a hand crank
@@jawwwp428 ahh yes, I see what you’re saying. That’s a good point. Edison certainly wasn’t the only one to be working on a sound machine. But the important detail in his specifically was that it could play the sound back after it was recorded. The phonautograph was the first to record sound, but wasn’t able to play those sounds out loud. There wasn’t technology available at the time to replay phonautograms. De martinville’s machine was mainly built to be used to study acoustics.
Thank you for bringing this up! I think it’s important to mention other inventions that were also instrumental in the timeline of music technology. It’s very possible that Edison wouldn’t have thought of the phonograph without the phonautograph!
Music Theories yeah Edison combined the speaking machine by von wolf kampelin(I don’t know his name that well) and the phonautograph which made the phonograph there were vibration recording but that doesn’t really count
Hip hop is not music ....lol
Interesting take. Could you elaborate? What classifies something as music?
Neither is opera or metal
I'd like to know more about how the hardware was created and made for reproduction
The cylinder records weren't that bad and also not the early brown wax ones. They were realy fragile and the recording lost every time a bit of its quality because the wax was so soft. The later ones like the gold moulded cylinder and the 4 min blue amberols were much more stable and almost unbreakable. Also to mention not only the Graphophone company produced brown wax cylinders, also Edison did.
You have missed Berliner's other contribution to sound recording: the lateral cut method. Like the disc record, the lateral cut method (as opposed to Edison's hill and dale cut method) easily allowed for mass production from a single master disc. Edison's phonograph, even his disc records, still used hill and dale cut method, which required each recording to be made separately. And even Edison gave up on hill and dale, but not until after Berliner died in 1929. (Berliner was my mother's grandfather.)
Holy cow! That’s incredible. Thank you so much for pointing this out. There’s always so much to cover with each topic, it’s hard to include everything 🥴 but I so appreciate you contributing this information. It’s definitely important to know, and helps me to learn more as well!
Great. Royal family
Lateral cut on a disc (Berliner's system) was very much key do mass production of good quality sound to be sure, and of course Disc > Cylinder is obvious, not only were discs easier to mass produce, they are less fragile and more space efficient. And the allow two sides! But in the end BOTH cutting methods COMBINED allowed stereo from one groove! That whole thing STILL amazes me. Tape uses two distinct magnetic tracks for stereo as well as two heads, A single stereo stylus moving back and forth AND up & down does it in 1 "track"!
"Highly original" *cough* the Phonautograph came out decades prior *cough"
Someone else brought this up a while ago, so I'll copy paste what I wrote before:
Edison certainly wasn’t the only one to be working on a sound machine. But the important detail in his specifically was that it could play the sound back after it was recorded. The phonautograph was the first to record sound, but wasn’t able to play those sounds out loud. There wasn’t technology available at the time to replay phonautograms. De martinville’s machine was mainly built to be used to study acoustics.
Thank you for bringing this up! I think it’s important to mention other inventions that were also instrumental in the timeline of music technology. It’s very possible that Edison wouldn’t have thought of the phonograph without the phonautograph!
You're added to an article on Gear Brigade in "The Zone" :0) You deserve the pub....
Oh wow! Thank you for letting me know!!
Music 🎶 🎶 🎼 🎼 🎵 🎵 🎵 question 🙋♂️ do you have to ignore the runtime/duration/timecode when the music 🎼 🎼 🎼 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎶 🎶 starts like 0:00 until it ends like what’s the frequency Kenneth starts at 0:00 and then it ends at 3:59 but do I have to look 👀 at the runtime with my eye 👁 the whole entire time or just enjoy 😉 😊 ☺️ the music 🎼 🎼 🎶 🎵 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 and just don’t look 👀 at the runtime with my eye 👁 and just enjoy 😉 the music 🎶?
👁👄👁
@@MusicTheoriesChannel what you mean by that I have to look 👀 my eye 👁 or ignore?