[Dixielandjazz] Edison, stereo etc

[Anton Crouch]

Hello all

I can add a few elements to Brian Wood's good summary of this topic.

The 1886 Bell "Graphophone" was produced by the Bell Laboratories but
the researchers were Charles Sumner Tainter and Alexander Bell's cousin
Chichester Bell. The importance of the Bell patents cannot be
overemphasised. The Graphophone used the floating stylus and wax
engraving process that became the mainstay of the sound recording
industry for the next 60 years. In one of those strange turns of fate,
the original patent specified a disc record but the Graphophone went
into production as a cylinder machine.

Emil Berliner's flat disc revolutionised commercial record production
but, in 1887, it was not "demonstrably superior to both Edison's and
Bell's devices". The sound quality was awful! Berliner's process
involved the acid-etching of a coated zinc disc - very low fidelity and 
high surface noise. Also, the turntable was hand-driven and it was 
almost impossible to maintain pitch.

Aurally, the Gramophone did not match the Phonograph or the Graphophone
until Eldridge Johnson had developed his inexpensive and reliable spring
motor and, dissatisfied with the quality of Berliner's discs, begun his
own company. By 1899 he was manufacturing flat discs, recorded by
lateral cut grooves in wax and pressed using metal stampers. It took
Eldridge another two years to win in the courts and, after he did so, he
re-named his company the Victor Talking Machine Company. Victor - is
there a more famous name in the history of recorded jazz?

Gianni Bettini's contribution to the development of recorded sound
should also be noted. In 1889 it was he who patented the mica diaphragm,
a variation of Edison's original concept which resulted in greater
fidelity and increased groove modulation.

Most histories of recorded sound are Americo-centric and because of this
the work of the English electrical engineer Alan Blumlein is not widely
known. Blumlein started with (English) Columbia in 1929 (before the
merger with HMV and the formation of EMI) and over the next 2 years
developed the moving coil cutting machine and a moving coil microphone.
In 1931 he patented a process for stereo recording in a single groove -
in essence the process used by (American) Columbia in the late 1950s.
Blumlein's process used lateral and vertical modulation and it only
required a 45 degree rotation to give us modern disc stereophony.

Blumlein also did pioneering work on television and was killed in a
plane crash in 1942, while part of the team developing radar. Peter
Ustinov's film directorial debut ("School for secrets", 1946) is a
fictional account of this work with Blumlein (as "Edward Watlington")
played by David Tomlinson.

All the best,
Anton