JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
This title for this post is fairly accurate given that the phonograph had been invented by Edison only months earlier and that this is one of the earliest publications on manipulating the sound that it reproduces. The author of the paper, "The Phonograph" (published July 18, 1878 in Nature), George Bidder, experimented by laying down a spoken "track" on the tinfoil medium and then recording on top of it, finding that "after a series of musical or articulate sounds have been recorded other series could successively be superimposed...and reproduced." I'm not sure when this became standard practice in the recording industry (the musical "industry" part of the phonograph was still about two decades away), but my feeling is that this was a technique that would remain a peep into the future for some time to come. No?
"The Phonograph", by George Bidder.
- "In experimenting lately with the phonograph it occurred to me to try whether, after a series of musical or articulate sounds have been recorded, other series could successively be superimposed on the same tinfoil and reproduced. I found that if the instrument be simply reset to the starting-point, and sung or spoken to a second time, it will afterwards faithfully reproduce both series of sounds as though two persons were singing or speaking simultaneously, and by repeating the same process, a third and fourth voice may be added, or one or more instrumental parts, all of which will be reproduced. This experiment forms a striking commentary on Helmholtz's theory of the mode in which the ear recognises different tones in a chaos of sound, by analysing the compound wave, which it receives, into its component simple vibrations. Here the aggregate impressions on the tin-foil produce, so to speak, a compound indentation capable of reproducing a wave of sound which the ear can resolve into the original constituents."
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