Sound recording

“ It is not like the case of a composer who has a melody in his head, perhaps not even realizing that the reason he hears this melody is that it is the work of another which he had heard before. When you sample a sound recording you know you are taking another’s work product. [12]
This analysis admittedly raises the question of why one should, without infringing, be able to take three notes from a musical composition, for example, but not three notes by way of sampling from a sound recording. ”

“ Several methods have been devised for recording sound and reproducing it in connection with the exhibition of motion pictures. A familiar one is the disc system, by which the sound vibrations are mechanically recorded upon and reproduced from discs by a stylus, which receives the sound vibrations for recording and transmits them from the disc to a loud-speaker in reproducing the sound.
Another method, important here, is the photographic film system, in which the sound vibrations are recorded upon a photographic record. ”

“ DEFINITION— As used in this section, the following term has the following meaning: A ``digital phonorecord delivery ́ ́ is each individual delivery of a phonorecord by digital transmission of a sound recording which results in a specifically identifiable reproduction by or for any transmission recipient of a phonorecord of that sound recording, regardless of whether the digital transmission is also a public performance of the sound recording or any nondramatic musical work embodied therein. ”

“ The specifications state:
'The recording and the reproduction of sound waves by the use of linear phonogram carriers such as film strips, steel wires, and so forth, can only be effected in absolutely satisfactory manner, even after the removal of all other occurring difficulties, when the speed of the record carrier is uniform both for the receiving and the reproduction, and when in both cases no variations of any kind occur. ”

“ This is a recording instrument which combines the phonograph and the dictagraph. One purpose—the most practical, is that a business man may dictate his letters and memoranda while sitting at his desk, in his office, instead of having a machine with a phonograph in his private office taking up space and requiring the changing of records by the dictator—which is necessary with the present business phonograph. All that will be necessary is for him to speak into a little disc. The sound waves are carried by a simple arrangement of wiring into his outer office, or wherever his stenographer works. ”

“ When the nature and laws of the waves of sound became fully known a great field of inventions was opened. Then came the telephone, phonograph, graphophone and gramophone.
The telephone depends upon a combination of electricity and the waves of the human voice. The phonograph and its modifications depend alone on sound waves—the recording of the waves from one vibrating membrane and their exact reproduction on another vibrating membrane. ”

“ That the source of a sustained sound is an elastic body in a state of vibration is a fact of which, in most cases, we are easily made aware by the evidence of sight and touch; as a bell, a violoncello string, a pianoforte wire, or a tuning-fork. On p. 656 is described a simple method by which a tuning-fork may be made to write down its own vibrations, and the more exact plan of recording them on the surface of blackened paper on a revolving and advancing cylinder has also been referred to. By the intervention of appropriate apparatus, a similar record may be obtained from all sounding bodies. ”

“ One might also argue that the gradual build of layers at the start of the recording, and the quick depletion of them at the end, constitutes a quest narrative articulated by the density of the sound-mass rather than by sections defined by contrasting harmonic progressions. ”

“ Rather than negotiating a journey with a relatively predictable trajectory, the listener is immersed in the sound-mass, coming up for air, as it were, in the textural pause of each refrain.
Animal Collective - 'People' (2000)
Although layers of instrumentation build up gradually towards the entry of the vocal at two minutes into the recording, rather than forming a procession through contrasting sections, this piece, like 'Pavement is defined more by its 'three-dimensional sound-mass than by its linear form. ”

“ You have all heard a phonograph speak, or sing, or reproduce music. In its original form the Edison phonograph consisted of a cylinder covered with tinfoil, against which pressed lightly a steel point attached to the centre of a metal disc. In its modern form, as improved by Edison, Bell, Tainter, and others, it is a far more perfect instrument for recording and reproducing sound. It now consists of a cylinder covered with a composition similar to very hard soap. This cylinder is carried on a metal drum, and caused to [143] revolve by clockwork slowly and very uniformly. ”

“ As a scientific proposition it is easy, but the results are not good enough at present, and, if we can improve, let us first consider the loud speaker.
The talking cinema will come as a matter of course. It is so easy to record sounds upon the film by [Pg 30] photography with reproduction by the selenium cell or the neon tube; it is easy to photograph the wave; it is easy actually to impress the sound wave upon the film with the picture, or to use a gramophone; but reproduction is not like a human voice. Neither as yet is any reproduction ever like the voice itself. ”

“ Keys and pedals are provided with which to stop the apparatus either in recording or receiving, and in the latter case to hark back and repeat a word or sentence if required. This is a convenient arrangement in using the phonograph for correspondence or dictation. Each instrument, as we have seen, can be employed for receiving as well as recording; and as all are made to one pattern, a phonogram coming from any one, in any art of the world, can be reproduced in any other instrument. ”

“ When the phonograph records the sound of an orchestra it does not record the tones of each instrument, but it imprints the form of impression corresponding to the very complex sound-wave formed by all the instruments combined. ”

“ But if the disk be turned a little, an unperforated portion of the disk comes under the tube, the current of air being then intercepted. As the disk is slowly turned, successive perforations are brought under the tube, and whenever this occurs a puff of air gets through. On rendering the rotation rapid, the puffs succeed each other in very quick succession, producing pulses in the air which blend to a continuous musical note, audible to you all. Mark how the note varies. When the whirling table is turned rapidly the sound is shrill; when its motion is slackened the pitch immediately falls. ”

“ Imaging technologies make drawing available to everyone, exactly as writing was available to those processed as literates. The photographic camera-drawing with light on film-the electronic camera, the television camera, the scanner, and the digitizer are, effectively, means for drawing and for processing the image in full control of all its components. A sound level can easily be added, and indeed sound augments the expressive power of images. ”

“ The next step in the line of development was to form the necessary undulations on the strip, and it was then reasoned that original sounds themselves might be utilized to form a graphic record by actuating a diaphragm and causing a cutting or indenting point carried thereby to vibrate in contact with a moving surface, so as to cut or indent the record therein. Strange as it may seem, therefore, and contrary to the general belief, the phonograph was developed backward, the production of the sounds being of prior development to the idea of actually recording them. ”

“ There are some directions in this play which may be new to you, but these are necessary, for you are now in a radio broadcasting studio, talking in front of a microphone. The word [in] means that the character is standing close to the microphone, while [off] indicates that he is farther away, so that his voice sounds faint. When the directions [off, coming in] are given, the person speaking is away from the microphone at first but gradually comes closer. The words [mob] or [crowd noise] you will understand mean the sound of many people talking in the distance. ”

“ If we imagine the discovery of means, developed from the phonograph, by which any sounds which have once existed in the presence of a recording machine can be reproduced at will, not in a makeshift sort of way, but without any loss of timbre and quality, with perfect articulation where articulation is necessary, with exactly correct time-regulation automatically determined by the first enunciation, and all this cheaply and compendiously, what vast resources of cultured enjoyment are offered to the lover of music! ”

“ All voice-sounds are made by two elastic bands or cushions, called vocal chords, stretched across the end of the tube or windpipe through which we breathe, and as we send the air through them we tighten or loosen them as we will, and so make them vibrate quickly or slowly and make sound-waves of different lengths. But if you will try some day in the woods you will find that a bird can beat you over and over again in the length of his note ”

“ The phonograph came swiftly after the telephone. The new instrument is in a sense the complement of its predecessor. [pg 229] Both inventions are based upon the same principle in science. The discovery that every sound has its physical equivalent in a wave or agitation which affects the particles of matter composing the material through which the sound is transmitted led almost inevitably to the other discovery of catching and retaining that physical equivalent or wave in the surface of some body, and to the reproduction of the original sound therefrom. ”

“ A musical note, we all know, is the effect upon our ears of regularly recurring vibrations. A pianoforte wire emits a given note, or in other words, vibrates at a certain and constant rate. These vibrations are taken up by the air, and by it communicated to the ear, and the sensation of sound is produced. ”

“ Because of the noise in the average plant, the volume of the music must be slightly greater than that produced by the machines. But the average recording has such fluctuations in volume that some parts will be drowned out by the hum of the work and other sections will be too loud. ”

“ It may be here noted that in a paper on experiments in audition published in 1827 Wheatstone said: “The great intensity with which sound is transmitted by solid rods at the same time that its diffusion is prevented, affords a ready means of augmenting the loudness of external sounds and of constructing an instrument which, from its rendering audible the weakest sounds, may with propriety be named the microphone.” ”

“ The diagram is removed at the end of the week, and a fresh form adjusted to the cylinder. The impressed papers thus form a permanent and continuous record, from which the height of the barometer, at any given moment, may be read off.
THE PHONOGRAPH. Everything yet contrived in the way of recording instruments is eclipsed in wonder and interest by one which is among the latest marvels of the age. It is a recording instrument, and more than a recording instrument, for it can reproduce to the senses the very phenomena it records ”

“ It cannot be claimed that the performance of the phonograph in its existing state leaves nothing to be desired. A harsh, scraping noise, very perceptible, although not loud enough to obscure the inscribed sound, is, as far as my experience goes, the constant accompaniment of a phonographic reproduction; and noises of other kinds occasionally make themselves heard. ”

“ There is nothing in the realm of sound at all corresponding to the actual photographing of a visible object on the retina; our auditive apparatus, whatever its mysteries, gives no sign of being in any way of the nature of a phonograph. Moreover, one element of music is certainly due to the sense of locomotion, the rhythm; so that sound, to become music, requires the attention of something more than the mere ear. ”

“ I asked, remembering our use of that instrument in other cases.
"It would record," he replied, "but I want a phonograph record. Nothing else will do in this case. You'll see why, before I get through. Besides, this apparatus isn't complicated. ”

“ When sound waves are prevented from dispersing the voice can be carried a great distance. Speaking tubes and trumpets, as well as ear trumpets, are examples of this principle, and of the reflection of sound.
There are many very interesting experiments in connection with Acoustics, some of which we will now impart to our readers. We shall then find many ingenious inventions to examine,—the Audiphone, Telephone, Megaphone, and Phonograph, which will occupy a separate chapter. ”

“ The Microphone is an instrument that magnifies sound in the same way as a microscope magnifies objects; a very powerful microphone magnifies the sound of a fly walking into a loud tramping footstep, the tick of a watch into a deafening clatter, and a whisper into a loud shout. Take a Microphone, then properly affix it to the Phonograph described above, and you have a good Scolding Machine; turn the handle, and as the Phonograph gives out the scoldings, the microphone part magnifies them so loudly that they are heard for a considerable distance. ”

“ The sound that is heard in the receiving-instrument of the microphone, when a fly is walking across the board on which the transmitter is placed, is not the sound of the fly's footsteps, any more than the stroke of a powerful electric bell, or sounder, is the magnified sound of the operator's fingers tapping lightly, and it may be inaudibly, upon the key. ”