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first telephone
The first telephone invented by Alexander graham Bell, worked by converting sound waves into an electrical signal that caused vibrations which varied the strength of the current in the wire. This process was then reversed at the other end of the phone; vibrations caused varying strength which caused a current which was converted into sound waves that the other person could hear. -
first microphone
The first microphone was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison. The first microphone is the direct predecessor of the microphones we use today. The first microphone was a carbon microphone which used carbon granules that were vibrated by sound waves to create a signal that gets amplified by the current of a battery. -
first phonograph
Edison invents the first phonograph after working on the telephone. Phonograph was to be a device that could play back and record sound that is engraved onto tin foil sheets. John Kruesi was the person to build the first one from Edison's designs. The first phonograph recording is reportedly Mary Had A Little Lamb. -
Graphophone and wax cylinder
Volta Graphophone company develop the first graphophone which used wax cylinders to record and play back sound. These wax cylinders had better sound quality than the tin foil sheets that the phonograph had used. -
Gramophone and flat disc
Emile Berliner develops the first gramophone which records sound onto flat discs opposed to the graphophone which used the wax cylinders. However for decades after, both the disc and wax cylinder were both used in competition with eachother as two different products. -
Phonograph available for consumers
Edisons phonograph developments come far enough to develop the phonographs and sell them at affordable prices which allowed the phonograph to become a household object and allowed anyone to use sound recordings and listen to the recordings on their own phonograph. -
Recordings mass produced
Cylinders and record discs now available to be mass produced. Cylinders were mass produced from a "master mold" of the original recording which allowed copies to be molded off this master mold. For record discs they were able to mass produce copies off a "mother" disc. Before this each recording had to be done individually to have a copy. -
first vocoder
The first Vocoder that was developed in 1928 by Bell Labs was intended to be used as a device that could allow voice information to travel longer distances by reducing the bandwidth of the data. However it could not reproduce the speech very well so it was not used for this purpose. -
Stereo sound recording invented
The recording groove in a record disc has grooves on the left snd right side of the wall of the groove and this allows for stereophonic sound to be recorded. Invented by W. Bartlett Jones.
Stereophonic sound would not be available commercially for around another 30 years. -
Multi track recordings
The animated disney feature called "Fantasia" was the first comercial use of 4 tracks recording stereophonic sound. This was the first use of something similar to surround sound. -
12 Inch record
Columbia records develops the first 12 inch record. This record became the industry standard until the CDs were developed in the 80s. This record was called the 'Long Play Unbreakable' record -
Stereo sound available
Stereo recordings first available commercially in 1957 on Stereo Long play recordings which were marketed by the Audio Fidelity label. -
Handheld Music devices
The Walkman was introduced by Sony. This allowed small cassette tapes to be played on a player that could be kept in your pocket while you listen to the music with headphones. Thisallowed for people to listen to their own music whenever the want event if they were outside. -
MP3 unveiled
MP3 unveiled which is a high quality audio format wiht a low bit rate. Over time this has become the most commonly used audio format. The MP3 audio allowed music recordings to be high quality while also not taking up to much space on a hard drive. -
Digital Music - downloads and library
Apple introduces the iPod a very portable recording player that used iTunes to be able to store your library of digitally downloaded or purchased music. This allowed music to be found more easily and allowed people to listen to a lot more music and discover what styles they preferred. -
Youtube and soundcloud
IN 2005 youtube was founded. This site let anyone to upload music or recordings for anyone to listen to online for free and later create revenue from the views they receives off of the uploads. This allowed for anyone to release music for anyone to be able to listen to all you had todo was search for things ad they would show up. Later in 2008 Soundcloud was formed which allowed for upcoming and already established musicians to release their music and create a fanbase of people around the world -
Streaming takes over
In 2014 it was unveiled that 30% of the industry income comes from profit received from music streaming sites. This enforced the belief that streaming was the future of the music industry and that physical sales will become a less viable option than streaming as streaming allowed you to listen to whatever music you wanted and wherever you wanted and to create playlists and discover new artist and to release your music on the sites for free or for an affordable subscription fee.