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THE HISTORY OF VINYL PT.6:

1930# Bing Crosby records his first solo record - "I Remember Dear".

1930# Widespreasd radio broadcast causes a decline in the manufacture of records as radio delivers free music.

1931# Alan Blumlein develops the `binaural` (stereo) recording at Bell Telephone laboratories.

1931# Thomas Edison the inventor of recorded sound dies.

1931# EMI studio opens in Abbey Road and employs Alan Blumein to install his stereo recording system.

1934# Wurlitzer introduces multiple-selection juke boxes.

1939# Invention of the Magnetic Tape.

1940# Production of records halted by the advent of World War II and the lack of shellac due to the invasion of South East Asia by the Japanese. The replacement of the base material was discovered from a plastic resin derivative of petroleum called vynil.

1940s# The first DJs emerge as entertainers for troops overseas. During WWII, persons armed with a turntable, a pile of records, and a basic amplifier would entertain troops in mess halls, spinning Glen Miller, the Andrews Sisters, and Benny Goodman. It was much easier than sending an entire band overseas.

1943# The first `V-Discs` were shipped fron the RCA Victor pressing plant in Camden, New Jersey,USA.

1944# Working tape recorders brought back to the USA from Germany.

1946# RCA Victor releases the very first commercial `vinylite` record .

1948# Columbia introduces the first 12-inch 33-1/3 rpm microgroove LP vinylite record with 23-minute play-time per side, it also has a special turntable to play them on made by Philco.

1949# RCA Victor introduces the 7-inch 45 rpm micro-groove vinyl single and compatible turntable.

1949# Capitol became the first major label to support all three recording speeds of 78,45, 33-1/3 rpm.

1949# In Jamaica, sound system develop playing the latest in R`n`B 45s.

1949# Todd Storz from the KOWH radio station sets up a Top 40.

Peace

stepping razor wrote:THE HISTORY OF VINYL PT.7:

1950- The improvements in sound quality of the new vynil format encourage record companies to embrace the technology, this marks the beginning of the end for the 78rpm shellac disc.

1950- RCA Victor issues records on Columbia 12 inch LP format.

1950- Introduction of 16rpm disks for spoken word recordings.

1951- Columbia releases records on the RCA 7 inch 45 rpm format.

1951- First jukebox able to play 7 inch 45 rpm records.

1954- Bill Hayley releases "Shake,Rattle and Roll" and "Rock Around the Clock".

1954- Record companies deliver 7 inch 45 rpm record singles to radio stations instead of 78s.

1956- Ska, an interpretation of American R&B develops in Jamaica, Ska is to become the foundations of rocksteady,reggae,dancehall and ragga.

1956- The Chrysler Imperial in-car turntable 16-2/3rpm record player with 7-inch ultramicrogroove records developed by Peter Goldmark- the man who invented the 33-3rpm long playing (LP) record format.

1957- The Recording Industry Association of America chooses the Westrex standard for stereo records. Stereo Vynil is to become dominant medium of recorded music.

1958- RCA introduces its first Stereo LPs.

1958- Some home systems employ stereo components.

peace

From end of page one.
Peace

1850-1879 Vibrations to Phonographs:

In this digital, multimedia age it`s easy to forget that just over 100 years ago we lived in a world where `media` consisted entirely of ink marks on paper. The reproduction of sound and vision was in its infancy ans so, in the words of our elders and betters, you had to make your own entertainment. Yet, the mid-nineteenth century was a period of feverish invention, as previous discoveries in the fields of physics and chemistry were combined by latter-day alchemists such as Thomas Edison into practical applications for modern living.

The field of visual reproduction was well underway by the 1850s with the invention of the photogravure and, subsequently, photography, but the place of recorded music in the home had yet to be addressed. It was still nights gathered around the family piano! Ironically the solution came, not as a way to create a means of mass home entertainment, but as a by-product of the burgeoning telecommunications market.

A lot of the groundwork had already been done in the development of recorded sound. But Thomas Edison was the first to grasp and exploit the commercial potential. He was looking for a way to build on the work of commercial inventors such as Elisha Grey and Alexanderv Graham Bell. His concept was, in fact, an early answerphone to help businessmen record and play back telephone messages and dictation. In 1877 he devised and patented a simple machine that could record and replay the human voice, if somewhat crudely. The first recording was made with an indented stylus attached to a diaphragm which, in turn, was hooked up to a telephone speaker. A strip of paraffin coated paper was run underneath the stylus while Edison shouted into the speaker, leaving an indentation in the paper. As the paper was pulled back under the stylus the faint sound of his voice could be heard.

Later that year the prototype was developed into the phonograph, a cylinder covered with tin foil rotated by means of a hand turned screw. Edison`s initial plans consisted of three formats to store and record sound; the tape, the cylinder and the disc. If his own choice had become the dominant format this history would be short indeed - he chose the cylinder. Luckily other names were about to enter the arena and Edison`s attention was now directed towards another minor technological development: the light bulb.


Peace

1880-1889 Birth of the Gramophone:

The pair took their "Graphophone" to Edison with the idea of combining resources for further improvements. Edison merely went to work on an even better machine of his own. This one used a solid wax cylinder and an electric motor for consistent recording and playback speed.

Both parties still, however, saw the invention as a tool for commerce. Nobody had yer thought of the more frivolous applications. German immigrant Emile Berliner not only saw the possibilities he also spotted thr flaws inherent in existing models. By 1888 he had developed a system using a flat disc with a lateral spiral groove. The master was made of zinc covered in a thin layer of acid resistant wax that was scratched off during recording. The master was then dipped in acid creating a groove in the exposed zinc. This created a reversed matrix or negative stamp, giving Berliner the opportunity to mass-produce records in vulcanised rubber.

Meanwhile Edison and Bell were at each other`s throats; suing and counter-suing over stolen patents. Finally in 1888 Jesse H. Lippincott of the North American Phonograph Company, bought the rights to both parties` cylinder machines and sold franchises to lease them to American businesses.

Peace

1890-1899 Jukeboxes and Shellac disc:

With economic crisis sweeping North America only nineteen of the original thirty-three franchises had survived into the 1890s. Of the nineteen, The Columbia Graphaphone Company which serviced Delaware Maryland and the district of Columbia was the only one to show a profit, leasing the machines to fairgrounds and penny arcades as a means of reproducing music. The Juke Box was born.
By the early part of the decade they had over 60 recordings in their catalogue and Edison, though initiallly resistant to the idea of using his invention as pure entertainment, began to see the financial sense. However, while cylinders gave a higher fidelity of sound than Berliner`s rubber discs they were impossible to mass-produce. Each perfomance had to be recorded by severval phonographs simultaneously and any popular tune just had to be recorded over and over again.

Berliner`s Gramophone Company now started using organic lacquer called shellac which, combined with a new technique of creating a master from wax rather than zinc, gave a much clearer, stronger and more dynamic sound. He also met a New Jersey machinist called Eldridge Reeves Johnson who had perfected a clockwork motor, allowing the gramophone to be played `hands free`. By the turn of the century he had set up a studio in The Strand, London and was selling tens of thousands of records a year.


Peace

1900-1909 Mass production and double-sided discs:

The new century saw the birth of a music industry. The three major players were the two cylinder companies, The Columbia Graphophone Company and Edison`s National Phonograph Company and producing discs was Berliner and Johnson`s new Victor Talking Machine Company. Together they were known as the Big Three as they were the only corporations large enough to fight the expensive copywrite and patent battles ans successfully market their own formats to a rejuvenated world economy. Quality and limited playing time, however, still consigned recorded music to the status of a gimmick.

In Europe Fred Gaisberg, an employee of Berliner`s, found the solution in an Italian tenor named Enrico Caruso. Recording him on a 10 inch (as opposed to 7 inch) disc that allowed a longer playing time, Gaisberg discovered that Caruso`s voice contained the perfect frequencies for thr Gramophone`s dynamic range. Caruso`s work was released in 1903 on the expensive Victo`Red Seal` label, the first record to feature Nipper, the "His Masters Voice" dog, listening to the acoustic horn of a Gramophone. Caruso`s Victor recordings became legendarily successful. As Caruso himself said, "My Victor records will be my biography".

The success of opera stars such as Caruso, Adelina Patti and Francesco Tamagno allowed Victor to consolidate their place as market leaders. While discs could not match the quality of cylinders, the greater playback volume and guarantee of famous names singing and playing in your living room was a hugh draw. Classical music had produced the recording industries` first stars and the public saw this as proof that discs were of better quality - even when they weren`t . The cylinder`s inferiority was now making itself apparent.
Standardisation had not been uppermost in rivals` minds, meaning there was no guarentee that a chosen model could play the catalogue required, the cylinder could only hola a fraction of the works contained on a disc and, finally, the flat disc made storage much easier. The cylinder was far too bulky.

The final factor in establishing the dominance of the disc was the marriage of function and style: The Victrola. Eldridge Johnson had stated that he wished to make his machines the "Steinways of sound" and this model fitted the bill. Released by Victor in 1906 it was the first player that resembled a contemporary piece of furniture.
Designed to look at home in drawing rooms the mechanism was concealed behind wooden doors, making it Victor`s most popular product and the generic name for all gramophones in the next two decades.


Peace

1910-1919 Edison`s Diamond disc:

By 1910 the disc was available in 7,10,12,14,16 and 21 inch formats playing at around 78rpm and containing up to 8 minutes of sound. Edison finally acknowledged that mass-production and ease of storage were the way forward and, in 1913, produced his own version of the disc.

Unfortunately the "Diamond Disc" as it was called, while made of a tough early plastic (known as Amberol) which gave it little surface noise and superb clarity, was incompatible with any other stsyem. It employed a vertical, rather than laterally cut, groove and could not be played on any other machine. This last ditch attempt by Edisin was doomed to failure.

World War One could have signalled the end of the record industry were it not for the fact that, with music halls closed and movies still silent, the record player was one of the only ways to hear patriotic songs such as "It`s A Long Wat To Tipperary". Also the introduction of a portable player called the Decca meant that music could even be enjoted in the trenches. By 1918 the record player was seen as an essential accoutrement for any modern home.

After the cessation of hostilities, the American job market in the urban north was woefully short of manpower. Cue the migration of poorer southern communities from the south - mainly of Afro-Americans - and the fully established industry was about to receive a new cultural injection: Jazz.

Peace

1920-1929 Jukeboxes and Talking Pictures:

The record industry had spent the first twenty years of the century convincing the public that they needed a source of music in the home, but they didn`t foresee the possibility that it may be free.
Unfortunately, The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) had by the early 1920s started mass-producing commercial radios which, while acoustically inferior, offered a far wider range of news, drama and music.
The Record Companies retaliated by drawing up contracts for their major artists, forbidding them to work for this rival medium.
This move to limit radio`s output was doomed to failure as new vacuum tube amplification rapidly improved reception and sound quality.Record sales plummeted.
The only weapon was fidelity of sound. In 1916 Western Electric laboratories had developed the superior condenser microphone.
When Western combined with AT & T to form Bell Laboratories in 1925 this, in turn, led to the development of the first fully electronic High Fidelity recording techniques. It extended the reproducible sound range of phonograph records by more than an octave on high and low ends and it was dubbed "Orthophonic".

Victor subsequently brought out a machine that could reproduce these innovations, and the increase in fidelity finally ended the drop in sales. These new machines also started to incorporate innovations such as the magnetic stylus and fully electronic playback with volume control and loudspeakers. Shortly afterward, players and radios were combined, ending rivalry between media.
In fact, the new entertainment conglomerates could now use one (radio) to promote the other (records) and a whole new age of marketing was upon us.
Simultaneously, a whole new medium for sound was arriving.
Western Electric had combined with Warner Brothers to form the Vitaphone corporation and as a result the motion picture could now utilise the innovations in sound recording as well.
Film was shot while a 16 inch disc recorded the sound. Revolving at 33 1/3 rpm, it lasted the same time as a reel of film and, naturally could be played back synchronously creating the world`s first talking pictures. Following Al Jolson`s Appearance in "The Jazz Singer", record companies now had a new rival.


Peace

1930-1939 Magnetic Tape & Stereo Developments:

If market forces affected the recording industry, the Great Crash of 1929 changed it irrevocably as leisure items such as electrical items becoming luxury goods. Thomas Edison`s cylinders and discs ceased production entirely, while smaller independents were swallowed by new conglomerates that could weather the economic storm. In America Hernert Yates formed the American Record Company (ARC) while Europe saw the birth of Louis Sterling`s Electrical and Musical Industries (EMI). For the first time business interests overtook artistic ones. While pandering to mass markets created a certain dumbing-down in the output, the effects of mass-production did result in a large drop in price of records.

One very significant part of the market did, however remain buoyant - the Juke-box. In 1933 Homer Capehart sold the Simplex, automatic record changer mechanism to Wurlitzer who, along with rivals Seeburg and Rock-Ola, proceeded to put their machines in tavens and diners all over America. By 1939 the number of juke-boxes installed had increased from 25,000 to 300,000 and the number one selection was Bing Crosby.

Meanwhile RCA Victor`s merger had resulted in many record plants being converted to radio production. While radio remained pre-recorded music`s major competitor it also promoted and developed new formats. European Classical music became popular on American shows, though live transmissions exceeded the fidelity of 78rpm records. By using the now redundant 16 inch 33 1/3rpm disc that had been utilised by the film industry of the previous decade, radio stations could record their own shows in good enough quality to pull out and use when it suited them. RCA developed and marketed a new recording material called Vitrolac and, although a few public pressings in 10 and 12 inch were made, it was generally neglected by the commercial companies. However it was picked up as a professional medium for radio transcription discs and the Library of Congress also used Vitrolac for talking books for the blind. Most importantly, Vitrolac was a form of plastic and so RCA could lay claim to producing the first true precursor to the vinyl 12 inch.

Peace

1940-1949 WWII and the LP:

Twentieth Centuary history is that of rapid technological change and World War II was possibly the zenith of this growth and change.
Following a strike by the AFM (American Federation Of Musicians), demanding royalties for musicians who had lost work due to the rise of pre-recorded music, the amount of new music recorded dropped and, with the advent of war, many musicians were then conscripted.
Demand was, however, still high, especially among the homesick troops. As a result special 12 and 16 inch radio transcription records playing at 33 1/3 were shipped to special army DJs and POWs in order to boost morale. They contained both important troop information and top hits of the day, often recorded free of charge by big artists such as Glenn Miller and the Andrews Sisters. These "V-discs" (V for Victory or Robert Vincent who introduced the concept) faced several large problems. The discs, made from Shellac, were brittle and often arrived cracked or broken, and as Japan invaded Asia the source of Shellac, the Lac bettle of South Asia, became scarce. Added to this was the recurring problem of shellac as a medium. It had to be stored very carefully or, as an organic compound it would deteriorate and was also easily scratched. As it was, the amount of playing time even on larger discs was limited to 10 minutes per side. On shellac, increasing the number of grooves beyond 80-100 per inch risked the groove walls collapsing, and making the discs larger than 16 inches was, frankily, unfeasible. A new medium was needed. Enter a versatile compound discovered (twice!) over twenty years before - Polyvinyl Chloride, PVC or Vinyl for short.

Initially discovered by Fritz Klatte in 1912, the patent for this material lapsed in 1925. One year later it was rediscovered by Waldo Semon, whos bosses at B.F Goodrich recognised its potential and patented it. It was being used for insulation, raincoats, shower curtains and gaskets and was fairly expensive yet, once the benefits were demonstrated - durability combined with flexibility and a lifespan of over 100 years - it was adopted as the new material for record production.

At the cessation of hostilities record companies faced a market which still had many pitfulls. Magnetic tape, FM radio transmission and, of course, post war austerity all needed addressing. On June 26th 1948 in New York CBS called a press conference to announce the introduction of the LP or long player. 12 inches wide, turning at 33 1/3 and using the innovation of vinyl had resulted in a record that could contain up to 260 grooves or, more importantly, up to 30 minutes of music per side. It was this ability to overcome the problem of collasping groove walls which was dubbed the "microgroove" technique.

It was immediately used in conjunction with new magnetic tape recording techniques to create almost faultless recordings. Up until the later years of the war only magnetic wire had been used for limited purposes. 3M (the Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Company) and the Brush Development Corporation werre already working on a ferric tape, unaware that in Germany a prototype was built and working. Signal Corps technician Jack Mullin found this machine at Radio Frankfurt in Bad Bauheim and when it was brought back to America was quickly developed by none other than Bing Crosby Enterprises who saw its advantages immediately.
Columbia had slso ensured that while the new format was developed that a back catalogue was recorded to release on it and, also, that a cheap means of playing it was available. Having beaten RCA in the race to provide a new format, seven months later RCA retaliated with their own - 7 inches, also on vinyl with the new microgroove - the single. It became the standard format for the stackable jukebox and also came with a accompanying player that was cheap and played nothing else. However, with 16 and 78rpm records also available, it would take another ten years for the public to settle its mind as to which speed they wanted their music to rotate at.

Peace