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The Phonograph
In 1877 the first phonograph was invented by Thomas Edison. The phonograph was the first method of recording and playing back sound. This was Edison's first great invention. The new invention gave Edison international fame. He toured the country with the phonograph and was even invited to the White House to demonstrate the invention to President Rutherfor B. Hayes in 1878. -
The Gramophone
The Phonograph was great at the time but it was only good for a one time only playback and the sound quality was terrible. 10 years after the Phonograph was invented Emile Berliner came up with the Gramophone. He was the first inventor to stop recording on cylinders and start recording on flat discs or records. The first records were made of glass. Later on they were made of zinc and eventually plastic. The records had a spiral groove etched into it with sound information that the "arm" of the g -
Records
In 1906 the Victrola model record player was introduced by RCA Victor. This record player had variable turntable speeds to accommodate the already wide range of records being produced at the time. Two years later Columbia Records introduced the first double-sided phonograph records. Finally in 1912, cylinder recordings were a thing of the past and disc recordings were the hip thing to have. 12 years after the invention of the record made a hit, in 1924 things got a little more high-tech. Electri -
LP's
LPs (Long Playing record) also known as an "album" were invented in 1948. The 33 1/3 LP was released by Columbia Records. The preferred disc for singles became the large-hole 45rpm records by RCA Victor in 1949. The 45rpm record was 7". In 1952 the Recording Industry Association of America was formed. There was the 33-1/3rpm LP, the 78rpm, and the 45rpm at 12", 10" and 7". in 1955 the 12" became more popular than the original 10" LPs. -
Multitrack Recording
In 1962 multi-track analog tape recording began in recording studios. The idea of a multitrack recorder and experiments started in the late 1940s by guitarist, inventor and composer Les Paul. Artists such as the Beatles and the Beach Boys began to multitrack extensively. After this started, almost all popular music was recorded this way. -
Cassette Tapes
1963- Phillips develops a compact stereo cassette tape and player. The cassette tape became the most popular form of music media for several years. In the 70s it became possible to record your own music off of records or the radio onto a blank cassette tape. Cassettes brought something new to the world of music media in the 60s. You were now able to listen to music on the go. Portable cassette players were also released. -
Compact Discs
Compact Dics or CDs were introduced in 1982 in Japan. The first CD released was Billy Joel's "52nd Street". One year later, in 1983, CDs were released in the USA. It only took 3 years for CDs to overtake LPs as the top selling music media in the United States. In 1999 Recordable CDs became available. -
Napster and File Sharing
In 2000 Napster is released. Napster allowed people to easily share song files with eachother. This new program led to the music industrys drop in recording sales and accusations of total copyright violations. Although Napster was shut down by court order in 2001, it created the idea of free online file sharing and now there are several other programs that can be downloaded for free to get any music from anyone. Some examples of these free file sharing programs are Limewire and Ares -
Apple I-pod
In October of 2001 Apple introduced the biggest hit in music media, the iPod. The iPod grew in popularity rapidly. over the course of 7 years there have been 14 different versions of the iPod all with different capabilities and specialties. The iPod began with the Classic. The first 3 Classic iPods ranged between 5 and 40GB. After the release of the third classic Apple released the first iPod mini. The minis were available in 5 different colors and had a storage capacity of 4GB. After the mini's -
I-tunes
in 2003 apple released the online music store to go along with the new iPod. iTunes allows the iPod user to manage audio and video on their computer. in iTunes, several things are possible. You can organize music into playlists with one or more libraries, edit file information, record CDs, copy files to a digital audio player, purchase music and video from the built in music store, download free podcasts, backup songs onto a CD or DVD, and encode music into a number of different audio formats.
