History amended by earliest recording of sound


Recommended Posts

(CNN) -- Thomas Edison came up with a way to play back recorded sound in 1878. But 20 years before the inventor patented the phonograph, French scientist ?douard-L?on Scott de Martinville was fiddling around in his laboratory trying to come up with a way to record sound. His invention, the phonautogram, enabled him to create a visual representation of his voice.

Scott de Martinville wasn't able to listen back to his recordings, though. The science of acoustics was in its infancy. He could only see lines etched in soot. His achievements were long-forgotten until a group of historians, audio engineers and scientists searched for his work. The First Sounds Collaborative found it in the archives of the French Academy of Sciences in 2008.

"His machine would capture the vibrations out of the air and write them on to a moving piece of paper," said David Giovannoni, one of the founders of First Sounds. "When you look at the writing that this machine made, it looks exactly like a sound wave would look on audio editing software today."

Giovannoni and his group analyzed Scott de Martinville's work with audio software and unlocked the sound held in the waveforms. The result is like listening to a ghostly time machine, the voice of a man from 150 years ago singing French song "Au Clair de la lune." The earliest known sound recordings can be heard at www.firstsounds.org.

Nearly 20 years after Scott de Martinville experimented with recording his voice in Paris, Edison perfected a way to record and play back audio at his laboratory in New Jersey. His invention would spark a new industry, the recording business.

A new window onto history was recently opened up at Edison's laboratory in New Jersey. As the place was undergoing renovations, someone discovered a long-forgotten box containing cylinder recordings of Otto von Bismarck. The influential 19th-century statesman unified Germany and preserved peace in Europe for more than 40 years.

The cylinders weren't in the best condition, but they were still listenable. Through the static, you can hear von Bismarck on the Thomas Edison National Historic Park's website reciting poetry.

more

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.