For centuries man had dreamed of capturing the sounds and music of his environment. Many had attempted it but no one had succeeded until Thomas Alva Edison discovered a method of recording and playing back sound. What had started out as an apparatus intended as part of an improved telephone led to the development of an instrument which would change the world, making it a happier, even a better, place to live. Here are the facts, in reverse order:
1857: Frenchman Leon Scott invented the phonautograph which translated fluctuating air pressures into a scribed trace on a smoked cylinder by means of a stylus attached to a membrane. The resulting transcription could not reproduce the sound.
1877: In April another Frenchman, Charles Cros, a poet and inventor of photographic colour processes proposed that Scott’s method be improved by photoengraving the trace onto metal with the possibility of retracing the pattern resulting in the replay of the original sound. In July Thomas Alva Edison, the prolific American inventor, discovered a method of recording and replaying sound having followed a somewhat different line of research from Scott or Cros. He filed a provisional specification for a British patent 2909/1877. On December 24, Edison applied for the US Patent 200 521 which covered talking machines and sound writers to be known as Phonographs. The first phonographs used tin foil cylinders.1878: Edison considered the use of compressed amplifiers to overcome the problem of lack of replay volume. The Englishmen, Horace Short and C.A. Parsons (the steam turbine expert) succeeded in perfecting the compressed air amplifiers known as Auxetophones but they were eventually used for other purposes.1884: Emile Berliner, an American of German origin, recorded ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ on an Edison cylinder machine. The original recording is preserved by the BBC in London.1886: Edison was granted US patent 341 214 for a wax coated recording cylinder. This signified the beginning of the end of the tin foil coated cylinder.1887: Berliner developed a successful method of modulating the sound-carrying groove laterally in the surface of a disc. (The groove on cylinders was modulated vertically.) He also invented a method of mass producing copies of an original recorded disc.1888: Jesse Lippincott, a financier, took over the commercial exploitation of the Phonograph and the Graphophone as dictating machines on a lease and service contract. The Graphophone had been developed by Edison’s rivals, Chichester Bell (the brother of Alexander Graham Bell) and Charles Tainter at the Volta laboratory and in terms of ease of operation and fidelity of sound reproduction it was a vast improvement on the phonograph. The use of either machine as an entertainment medium was still seen as a novelty.1889: Coin-in-the slot public access replay facilities, a primitive form of juke box, which could be used in amusement arcades, became immensely popular in the US creating a demand for entertainment recordings, mainly comic monologues.1890: Edison’s Phonograph and the Bell-Tainter Graphophone were in intense competition for the popular market. The Phonograph was beginning to prove the more popular, and the New York Phonograph Company opened the first purpose-built recording studios.1894: Pathe Freres started the world famous French company making phonographs and cylinders.1895: By now recorded music as a medium of entertainment had become firmly established with the public. The demand for recordings provided the incentive for research and investment in the infant record business.1896: Eldridge R. Johnson designed and manufactured a ‘clockwork’ spring motor which helped establish F. Seaman’s National Gramophone Company of New York as a serious rival to the Phonograph and the Graphophone Companies.
Computer DJing Industry Survey The purpose of the survey is to collect product-anonymous information about computer DJs, which we will aggregate and publicly share with the hardware manufacturing and software development community community. The survey features multi questions, and upon completion you will be entered in a drawing to win some great prizes and software. All responses will remain completely anonymous and no personal information will be shared, harvested or sold.
The more completed surveys we get, the better our data will be, meaning our findings will be of greater interest to the hardware manufacturing and software development community. Be sure to take the survey! All of your information will remain anonymous, and once we receive enough responses, we'll announce when we'll publish the data.
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Educational Review Material
DJ Summit Review DVDs
Did you miss last years Computer DJ Summit? After two years of coveing many 101 topics, future Summits will now focus on advanced learning. If you missed the wealth of information shared during the Summit you will find several review DVDs now available in the official CPS Store. These DVDs will catch you up for future events. DVDs ar available in two disc sets and mega sets. Click here for details.
General Program Details
CPS Certification Gives an Edge
In a white paper titled Certification: Networking With the Best, George R. Conrade, wrote, "Certification is an excellent way to gain a competitive edge and give proof of your abilities, knowledge, and level of skill. To be certified in any profession, whether it's as a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) or as a CPS Certified Disc Jockey (CPSDJ), means you have joined a network of individuals who meet consistent, knowledge-based standards of ability, position, experience-even ethics. When you pursue certification, you're testing yourself against these standards of proficiency." Click here for details.
Computer DJ/VJ/KJ Summit/Cruise
Special announcement... The Digital DJ Summit/Cruise will began in Tampa, Florida. This years event will be groundbreaking for the novice and experienced Disc Jockey. Anyone “already” or “planning” to mix mp3s or other music file format with hardware, software or combination of both. Block your schedule and don't forget to attend the Monday evening " Weddings Ground-0" seminar to discover the plans for the 2019 Summit.
NOTICE: The 2019 Summit is a B.Y.O.L where you can plug-into the live experience.
LAST UPDATED:
August 20, 2007
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