By: Odin Contreras

 The first music song is put on record: cornetist Jules Levy plays "Yankee Doodle.“

 Thomas Edison introduces an electric motor-driven phonograph.

 Valdemar Poulsen patents his "Telegraphone," recording magnetically on steel wire.

 Lee DeForest makes the triode vacuum tube, the very first electronic signal amplifier.

 William Gaisber recorded the sounds of World War. From the front lines he captured the sounds of artillery and exploding gas bombs bringing to light a new way of preserving history.

 Henry Stroller and Harry Pfannenstiehl worked on synchronizing recorded sound with movie playback. This system used two electric motors one for the record player and one for the film projector. The sound was recorded onto 16 inch discs called platers.

 DON JUAN was the first sound-on-disc movie released by the Vitaphone corporation. The Vitaphone corporation had been formed by the Warner Bros. and Western Electric companies. Synchronizing the sound and film still proved difficult.

 A much improved method of cutting the grooves into records was invented by Bell Labs.

 Recording of sound was used to break secret codes, record telephone messages from spies, and record intercepted enemy communications during World War II. Wire recorders were used because they were much more durable. This increased interest to improve wire recorders.

 Prerecorded stereo magnetic tapes were now available. Stereo tape recordings were the first stereo sound used in the home.

 The first tape cassette player available in the U.S. was a portable model made by the Norelco Company, the Carry Corder.

The new Ray Dolby system now greatly reduced unwanted background sound on the cassette tape

 Record companies now offered their prerecorded music on both cassette tape and disc.

 Philips was working on a digital audio disc playback system, DAD. Working with Philips, Sony developed an improved method of encoding digital sound. The PCM chip was also used. Their combined work led to the creation of the CD.

 The commercial sale of the new standard CD was introduced.

 Fiber-optic cable is used for long- distance digital audio transmission, linking New York and Washington, D.C.

 Dolby introduces the "SR" Spectral Recording system.

 ISDN telephone links are offered for high-end studio use.

 Ampex introduces 499 mastering tape.

 The Philips DCC and Sony's MiniDisc, using digital audio data-reduction, are offered to consumers as record/play hardware and software.

 In the first extensive use of "distance recording" via ISDN, producer Phil Ramone records the "Duets" album with Frank Sinatra.

 Yamaha unveils the ProMix 01, the first "affordable" digital multitrack console

 The first "solid-state" audio recorder, the Nagra ARES-C, is introduced. It is a battery-operated field unit recording on PCMCIA cards using MPEG-2 audio compression.

 Record labels begin to add multimedia files to new releases, calling them "enhanced CDs."

 story.timeline.html story.timeline.html  line.html