The main stages of the development of sound recording. Digital audio recording and audio processing

In the display cases of the exhibition, located in the music library hall, you can see old gramophone records, a roller from a Welte-Mignon mechanical piano, photographs of the first phonographs and ancient gramophones, and portraits of the inventors of sound recording. Above the display case there are signs telling the history of recording in Russia.

A Brief History of Sound Recording in Russia

The principle of recording a sound wave was first described by the French poet, musician and amateur inventor Charles Cros in 1877, but it did not come to the construction of the apparatus, which he called the “autographic telegraph”. Thomas Edison made the same discovery in 1878, independently of Charles Cros' invention. He was the first to build a device and called it a “phonograph.”

Phonographs became extremely widespread. The recording was made on a rotating metal roller, which was first coated with a special alloy, then a layer of wax and tin foil were used. With the help of the phonograph, they began to teach foreign languages, treat stuttering, and record military and fire alarm signals were created. Voices were recorded famous singers, artists, writers, popular songs and arias from operas, monologues from famous plays, fashionable sketches by popular comedians. Here is one of these recordings from 1898 - performed by an American artist.

The phonograph came to Russia almost immediately after its invention by Edison. Thanks to the phonograph, recordings of the playing of S. I. Taneyev, Anton Rubinstein, the boy virtuoso Jascha Heifetz, young Joseph Hoffmann, the voices of L. N. Tolstoy, P. I. Tchaikovsky, A. I. Yuzhin-Sumbatov and many other historical figures were preserved.
The phonograph did not disappear with the invention of the gramophone in the 1880s. It was readily used by ordinary people long years, until the end of the 1910s.
However, the phonograph had the disadvantage that its recordings existed in only one copy.

Only ten years after the advent of the phonograph, in 1887, the German engineer Emil Berliner invented a device that recorded sound not on a roller, but on a record. This opened the way for mass production of gramophone records. Berliner called his device “gramophone” (“I write sound”). It took a long time to search for material for gramophone records and to determine the speed of rotation that would not distort the sound. Only in 1897 did they settle on a disk made of shellac (a substance produced by a tropical insect - the varnish bug), spar and soot. This material was quite expensive, but a replacement came with the invention of hard plastics in the 1940s. And the rotation speed of 78 rpm was determined by 1925.
Berliner's invention gave birth to a real gramophone boom. Recording came to Russia from abroad, and until 1917, gramophone production was in the hands of foreigners.

The first company to enter the Russian market was the company of Emil Berliner himself - "Gramophone Berliner", in Russia simply "Gramophone". The company's factory brand - "Writing Cupid" - has become very popular in Russia. Almost simultaneously, the German company International Zonophone, or simply Zonophone, began operating in the northern capital. In 1901, the Parisian firm Pathé Brothers opened a store on Nevsky Prospekt. In the late 1890s, recordings by M. G. Savina, F. I. Chaliapin, V. F. Komissarzhevskaya appeared on the St. Petersburg market...

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the first gramophone factory in Russia appeared. It opened in Riga in 1901. And in 1902, the Anglo-German-American Gramophone Society, with the participation of St. Petersburg engineer Vasily Ivanovich Rebikov, founded the first gramophone and gramophone record factory in St. Petersburg. Rebikov's factory produced up to 10 thousand records per year and made up to 1000 recordings per year, mainly of the Russian repertoire: the choir of A. A. Arkhangelsky, the orchestra of V. V. Andreev, the orchestra of the Life Guards Regiment of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, folk performers, St. Petersburg singers and artists: bass M. Z. Goryainov, tenor N. A. Rostovsky, actor N. F. Monakhov, singer Varya Panina.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, St. Petersburg companies recorded the voices of singers I.V. Ershov, N.N. Figner, N.I. Tamara, I.A. Alchevsky, choirs and orchestras, and many foreign guest performers. In 1907, the Pathé Brothers company began selling “gramophones” in St. Petersburg - portable (“portable”) gramophones.

In addition to gramophone recording, there was mechanical recording of sound. These are mechanical pianos. Recording in them was made using a special mechanism on paper tape - punched tape. The patent for this invention was first taken out in 1903 by Edwin Welte in Freiburg (Germany). He called the device "Welte Mignon". Soon a similar device from Fonola appeared. From 1904 until the outbreak of the First World War, several thousand rolls were recorded, capturing the art of musicians from various European countries. Recordings were made of Anna Esipova, Alexander Scriabin, Alexander Glazunov, Claude Debussy, Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, and many others. At the same time, two significant mechanical recording production facilities were created in the USA - “Duo Art” and “Ampico”. Sergei Prokofiev, Joseph Levin, Alexander Ziloti recorded on them. Mechanical notation remained popular with pianists until the early 1930s.

The music library contains gramophone records from almost all companies operating in St. Petersburg - "Gramophone", "Zonofon", "Telefunken", "Columbia", etc., including those with the trademark "Writing Cupid", "Voice of the Master", "Decca" .

At the end of the 1920s. Electrical recording was invented, which enormously expanded the capabilities of the recording industry. The quality of recordings has improved dramatically. Electrical recording is not yet as perfect as electronic or later digital recording, but it is already far superior to Berliner's electromechanical recording.
The record libraries of records from the first Soviet factories of the 1920s and 30s: Gramplasttrest (with the SovSong trademark), Aprelevsky, Muzprom, stored in the funds, are of particular value. These records were created using electric recording techniques. In those years, unique recordings of the voices of many Russian artists were made, concerts of musicians, orchestras, choirs, and opera performances were recorded.

Electronic recording was invented in the late 1940s. This, as well as the creation of hard plastics, made it possible to launch the production of long-playing records during these years.
Digital recording emerged in the late 1950s.
In the late 1980s, with the advent of computer sound media, gramophone records began to fall out of use. Digital technology, the advent of CDs and DVDs seemed to have driven the gramophone record out of the world market. However, experts soon came to the conclusion that digital sound recording has a number of disadvantages and does not allow one to reproduce in full all the colors and all the features of musical sound. At the end of the 1990s, many foreign companies returned to the production of records and electronic players. This industry is still developing today. Recording technology has, of course, improved since the 1950s. New foreign-produced gramophone records appeared in the 1990s and Russian market.
The Russian National Library's music library also has some of them.

1. Music boxes, barrel organs, polyphonons, orchestrions (17th century)

During the Renaissance, a whole range of various mechanical musical instruments were created that reproduced a particular melody at the right moment: barrel organs, music boxes, boxes, snuff boxes.

The musical organ works as follows. Sounds are created using thin steel plates of varying lengths and thicknesses placed in an acoustic box in a harmonic scale sequence. To extract sound from them, a special drum with protruding pins is used, the location of which on the surface of the drum corresponds to the intended melody. When the drum rotates evenly, the pins touch the plates in a given sequence. By moving the pins to other places in advance, you can change the melodies. The organ grinder himself operates the organ grinder by rotating the handle.

IN music boxes another principle has been implemented. Here, a metal disk with a deep spiral groove is used to pre-record the melody. In certain places of the groove, pinpoint depressions are made - pits, the location of which corresponds to the melody. When the disk rotates, driven by a clock spring mechanism, a special metal needle slides along the groove and “reads” the sequence of dots. The needle is attached to a membrane, which produces a sound each time the needle enters a groove.

In the Middle Ages, chimes were created - tower or large room clocks with a musical mechanism that chime in a certain melodic sequence of tones or perform small musical pieces.

Mechanical musical instruments are just automata that reproduce artificially created sounds. The task of preserving long time sounds of living life was resolved much later.

2. Phonograph (19th century, 1877)

In 1877, the American Thomas Alva Edison invented a sound recording device - the phonograph, which for the first time made it possible to record the sound of the human voice. For mechanical recording and playback of sound, Edison used rollers covered with tin foil. Such foils were hollow cylinders with a diameter of about 5 cm and a length of 12 cm.

In the first phonograph, a metal roller was rotated using a crank, moving axially with each revolution due to the screw threads on the drive shaft. Tin foil (staniol) was placed on the roller. A steel needle connected to a membrane of parchment touched it. A metal cone horn was attached to the membrane. When recording and playing back sound, the roller had to be rotated manually at a speed of 1 revolution per minute. When the roller rotated in the absence of sound, the needle extruded a spiral groove (or groove) of constant depth into the foil. When the membrane vibrated, the needle was pressed into the tin in accordance with the perceived sound, creating a groove of variable depth. This is how the “deep recording” method was invented.

During the first test of his apparatus, Edison pulled the foil tightly onto the cylinder, brought the needle to the surface of the cylinder, carefully began to rotate the handle and sang the first stanza of the children's song “Mary Had a Little Lamb” into a megaphone. Then he retracted the needle, returned the cylinder to its original position with the handle, inserted the needle into the drawn groove and began to rotate the cylinder again. And from the megaphone a children's song sounded quietly but clearly.

In 1885, American inventor Charles Tainter (1854-1940) developed the graphophone - a foot-operated phonograph (like a foot-operated sewing machine) - and replaced the tin sheets of the rollers with a wax paste. Edison bought Tainter's patent, and removable wax rollers began to be used for recording instead of foil rollers. The pitch of the sound groove was about 3 mm, so the recording time per roller was very short.

To record and reproduce sound, Edison used the same device - the phonograph.

3. Gramophone (19th century, 1887)

The German-born American inventor Emil Berliner replaced Edison's wax roller with a flat disk - a gramophone record - and developed a technology for its mass production using a matrix. Berliner demonstrated such records in 1888, and this year can be considered the beginning of the era of recordings. A little later, pressing of gramophone records was developed using a steel printing matrix made of rubber and ebonite, and subsequently from a composite mass based on shellac, a substance produced by tropical insects. The records became better and cheaper, but their main drawback was their low mechanical strength. Shellac records were produced until the mid-20th century.

Until 1896 the disc had to be rotated manually, and this was the main obstacle to the widespread use of gramophones. Emil Berliner announced a competition for a spring motor - inexpensive, technologically advanced, reliable and powerful. And such an engine was designed by mechanic Eldridge Johnson, who came to Berliner’s company. From 1896 to 1900 About 25,000 of these engines were produced. Only then did Berliner's gramophone become widespread.

The first records were single-sided. In 1903, a 12-inch disc with recording on two sides was first released. It could be “played” in a gramophone using a mechanical pickup - a needle and a membrane. Sound amplification was achieved using a bulky bell. Later, a portable gramophone was developed: a gramophone with a bell hidden in the body. For engineering reasons, the optimal frequency for the human ear was generated by a pipe more than 6 meters long. The craftsmen were looking for a compromise: they rolled the pipe into a snail, following the principle of a horn. The diameter of the bell sometimes reached one and a half meters or more. They were made of tinned nickel-plated brass and other metals, exotic versions were made of glass. Later, it was widely recognized that the best sound comes from wood: horns made of four-layer oak became the most popular. The shape varied from narrow and wide cone-shaped funnels to elbowed pipes with tulip- and bell-shaped bells that rotated on their own axis.

In His Master's Voice cabinets, the horn was built inside. By opening and closing the upper doors, behind which the “speaker” was hidden, it was possible to adjust the sound; in the lower part there were shelves for records.

4. Gramophone (20th century, 1907)

The gramophone (from the name of the French company "Pathe") - a portable version of the gramophone - had the shape of a portable suitcase. Unlike a gramophone, a gramophone's horn is small and built into the body.

The main disadvantages of gramophone records were their fragility, poor quality sound and short playback time - only 3-5 minutes (at a speed of 78 rpm). In the pre-war years, stores even accepted “broken” records for recycling. The gramophone needles had to be changed frequently. The plate rotated using a spring motor, which had to be “started” with a special handle. However, due to its modest size and weight, simplicity of design and independence from electrical network, the gramophone became very widespread among music lovers.

5. Radiols or electrophones (20th century, 1925)

An electrophone is a device for reproducing sound from a gramophone record. In everyday life, the cumbersome official name “electrophone” was usually replaced by the neutral “player”. Unlike a gramophone, in an electrophone (as well as a radio recorder - a combination of a player and a radio receiver), mechanical vibrations of the pickup needle were converted into electrical vibrations, amplified by an audio frequency amplifier and then converted into sound by an electro-acoustic system.

In 1948-1952, fragile gramophone records were replaced by so-called “long-playing” ones - more durable, practically unbreakable and providing much better longer time playing. This was achieved by narrowing and bringing the sound tracks closer together, as well as by reducing the number of revolutions from 78 to 45, and more often to 33 1/3 revolutions per minute. The quality of sound reproduction during playback of such records has improved significantly. In addition, since 1958, stereophonic records began to be produced, creating a surround sound effect. The turntable's needles are also significantly more durable. They began to be made from solid materials, and they completely replaced the short-lived gramophone needles. The recording of gramophone records was carried out only in special recording studios.

Electrophones are still used both at home and in electronic music as part of other instruments. However, at home, their distribution has practically been reduced to zero, as well as the sale of gramophone records, due to their virtual complete replacement by universal laser digital players. Nowadays, an electronic phone at home is more of a tribute to the hobby of the so-called. “analog” sound, which, according to some fans of high-quality music reproduction, is superior to the sound of digital media (softer and richer), which, rather, is only the individual “taste” of a certain person in relation to high-quality sound.

7. CD player (player) (20th century, mid-1980s)

In 1979, Philips and Sony created a completely new storage medium that replaced the gramophone record - an optical disc (Compact Disk - CD) for recording and playing back sound. In 1982, mass production of CDs began at a plant in Germany.

Compared to mechanical sound recording, it has a number of advantages - a very high recording density and the complete absence of mechanical contact between the medium and the reading device during recording and playback. Using a laser beam, the signals are digitally recorded on a rotating optical disk.

As a result of recording, a spiral track is formed on the disk, consisting of depressions and smooth areas. In playback mode, a laser beam focused on a track moves across the surface of a rotating optical disk and reads the recorded information. In this case, depressions are read as zeros, and areas that evenly reflect light are read as ones. The digital recording method ensures almost complete absence of interference and high quality sound. High recording density is achieved due to the ability to focus the laser beam into a spot smaller than 1 micron. This provides long recording and playback times.

Bibliography

How was the phonograph invented?//Gramophone. 1908. No. 4. pp. 10-11.

Zhelezny A.I. Our friend - the gramophone record: Notes from a collector. - K: Music. Ukraine. 1989. 279 S.

Lapirov-Skoblo M. Edison. - M: Young Guard. 1960. 255 S.

Belkind L.A. Thomas Alva Edison. - M: Science. 1964. 327 S.

Telegraphy // Electrician's Newspaper. 1889. No. 32. pp. 520-522.

Pestrikov V. M. Radio? Where? // Radio hobby. 1998. No. 1. pp. 2-3..

Pestrikov V.M. The great invention of Waldemar Paulsen // Radiohobby. 1998. No. 6. pp. 2-3

(fde_message_value)

About the history of sound recording

Today, the main sound recording methods include:
- mechanical
- magnetic
- optical and magneto-optical sound recording
- recording to solid-state semiconductor flash memory

Attempts to create devices that could reproduce sounds were made back in Ancient Greece. In the IV-II centuries BC. e. there were theaters of self-moving figures - androids. The movements of some of them were accompanied by mechanically produced sounds that formed melodies.

During the Renaissance, a number of different mechanical musical instruments were created that reproduced a particular melody at the right moment: organs, music boxes, boxes, snuff boxes.

The musical organ works as follows. Sounds are created using thin steel plates of varying lengths and thicknesses placed in an acoustic box. To extract sound, a special drum with protruding pins is used, the location of which on the surface of the drum corresponds to the intended melody. When the drum rotates evenly, the pins touch the plates in a given sequence. By moving the pins to other places in advance, you can change the melodies. The organ grinder himself operates the organ grinder by rotating the handle.

Music boxes use a metal disc with a deep spiral groove to pre-record the melody. In certain places of the groove, pinpoint depressions are made - pits, the location of which corresponds to the melody. When the disk rotates, driven by a clock spring mechanism, a special metal needle slides along the groove and “reads” the sequence of dots. The needle is attached to a membrane, which produces a sound each time the needle enters a groove.

In the Middle Ages, chimes were created - tower or large room clocks with a musical mechanism that chime in a certain melodic sequence of tones or perform small musical pieces. Such are the Kremlin chimes and Big Ben in London.

Mechanical musical instruments are just automata that reproduce artificially created sounds. The problem of preserving the sounds of living life for a long time was solved much later.

Many centuries before the invention mechanical recording music writing appeared - a graphic way of depicting on paper musical works(Fig. 1). In ancient times, melodies were written in letters, and modern musical notation (with the designation of pitches, durations of tones, tonality and musical lines) began to develop in the 12th century. At the end of the 15th century, music printing was invented, when notes began to be printed from type, like books.

Rice. 1. Musical writing

It was possible to record and then play back recorded sounds only in the second half of the 19th century after the invention of mechanical sound recording.

Mechanical sound recording

In 1877, the American scientist Thomas Alva Edison invented a sound recording device - the phonograph, which for the first time made it possible to record the sound of the human voice. For mechanical recording and playback of sound, Edison used rollers covered with tin foil (Fig. 2). Such foils were hollow cylinders with a diameter of about 5 cm and a length of 12 cm.

Edison Thomas Alva (1847-1931), American inventor and entrepreneur.

Author of more than 1000 inventions in the field of electrical engineering and communications. He invented the world's first sound recording device - the phonograph, improved the incandescent lamp, telegraph and telephone, built the world's first public power station in 1882, and in 1883 discovered the phenomenon of thermionic emission, which subsequently led to the creation of electronic or radio tubes.

During the first test of his apparatus, Edison pulled the foil tightly onto the cylinder, brought the needle to the surface of the cylinder, carefully began to rotate the handle and sang the first stanza of the children's song "Mary Had a Little Lamb" into a megaphone. Then he retracted the needle, returned the cylinder to its original position with the handle, inserted the needle into the drawn groove and began to rotate the cylinder again. And from the megaphone a children's song sounded quietly but clearly.

To record and reproduce sound, Edison used the same device - the phonograph.

Rice. 2. Edison's phonograph

Rice. 3. T.A. Edison with his phonograph

The main disadvantages of wax rollers are their fragility and the impossibility of mass replication. Each entry existed in only one copy.

The phonograph existed in almost unchanged form for several decades. It ceased production as a device for recording musical works at the end of the first decade of the 20th century, but was used as a voice recorder for almost 15 years. Rollers for it were produced until 1929.

Ten years later, in 1887, the inventor of the gramophone, E. Berliner, replaced the rollers with disks, from which copies can be made - metal matrices. With their help, the familiar gramophone records were pressed (Fig. 4 a.). One matrix made it possible to print an entire edition - at least 500 records. This was the main advantage of Berliner's records compared to Edison's wax rollers, which could not be replicated. Unlike Edison's phonograph, Berliner developed one device for recording sound - a recorder, and another for reproducing sound - a gramophone.

Instead of deep recording, transverse recording was used, i.e. the needle left a sinuous trail of constant depth. Subsequently, the membrane was replaced by highly sensitive microphones that convert sound vibrations into electrical vibrations, and electronic amplifiers.

Rice. 4(a). Gramophone and record

Rice. 4(b). American inventor Emil Berliner

Berliner Emil (1851-1929) - American inventor of German origin. Immigrated to the USA in 1870. In 1877, after Alexander Bell invented the telephone, he made several inventions in the field of telephony, and then turned his attention to the problems of sound recording. He replaced the wax roller used by Edison with a flat disk - the gramophone record - and developed the technology for its mass production. Edison responded to Berliner’s invention as follows: “This machine has no future,” and until the end of his life he remained an implacable opponent of the disk sound carrier.

Berliner first demonstrated a prototype of the phonograph record matrix at the Franklin Institute. It was a zinc circle with an engraved soundtrack. The inventor coated a zinc disk with wax paste, recorded sound on it in the form of sound grooves, and then etched it with acid. The result was a metal copy of the recording. Later, a layer of copper began to be built up on the wax-coated disk using the electroplating method. This copper "mold" keeps the sound grooves convex. Copies are made from this galvanic disk - positive and negative. Negative copies are matrices from which up to 600 records can be printed. The record obtained in this way had greater volume and better quality. Berliner demonstrated such records in 1888, and this year can be considered the beginning of the era of recordings.

Five years later, a method of galvanic replication from the positive of a zinc disk was developed, as well as a technology for pressing gramophone records using a steel printing matrix. Initially, Berliner made records from celluloid, rubber, and ebonite. Soon, ebonite was replaced by a composite mass based on shellac, a wax-like substance produced by tropical insects. The records became better and cheaper, but their main drawback was their low mechanical strength. Shellac records were produced until the middle of the 20th century, in last years- in parallel with long-playing ones.

Until 1896, the disc had to be rotated manually, and this was the main obstacle to the widespread use of gramophones. Emil Berliner announced a competition for a spring motor - inexpensive, technologically advanced, reliable and powerful. And such an engine was designed by mechanic Eldridge Johnson, who came to Berliner’s company. From 1896 to 1900 About 25,000 of these engines were produced. Only then did Berliner's gramophone become widespread.

Rice. 5. Gramophone

The gramophone (from the name of the French company "Pathe") had the shape of a portable suitcase. The main disadvantages of gramophone records were their fragility, poor sound quality and short playing time - only 3-5 minutes (at a speed of 78 rpm). In the pre-war years, stores even accepted “broken” records for recycling. The gramophone needles had to be changed frequently. The plate rotated using a spring motor, which had to be “started” with a special handle. However, due to its modest size and weight, simplicity of design and independence from the electrical network, the gramophone has become very widespread among lovers of classical, pop and dance music. Until the middle of our century, it was an indispensable accessory for home parties and country trips. The records were produced in three standard sizes: minion, grand and giant.

The gramophone was replaced by an electrophone, better known as a record player (Fig. 7). Instead of a spring motor, it uses an electric motor to rotate the record, and instead of a mechanical pickup, first a piezoelectric one was used, and later a better one - a magnetic one.

Rice. 6. Gramophone with electromagnetic adapter

Rice. 7. Player

These pickups convert the vibrations of a stylus running along the sound track of a record into an electrical signal, which, after amplification in an electronic amplifier, is sent to a loudspeaker. And in 1948-1952, fragile gramophone records were replaced by so-called “long play” records - more durable, practically unbreakable, and most importantly, providing much longer playing time. This was achieved by narrowing and bringing the sound tracks closer together, as well as by reducing the number of revolutions from 78 to 45, and more often to 33 1/3 revolutions per minute. The quality of sound reproduction during playback of such records has improved significantly. In addition, since 1958, stereophonic records began to be produced, creating a surround sound effect. The turntable's needles are also significantly more durable. They began to be made from solid materials, and they completely replaced the short-lived gramophone needles. The recording of gramophone records was carried out only in special recording studios. In the 1940-1950s in Moscow on Gorky Street there was a studio where for a small fee you could record a small record with a diameter of 15 centimeters - a sound “hello” to your family or friends. In those same years, clandestine recording of records was carried out using homemade recording devices. jazz music and thieves' songs, which were persecuted in those years. The material for them was spent X-ray film. These plates were called “on the ribs” because bones were visible on them when held up to light. The sound quality on them was terrible, but in the absence of other sources they were extremely popular, especially among young people.

Magnetic sound recording

In 1898, Danish engineer Woldemar Paulsen (1869-1942) invented an apparatus for magnetically recording sound on steel wire. He called it "telegraph". However, the disadvantage of using wire as a carrier was the problem of connecting individual pieces of it. It was impossible to tie them with a knot, since it did not pass through the magnetic head. In addition, steel wire gets tangled easily, and thin steel tape cuts your hands. In general, it was not suitable for use.

Subsequently, Paulsen invented a method of magnetic recording on a rotating steel disk, where information was recorded in a spiral by a moving magnetic head. Here it is, the prototype of the floppy disk and hard drive (hard drive), which are so widely used in modern computers! In addition, Paulsen proposed and even implemented the first answering machine using his telegraph.

Rice. 8. Waldemar Paulsen

In 1927, F. Pfleimer developed a technology for producing magnetic tape on a non-magnetic basis. Based on this development, in 1935 the German electrical engineering company AEG and the chemical company IG Farbenindustri demonstrated at the German Radio Exhibition a magnetic tape on a plastic base coated with iron powder. Mastered in industrial production, it cost 5 times less than steel, was much lighter, and most importantly, made it possible to connect the pieces by simple gluing. To use the new magnetic tape, a new sound recording device was developed, which received the brand name "Magnetofon". It became the general name for such devices.

In 1941, German engineers Braunmuell and Weber created a ring magnetic head in combination with ultrasonic bias to record sound. This made it possible to significantly reduce noise and obtain recordings of significantly higher quality than mechanical and optical (developed by that time for sound films).

Magnetic tape is suitable for repeated sound recording. The number of such records is practically unlimited. It is determined only by the mechanical strength of the new information carrier - magnetic tape.

Thus, the owner of a tape recorder, in comparison with a gramophone, not only got the opportunity to reproduce sound recorded once and for all on a gramophone record, but could now record sound himself on magnetic tape, not in a recording studio, but at home or in concert hall. It was this remarkable property of magnetic sound recording that ensured the widespread dissemination of songs by Bulat Okudzhava, Vladimir Vysotsky and Alexander Galich during the years of the communist dictatorship. It was enough for one amateur to record these songs at their concerts in some club, and this recording spread with lightning speed among many thousands of fans. After all, with the help of two tape recorders you can copy a recording from one magnetic tape to another.

Vladimir Vysotsky recalled that when he first arrived in Tolyatti and walked along its streets, he heard his hoarse voice from the windows of many houses.

The first tape recorders were reel-to-reel tape recorders - in them the magnetic film was wound on reels (Fig. 9). During recording and playback, the film was rewound from a full reel to an empty one. Before starting recording or playback, it was necessary to “load” the tape, i.e. Pull the free end of the film past the magnetic heads and secure it onto the empty reel.

Rice. 9. Reel-to-reel tape recorder with magnetic tape on reels

After the end of World War II, starting in 1945, magnetic recording became widespread throughout the world. On American radio, magnetic recording was first used in 1947 to broadcast a concert. popular singer Bing Crosby. In this case, parts of a captured German device were used, which was brought to the USA by an enterprising American soldier demobilized from occupied Germany. Bing Crosby then invested in the production of tape recorders. In 1950, 25 models of tape recorders were already sold in the United States.

The first two-track tape recorder was released by the German company AEG in 1957, and in 1959 this company released the first four-track tape recorder.

At first, tape recorders were tube-based, and only in 1956 the Japanese company Sony created the first all-transistor tape recorder.

Later, reel-to-reel tape recorders were replaced by cassette tape recorders. The first such device was developed by Philips in 1961-1963. In it, both miniature reels - with magnetic film and empty - are placed in a special compact cassette and the end of the film is pre-fixed to the empty reel (Fig. 10). Thus, the process of charging the tape recorder with film is significantly simplified. The first compact cassettes were released by Philips in 1963. And even later, two-cassette tape recorders appeared, in which the process of dubbing from one cassette to another was simplified as much as possible. Recording on compact cassettes is two-sided. They are released for recording times of 60, 90 and 120 minutes (on both sides).

Rice. 10. Cassette tape recorder and compact cassette

Based on a standard compact cassette, Sony developed a portable player the size of a postcard (Fig. 11). You can put it in your pocket or attach it to your belt and listen to it while walking or on the subway. It was called Walkman, i.e. “a walking man”, relatively cheap, was in great demand on the market and for some time was a favorite “toy” of young people.

Rice. 11. Cassette player

The compact cassette took root not only on the street, but also in cars for which the car radio was produced. It is a combination of a radio and a cassette recorder.

In addition to the compact cassette, a microcassette (Fig. 12) the size of a matchbox was created for portable voice recorders and telephones with answering machines.

A dictaphone (from the Latin dicto - I say, I dictate) is a type of tape recorder for recording speech for the purpose, for example, of subsequent printing of its text.

Rice. 12. Microcassette

All mechanical cassette voice recorders contain more than 100 parts, some of which are movable. The recording head and electrical contacts wear out over several years. The hinged lid also breaks easily. Cassette recorders use an electric motor to pull magnetic tape past recording heads.

Digital voice recorders differ from mechanical voice recorders in the complete absence of moving parts. They use solid-state flash memory as a storage medium instead of magnetic film.

Digital voice recorders convert sound signal(for example, voice) into a digital code and write it into a memory chip. The operation of such a voice recorder is controlled by a microprocessor. The absence of a tape mechanism, recording and erasing heads greatly simplifies the design of digital voice recorders and makes it more reliable. For ease of use, they are equipped with a liquid crystal display. The main advantages of digital voice recorders are the almost instantaneous search for the desired recording and the ability to transfer the recording to a personal computer, in which you can not only store these recordings, but also edit them, re-record them without the help of a second voice recorder, etc.

Optical discs (optical recording)

As a result of recording, a spiral track is formed on the disk, consisting of depressions and smooth areas. In playback mode, a laser beam focused on a track moves across the surface of a rotating optical disk and reads the recorded information. In this case, depressions are read as zeros, and areas that evenly reflect light are read as ones. The digital recording method ensures almost complete absence of interference and high sound quality. High recording density is achieved due to the ability to focus the laser beam into a spot smaller than 1 micron. This provides long recording and playback times.

Rice. 13. Optical CD

At the end of 1999, Sony announced the creation of a new media, Super Audio CD (SACD). In this case, the technology of the so-called “direct digital stream” DSD (Direct Stream Digital) is used. The 0 to 100 kHz frequency response and 2.8224 MHz sampling rate provide a significant improvement in sound quality compared to conventional CDs. Thanks to much higher sampling rates, unnecessary filters during recording and playback, since the human ear perceives this step signal as a “smooth” analogue signal. At the same time, compatibility with the existing CD format is ensured. New single-layer HD discs, dual-layer HD discs, and hybrid dual-layer HD discs and CDs are being released.

Storing audio recordings in digital form on optical discs is much better than storing audio recordings in analog form on gramophone records or cassette tapes. First of all, the durability of recordings increases disproportionately. After all, optical discs are practically eternal - they are not afraid of small scratches, and a laser beam does not damage them when playing recordings. Thus, Sony provides a 50-year warranty on data storage on disks. In addition, CDs are not affected by the interference typical of mechanical and magnetic recording, so the sound quality of digital optical discs is incomparably better. In addition, with digital recording, there is the possibility of computer sound processing, which allows, for example, to restore the original sound of old mono recordings, remove noise and distortion from them, and even turn them into stereo.

To play CDs, you can use players (the so-called CD players), stereos, and even laptop computers equipped with a special drive (the so-called CD-ROM drive) and sound speakers. To date, there are more than 600 million CD players and more than 10 billion CDs in the hands of users around the world! Portable portable CD players, like magnetic compact cassette players, are equipped with headphones (Fig. 14).

Rice. 14. CD player

Rice. 15. Radio with CD player and digital tuner

Rice. 16. Music center

Music CDs are recorded at the factory. Like gramophone records, they can only be listened to. However, in recent years, optical CDs have been developed for one-time (so-called CD-R) and multiple-time (so-called CD-RW) recording on a personal computer equipped with a special disk drive. This makes it possible to make recordings on them in amateur conditions. You can record on CD-R discs only once, but on CD-RW - many times: like on a tape recorder, you can erase the previous recording and make a new one in its place.

The digital recording method made it possible to combine text and graphics with sound and moving images on the personal computer. This technology is called "multimedia".

Optical CD-ROMs (Compact Disk Read Only Memory - i.e. read-only memory on a CD) are used as storage media in such multimedia computers. Outwardly, they do not differ from audio CDs used in players and music centers. The information in them is also recorded in digital form.

The existing CDs are being replaced by a new media standard - DVD (Digital Versatil Disc or general purpose digital disk). They look no different from CDs. Their geometric dimensions are the same. The main difference between a DVD disc is its much higher recording density. It holds 7-26 times more information. This is achieved thanks to a shorter laser wavelength and a smaller spot size of the focused beam, which made it possible to halve the distance between tracks. Additionally, DVDs may have one or two layers of information. These can be accessed by adjusting the position of the laser head. On a DVD, each layer of information is twice as thin as on a CD. Therefore, it is possible to connect two disks with a thickness of 0.6 mm into one with a standard thickness of 1.2 mm. In this case, the capacity doubles. In total, the DVD standard provides 4 modifications: single-sided, single-layer 4.7 GB (133 minutes), single-sided, double-layer 8.8 GB (241 minutes), double-sided, single-layer 9.4 GB (266 minutes) and double-sided, dual-layer 17 GB (482 minutes). The minutes shown in parentheses are the playing time of high quality digital video programs with digital multilingual surround sound. The new DVD standard is defined in such a way that future reader models will be designed to be able to play all previous generations of CDs, i.e. in compliance with the principle of "backwards compatibility". The DVD standard allows for significantly longer playback times and improved quality of video movies compared to existing CD-ROMs and LD Video CDs.

The DVD-ROM and DVD-Video formats appeared in 1996, and later the DVD-audio format was developed for recording high-quality audio.

DVD drives are slightly improved versions of CD-ROM drives.

CD and DVD optical discs became the first digital media and storage devices for recording and reproducing sound and images.

History of Flash Memory

The history of flash memory cards is connected with the history of mobile digital devices that can be carried with you in a bag, in the breast pocket of a jacket or shirt, or even as a keychain around your neck.

These are miniature MP3 players, digital voice recorders, photo and video cameras, smartphones and pocket personal computers - PDAs, modern cell phone models. Small in size, these devices needed to expand the built-in memory capacity to write and read information.

Such memory should be universal and used to record any type of information in digital form: sound, text, images - drawings, photographs, video information.

The first company to manufacture flash memory and put it on the market was Intel. In 1988, 256 kbit flash memory was demonstrated that was the size of a shoebox. It was built according to the logical scheme NOR (in Russian transcription - NOT-OR).

NOR flash memory has relatively slow write and erase speeds, and the number of write cycles is relatively low (about 100,000). Such flash memory can be used when almost permanent storage of data with very infrequent overwriting is required, for example, to store the operating system of digital cameras and mobile phones.

Intel NOR Flash Memory

The second type of flash memory was invented in 1989 by Toshiba. It is built according to the NAND logic circuit (in Russian transcription Ne-I). The new memory was supposed to be a less expensive and faster alternative to NOR flash. Compared with NOR, NAND technology provided ten times larger number write cycles, as well as higher speeds for both writing and erasing data. And NAND memory cells are half the size of NOR memory, which leads to the fact that a certain area The crystal can accommodate more memory cells.

The name "flash" was introduced by Toshiba because it is possible to instantly erase the contents of memory ("in a flash"). Unlike magnetic, optical and magneto-optical memory, it does not require the use of disk drives using complex precision mechanics and does not contain any moving parts at all. This is its main advantage over all other information carriers and therefore the future lies with it. But the most important advantage of such memory, of course, is storing data without supplying energy, i.e. energy independence.

Flash memory is a chip on a silicon chip. It is built on the principle of maintaining an electrical charge in the memory cells of a transistor for a long time using the so-called “floating gate” in the absence of electrical power. Its full name is Flash Erase EEPROM (Electronically Erasable Programmable ROM). Its elementary cell, in which one bit of information is stored, is not an electrical capacitor, but a field-effect transistor with a specially electrically isolated region - a “floating gate”. An electrical charge placed in this area can be maintained for an indefinitely long time. When one bit of information is written, the unit cell is charged by placing an electrical charge on the floating gate. When erased, this charge is removed from the gate and the cell discharges. Flash memory is non-volatile memory that allows you to save information in the absence of electrical power. It does not consume energy when storing information.

The four most well-known flash memory formats are CompactFlash, MultiMediaCard (MMC), SecureDigital and Memory Stick.

CompactFlash appeared in 1994. It was released by SanDisk. Its dimensions were 43x36x3.3 mm, and the capacity was 16 MB of flash memory. In 2006, the release of 16 GB CompactFlash cards was announced.

MultiMediaCard appeared in 1997. It was developed by Siemens AG and Transcend. Compared to CompactFlash, MMC cards had smaller dimensions - 24x32x1.5 mm. They were used in mobile phones (especially in models with a built-in MP3 player). In 2004, the RS-MMC standard (i.e. “Reduced size MMC”) appeared. RS-MMC cards had a size of 24x18x1.5 mm and could be used with an adapter where old MMC cards had previously been used. .

There are MMCmicro card standards (dimensions only 12x14x1.1 mm) and MMC+, characterized by increased information transfer speed. Currently, MMC cards with a capacity of 2 GB have been released.

Matsushita Electric Co, SanDick Co and Toshiba Co have developed SD - Secure Digital Memory Cards. The association with these companies includes such giants as Intel and IBM. This SD memory is produced by Panasonic, part of the Matsushita concern.

Like the two standards described above, SecureDigital (SD) is open. It was created based on the MultiMediaCard standard, adopting the electrical and mechanical components from the MMC. There is a difference in the number of contacts: MultiMediaCard had 7, and SecureDigital now has 9. However, the similarity of the two standards allows you to use MMC cards instead of SD (but not vice versa, since SD cards have a different thickness - 32x24x2.1 mm).

Along with the SD standard, miniSD and microSD appeared. Cards of this format can be installed both in the miniSD standard slot and in the SD standard slot, however, using a special adapter that allows you to use the mini-card in the same way as a regular SD card. The dimensions of the miniSD card are 20x21.5x1.4 mm.

miniSD cards

microSD cards are on this moment one of the smallest flash cards - their dimensions are 11x15x1 mm. The main areas of application of these cards are multimedia mobile phones and communicators. Through an adapter, microSD cards can be used in devices with slots for miniSD and SecureDigital flash media.

microSD card

The capacity of SD flash cards has increased to 8 GB or more.

Memory Stick is a typical example of a closed standard developed by Sony in 1998. The developer of a closed standard takes care of promoting it and ensuring compatibility with portable devices. This means a significant narrowing in the distribution of the standard and its further development, since Memory Stick slots (that is, places for installation) are only available in products under the Sony and Sony Ericsson brands.

In addition to Memory Stick cards, the family includes Memory Stick PRO, Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick PRO Duo, Memory Stick PRO-HG and Memory Stick Micro (M2).

The dimensions of the Memory Stick are 50x21.5x2.8 mm, weight - 4 grams, and the memory capacity - technologically could not exceed 128 MB. The appearance of Memory Stick PRO in 2003 was dictated by Sony's desire to give users more memory (the theoretical maximum for cards of this type is 32 GB).

Memory Stick Duo cards are distinguished by their reduced size (20x31x1.6 mm) and weight (2 grams); They are focused on the PDA and mobile phone market. The version with increased capacity is called Memory Stick PRO Duo - a card with a capacity of 8 GB was announced in January 2007.

Memory Stick Micro (size - 15x12.5x1.2 mm) are intended for modern models mobile phones. The memory size can reach (theoretically) 32 GB, and the maximum data transfer speed is 16 MB/s. M2 cards can be connected to devices that support Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick PRO Duo and SecureDigital using a special adapter. There are already models with 2 GB of memory.

xD-Picture Card is another representative of a closed standard. Introduced in 2002. Actively supported and promoted by Fuji and Olympus, whose digital cameras use the xD-Picture Card. xD stands for extreme digital. The capacity of cards of this standard has already reached 2 GB. xD-Picture Cards do not have a built-in controller, unlike most other standards. This has a positive effect on the size (20 x 25 x 1.78 mm), but gives a low data transfer speed. In the future, it is planned to increase the capacity of this media to 8 GB. Such a significant increase in the capacity of a miniature media became possible thanks to the use of multilayer technology.

In today's highly competitive market for replacement flash memory cards, new media must be compatible with existing equipment that supports other flash memory formats. Therefore, simultaneously with flash memory cards, the release of adapters and external reading devices, so-called card readers, connected to the USB input of a personal computer. Available individually (for certain type flash memory cards, as well as universal card readers for 3,4,5 and even 8 various types flash memory cards). They are a USB drive - a miniature box that has slots for one or several types of cards at once, and a connector for connecting to the USB input of a personal computer.

Universal card reader for reading several types of flash cards

Sony has released a USB drive with a built-in fingerprint scanner to protect against unauthorized access.

Along with flash cards, flash drives, so-called “flash drives,” are also produced. They are equipped with a standard USB connector and can be directly connected to the USB input of a computer or laptop.

Flash drive with USB-2 connector

Their capacity reaches 1, 2, 4, 8, 10 or more gigabytes, and the price has recently dropped sharply. They have almost completely replaced standard floppy disks, which require a disk drive with rotating parts and have a capacity of only 1.44 MB.

Digital photo frames, which are digital photo albums, are created on the basis of flash cards. They are equipped with a liquid crystal display and allow you to view digital photographs, for example, in slide movie mode, in which photographs replace each other at certain intervals, as well as enlarge photographs and examine their individual details. They are equipped with remote controls and speakers that allow you to listen to music and voice explanations of photos. With a memory capacity of 64 MB, they can store 500 photos.

History of MP3 players

The impetus for the emergence of MP3 players was the development of an audio compression format in the mid-80s at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany. In 1989, Fraunhofer received a patent for the MP3 compression format in Germany and a few years later it was introduced by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). MPEG (Moving Pictures Experts Group) is the name of an ISO expert group that works to create standards for encoding and compressing video and audio data. Standards prepared by the committee are given the same name. MP3 received the official name MPEG-1 Layer3. This format made it possible to store audio information compressed tens of times, without noticeable loss of playback quality.

The second most important impetus for the advent of MP3 players was the development of portable flash memory. The Fraunhofer Institute also developed the first MP3 player in the early 90s. Then a player from Eiger Labs MPMan F10 and a player Rio PMP300 from Diamond Multimedia appeared. All early players used built-in flash memory (32 or 64 MB) and were connected via a parallel port rather than USB.

MP3 became the first widely accepted audio storage format after CD-Audio. MP3 players were also developed based on hard drives, including the miniature IBM MicroDrive hard drive. One of the pioneers in the use of hard drives (HDD) was Apple. In 2001, it released the first MP3 player, the iPod, with a 5 GB hard drive that could store about 1,000 songs.

It provided 12 hours of battery life thanks to its lithium polymer battery. The dimensions of the first iPod were 100x62x18 mm, weight was 184 grams. The first iPod was only available to Macintosh users. the next version of the iPod, which appeared six months after the release of the first, already included two options - iPod for Windows and iPod for Mac OS. The new iPods received a touch-sensitive scroll wheel instead of a mechanical one and became available in 5GB, 10GB and a little later 20GB versions.

Several generations of iPods have changed, in each of them the characteristics gradually improved, for example, the screen became color, but the hard drive was still used.

Later, flash memory began to be used for MP3 players. They have become smaller, more reliable, durable and cheaper, and have taken the form of miniature keychains that can be worn around the neck, in the breast pocket of a shirt, or in a handbag. Many models of cell phones, smartphones, and PDAs began to perform the function of an MP3 player.

Apple Company introduced a new MP3 player iPod Nano. It replaces the hard drive with flash memory.

It allowed:

Make the player much more compact - flash memory is smaller in size than a hard drive;
- Reduce the risk of failures and breakdowns by completely eliminating moving parts in the player mechanism;
- Save on battery life, because flash memory consumes significantly less electricity than a hard drive;
- Increase the speed of information transfer.

The player has become much lighter (42 grams instead of 102) and more compact (8.89 x 4.06 x 0.69 versus 9.1 x 5.1 x 1.3 cm), a color display has appeared that allows you to view photos and show an image of the album during playback. Memory capacity is 2 GB, 4 GB, 8 GB.

At the end of 2007, Apple introduced a new line of iPod players:

iPod nano, iPod classic, iPod touch.
- iPod nano with flash memory can now play video on a 2-inch display with a resolution of 320x204 mm.
- iPod classic with a hard drive has a memory capacity of 80 or 160 GB, allowing you to listen to music for 40 hours and show movies for 7 hours.
- iPod touch with a 3.5-inch widescreen touch screen allows you to control the player with finger movements (English touch) and watch movies and TV shows. With this player you can go online and download music and videos. For this purpose, it has a built-in Wi-Fi module.

Permanent address of the article: About the history of sound recording. History of recording

Today, the main sound recording methods include:
- mechanical
- magnetic
- optical and magneto-optical sound recording
- recording to solid-state semiconductor flash memory

During the Renaissance, a number of different mechanical musical instruments were created that reproduced a particular melody at the right moment: organs, music boxes, boxes, snuff boxes.

Mechanical musical instruments are just automata that reproduce artificially created sounds. The problem of preserving the sounds of living life for a long time was solved much later.

Many centuries before the invention of mechanical sound recording, musical notation appeared - a graphic way of depicting musical works on paper (Fig. 1). In ancient times, melodies were written in letters, and modern musical notation (with the designation of pitches, durations of tones, tonality and musical lines) began to develop in the 12th century. At the end of the 15th century, music printing was invented, when notes began to be printed from type, like books.

Rice. 1. Musical writing

It was possible to record and then play back recorded sounds only in the second half of the 19th century after the invention of mechanical sound recording.

Mechanical sound recording

Edison Thomas Alva (1847-1931), American inventor and entrepreneur.

During the first test of his apparatus, Edison pulled the foil tightly onto the cylinder, brought the needle to the surface of the cylinder, carefully began to rotate the handle and sang the first stanza of the children's song "Mary Had a Little Lamb" into a megaphone. Then he retracted the needle, returned the cylinder to its original position with the handle, inserted the needle into the drawn groove and began to rotate the cylinder again. And from the megaphone a children's song sounded quietly but clearly.

To record and reproduce sound, Edison used the same device - the phonograph.

Rice. 2. Edison's phonograph

Rice. 3. T.A. Edison with his phonograph

The main disadvantages of wax rollers are their fragility and the impossibility of mass replication. Each entry existed in only one copy.

Rice. 4(a). Gramophone and record

Rice. 4(b). American inventor Emil Berliner

Rice. 5. Gramophone

Rice. 6. Gramophone with electromagnetic adapter

Rice. 7. Player

These pickups convert the vibrations of a stylus running along the sound track of a record into an electrical signal, which, after amplification in an electronic amplifier, is sent to a loudspeaker. And in 1948-1952, fragile gramophone records were replaced by so-called “long play” records - more durable, practically unbreakable, and most importantly, providing much longer playing time. This was achieved by narrowing and bringing the sound tracks closer together, as well as by reducing the number of revolutions from 78 to 45, and more often to 33 1/3 revolutions per minute. The quality of sound reproduction during playback of such records has improved significantly. In addition, since 1958, stereophonic records began to be produced, creating a surround sound effect. The turntable's needles are also significantly more durable. They began to be made from solid materials, and they completely replaced the short-lived gramophone needles. The recording of gramophone records was carried out only in special recording studios. In the 1940-1950s in Moscow on Gorky Street there was a studio where for a small fee you could record a small record with a diameter of 15 centimeters - a sound “hello” to your family or friends. In those same years, clandestine recordings of records of jazz music and thieves' songs, which were persecuted in those years, were carried out using homemade recording devices. The material for them was spent X-ray film. These plates were called “on the ribs” because bones were visible on them when held up to light. The sound quality on them was terrible, but in the absence of other sources they were extremely popular, especially among young people.

Magnetic sound recording

Rice. 8. Waldemar Paulsen

Thus, the owner of a tape recorder, in comparison with a gramophone, not only got the opportunity to reproduce sound recorded once and for all on a gramophone record, but could now record sound himself on magnetic tape, not in a recording studio, but at home or in a concert. hall It was this remarkable property of magnetic sound recording that ensured the widespread dissemination of songs by Bulat Okudzhava, Vladimir Vysotsky and Alexander Galich during the years of the communist dictatorship. It was enough for one amateur to record these songs at their concerts in some club, and this recording spread with lightning speed among many thousands of fans. After all, with the help of two tape recorders you can copy a recording from one magnetic tape to another.

Vladimir Vysotsky recalled that when he first arrived in Tolyatti and walked along its streets, he heard his hoarse voice from the windows of many houses.

Rice. 9. Reel-to-reel tape recorder with magnetic tape on reels

After the end of World War II, starting in 1945, magnetic recording became widespread throughout the world. On American radio, magnetic recording was first used in 1947 to broadcast a concert by the popular singer Bing Crosby. In this case, parts of a captured German device were used, which was brought to the USA by an enterprising American soldier demobilized from occupied Germany. Bing Crosby then invested in the production of tape recorders. In 1950, 25 models of tape recorders were already sold in the United States.

The first two-track tape recorder was released by the German company AEG in 1957, and in 1959 this company released the first four-track tape recorder.

At first, tape recorders were tube-based, and only in 1956 the Japanese company Sony created the first all-transistor tape recorder.

Rice. 10. Cassette tape recorder and compact cassette

Rice. 11. Cassette player

The compact cassette took root not only on the street, but also in cars for which the car radio was produced. It is a combination of a radio and a cassette recorder.

In addition to the compact cassette, a microcassette (Fig. 12) the size of a matchbox was created for portable voice recorders and telephones with answering machines.

A dictaphone (from the Latin dicto - I say, I dictate) is a type of tape recorder for recording speech for the purpose, for example, of subsequent printing of its text.

Rice. 12. Microcassette

Digital voice recorders differ from mechanical voice recorders in the complete absence of moving parts. They use solid-state flash memory as a storage medium instead of magnetic film.

Digital voice recorders convert an audio signal (for example, voice) into a digital code and record it into a memory chip. The operation of such a voice recorder is controlled by a microprocessor. The absence of a tape mechanism, recording and erasing heads greatly simplifies the design of digital voice recorders and makes it more reliable. For ease of use, they are equipped with a liquid crystal display. The main advantages of digital voice recorders are the almost instantaneous search for the desired recording and the ability to transfer the recording to a personal computer, in which you can not only store these recordings, but also edit them, re-record them without the help of a second voice recorder, etc.

Optical discs (optical recording)

As a result of recording, a spiral track is formed on the disk, consisting of depressions and smooth areas. In playback mode, a laser beam focused on a track moves across the surface of a rotating optical disk and reads the recorded information. In this case, depressions are read as zeros, and areas that evenly reflect light are read as ones. The digital recording method ensures almost complete absence of interference and high sound quality. High recording density is achieved due to the ability to focus the laser beam into a spot smaller than 1 micron. This provides long recording and playback times.

Rice. 13. Optical CD

At the end of 1999, Sony announced the creation of a new media, Super Audio CD (SACD). In this case, the technology of the so-called “direct digital stream” DSD (Direct Stream Digital) is used. The 0 to 100 kHz frequency response and 2.8224 MHz sampling rate provide a significant improvement in sound quality compared to conventional CDs. Thanks to the much higher sampling rate, filters are unnecessary during recording and playback, since the human ear perceives this step signal as a “smooth” analogue signal. At the same time, compatibility with the existing CD format is ensured. New single-layer HD discs, dual-layer HD discs, and hybrid dual-layer HD discs and CDs are being released.

Rice. 14. CD player

Rice. 15. Radio with CD player and digital tuner

Rice. 16. Music center

The digital recording method made it possible to combine text and graphics with sound and moving images on the personal computer. This technology is called "multimedia".

The DVD-ROM and DVD-Video formats appeared in 1996, and later the DVD-audio format was developed for recording high-quality audio.

DVD drives are slightly improved versions of CD-ROM drives.

CD and DVD optical discs became the first digital media and storage devices for recording and reproducing sound and images.

History of Flash Memory

Such memory should be universal and used to record any type of information in digital form: sound, text, images - drawings, photographs, video information.

Intel NOR Flash Memory

The second type of flash memory was invented in 1989 by Toshiba. It is built according to the NAND logic circuit (in Russian transcription Ne-I). The new memory was supposed to be a less expensive and faster alternative to NOR flash. Compared to NOR, NAND technology provided ten times more write cycles, as well as higher speeds for both writing and erasing data. And NAND memory cells are half the size of NOR memory, which leads to the fact that more memory cells can be placed on a certain chip area.

The four most well-known flash memory formats are CompactFlash, MultiMediaCard (MMC), SecureDigital and Memory Stick.

There are MMCmicro card standards (dimensions only 12x14x1.1 mm) and MMC+, characterized by increased information transfer speed. Currently, MMC cards with a capacity of 2 GB have been released.

miniSD cards

microSD cards are currently one of the smallest flash cards - their dimensions are 11x15x1 mm. The main areas of application of these cards are multimedia mobile phones and communicators. Through an adapter, microSD cards can be used in devices with slots for miniSD and SecureDigital flash media.

microSD card

The capacity of SD flash cards has increased to 8 GB or more.

Memory Stick is a typical example of a closed standard developed by Sony in 1998. The developer of a closed standard takes care of promoting it and ensuring compatibility with portable devices. This means a significant narrowing of the spread of the standard and its further development, since Memory Stick slots (that is, places for installation) are only available in products under the Sony and Sony Ericsson brands.

In addition to Memory Stick cards, the family includes Memory Stick PRO, Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick PRO Duo, Memory Stick PRO-HG and Memory Stick Micro (M2).

Memory Stick Micro (size - 15x12.5x1.2 mm) are designed for modern models of mobile phones. The memory size can reach (theoretically) 32 GB, and the maximum data transfer speed is 16 MB/s. M2 cards can be connected to devices that support Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick PRO Duo and SecureDigital using a special adapter. There are already models with 2 GB of memory.

In today's highly competitive market for replacement flash memory cards, new media must be compatible with existing equipment that supports other flash memory formats. Therefore, simultaneously with flash memory cards, the release of adapters and external reading devices, so-called card readers, connected to the USB input of a personal computer. Individual cards are produced (for a specific type of flash memory card, as well as universal card readers for 3, 4, 5 and even 8 different types of flash memory cards). They are a USB drive - a miniature box that has slots for one or several types of cards at once, and a connector for connecting to the USB input of a personal computer.

Universal card reader for reading several types of flash cards

Sony has released a USB drive with a built-in fingerprint scanner to protect against unauthorized access.

Flash drive with USB-2 connector

History of MP3 players

Several generations of iPods have changed, in each of them the characteristics gradually improved, for example, the screen became color, but the hard drive was still used.

Apple has introduced a new MP3 player, the iPod Nano. It replaces the hard drive with flash memory.

It allowed:

At the end of 2007, Apple introduced a new line of iPod players:

Everyone knows from smart books that in 1877. Have there been any attempts to record sound before? Or did this idea suddenly come to the bright American mind on its own? Edison? Naturally, before Edison, attempts were made to create a device that recorded sound.In the previousthe French book publisher and owner of a bookstore in the heart of Paris has already been mentioned. He studied the art of shorthand and even published quite famous book"The history of shorthand from ancient times to the present day." And precisely from the position shorthand, they were given the task of coming up with a device that could make the work of stenographers easier. Those. in other words, it was necessary to somehow visualize, display the sound on paper, so that it could then be read, and maybe even reproduced in the future!

In the end, such a device - phonautograph– was invented and made by him. The device was a barrel-shaped horn that amplified sound waves. The vibrations were transmitted to the membrane and a needle attached to it scratched sound waves on soot-coated paper wrapped around a rotating cylinder.

A little later, the same principle was also used by Rudolf König, mentioned earlier in articles about and about. But he used the apparatus for his research tasks.

The most important nuance is that there has been no talk of reproducing drawn sound waves yet. But, nevertheless, part of the problem was solved - the sound was recorded!

Thus, phonautograms Scott were made 17 years before Edison patented his phonograph.

Edison knew about the existence of Leon Scott's phonautograph. He developed the idea and successfully commercialized it. In this regard, he truly had no equal. It should be noted here that another French inventor, Charles Cros, himself undertook to “teach” the phonautograph to record and reproduce sound, and even submitted a corresponding project to the Academy of Sciences... Alas, he was never able to attract the funds necessary for the work .

In fact, the term "phonography" has referred to shorthand since the mid-19th century. In addition, a device called Phonograph (Electro-Magnetic Phonograph) was patented by a certain F. Fenby, an inventor from Massachusetts, but he had a very tangential relationship with sound recording - it was about a device for making paper punched tapes. This concept was later implemented in piano rolls - paper tapes for mechanical pianos.

As for Scott, he protested against Edison almost until the end of his days because he “stole” his invention and misinterpreted the purpose of sound recording technology. According to Scott, sound recording was not intended for reproduction, but was intended for “the recording of speech, that is, exactly what is implied in the word phonograph.”

But where are the phonautograms recorded by Scott? And what is written on them?..

In 2008, researchers from the recording history research group First Sounds discovered a well-preserved phonoautogram in the Paris archives. Having scanned it with high resolution, the researchers were able to reproduce the drawn sound using a computer “virtual pen”. On the recording, among the crackling and noise, it was difficult but possible to make out a female voice singing the French folk song "Au clair de la lune".

Listen, this is the FIRST recording of a human voice and, perhaps, the first sound recording of anything.

Yes, of course, this is far from DVD audio, but still please take into account that this sound recording was made in mid-19th centuries!