Callum Halls

18 February 2016

How has technology changed

musical production?
My chosen special subject is how technology has improved or worsened music
production throughout the past 100 years.
Throughout the 1900s, the use of phonographs were in full swing, having been
invented and manufactured just 13 years prior. A phonograph was a type of machine that
would use a stylus to trace grooves imprinted within at first, a sheet of metal, but as time
advanced the sheet of metal was turned into a disc, also known as a record. The
phonograph was the first piece of technology that was able to recreate music. When
recording music, the positioning of the musicians and their instruments in response to the
location of the phonograph was essential. Vocalists were normally placed in front of the
cone which captured the sound waves. This was to make sure that the vocals were not
drowned out by any of the other instruments. Instruments were then positioned as to their
loudness when played. From there, the sound waves produced by the instruments and vocals
were guided into the phonograph through a cone. From here, the sound waves were
processed onto a piece of foil using a stylus to engrave the metal and a hand crank to turn
the foil. This was the earliest form of sound recording. Through time, improvements were
made to this device which introduced the invention of the record. Also known as a LP, or
long play, a record was made out of polyvinyl chloride. It was the next version of the tin foil
recording.
Due to the invention of the phonograph and the vinyl disc, there was a lot more ability
to playback recorded sounds, which meant that orchestral pieces and bands could be
recorded and played in a listeners home, for example. This changed the technical aspects of
the musical industry significantly due to the fact that people were now able to listen to pieces
of music in their own spaces, rather than having to visit a local theatre to hear
performances.

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Through 1901 to 1906, changes were made to the formats of the vinyl records. More
obviously, their specifications were changed in order to perform to more rigorously and for
longer. This allowed musical pieces to be longer. The phonograph as they knew it was
discontinued and a smaller, more compacted version was created called the Victrola for
people to use more easily in homes. The victrola was very successful and became the
number one product in its category.
Further on to 1916, the first condenser microphone was invented. Although there had
been a previous version which was a carbon microphone, which consisted of an electric
signal passing through two thin plates of metal which were parted by fragments of carbon.
Although this was the first breakthrough in audio recording, the carbon microphone was
soon replaced by the condenser microphone. The vibrations from the sound waves traveling
through the air would hit one of two plates. One plate was fixed, and would not move at all.
The second plate would be the closer of the two to the input, whether this be singing or
instruments. This plate is the one that would move, and the movement of this would be
caused by the vibrations of the sound waves travelling through the air. As time has
advanced, the components required to create a condenser microphone have been made
smaller which means that microphone can be half the size they used to be. All microphones
produced an electrical signal which would be transmitted through wiring to a source,
whether this was a mixing desk or straight into a recording device.
The first synthesiser, or electrical musical instrument, was created in 1876 when an
engineer, called Elisha Gray noticed a sound was created by a repeating electrical magnetic
circuit. He then created a loudspeaker to amplify the noise, which made the first synthesiser.
In 1933, the first FM radio was created. FM radio, also known as Frequency
Modulated radio, was more advanced than AM ( Amplitude Modulated ) radio as it had less
static and didnt need as much power to transmit signals to receivers. The FM radio was
popular and much needed, especially during the second world war when radio was the main
resource for communication.
Vinyl discs started to become less popular when companies Philips and Sony came up
with an idea for a compact disc, more formally known as the common CD. This was the
first project in its nature to incorporate optical and laser technology within one product.
The first testing of this new design of playback was the recording of an orchestral piece.
The use of this new technology outweighed the use of a phonograph due to the new

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flexibility in movement, ease of use as well as space saving features. The new CD was more
compact, and was able to be stored in CD cases which were ten times smaller than a
phonograph and the wooden casing it came with. The earliest portable CD player was the
Sony D-5 Discman. It was a rectangular box that supported a 3.5mm headphone port. It
was battery operated, either 6 C batteries or you could purchase a rechargeable battery
pack, and offered an optional strap for you to holster the device over your shoulder.
Following that, in the year of 1990, both digital audio and the invention of the world
wide web in 1991 created what is now known as the MP3 file, which stands for the Moving
Picture Experts Group 1, Layer 3. It can also sometimes be described as MPEG-1 however
MP3 is usually just audio and MPEG-1 has visuals attached, which is why sometimes the
audio in an MPEG-1 file has less quality than that of a standard MP3 file. Even though the
MP3 file has a high compression, the audio quality still remains to a high level and is able to
be distinctly known to not lose quality when being transferred between two sources.
After the MP3 was invented, the internet became a huge hit with music producers
wanting to stream their music globally across continents and across oceans. It was seen as a
way for producers to be seen and then with the possibility of being signed for a record label.
This became known as online music streaming. The first type of online music streaming
offered low quality streaming however it was still an advance and progress in the medium to
offer world wide communication between artists and record labels.
2003 bought about Apples iTunes, a multi platform technology that allowed you to
purchase music online through an application to download on multiple devices. Through
the way that iDevices work, it meant that many people could enjoy the music without the
need for online piracy or illegal downloads. Before iTunes, the main way of downloading
music on to a device was to illegally retrieve it from websites. Steve Jobs, creator of iTunes,
signed deals with 5 record companies to allow all paying users to listen to the record labels
music, produced by individual artists, which offered a legal, paying way for the public to
listen to music which in turn supported the artists and their labels.
5 years onwards and Spotify was launched. 2008 bought about online streaming, but
to a next level. Users were able to browse through millions of songs and albums of their
choice, with the ability to provide income for the record label and their respective artists by
doing so. Spotify pays out 70% to the record labels and keeps 30% to further improve their
services. Spotify further upped their game by introducing Spotify Premium, a feature that

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allowed users to pay a set price per month to be able to use Spotify without cellular
connection to the internet, whether it was through WiFi or using data. The set amount of
money per month also removed advertisements which spotify uses to gain revenue to pay
record labels. With 95 million users in July 2015, 20 million being paid premium members,
the technology used in Spotify and online streaming progressed beyond its expectancy.
Spotify has attracted many users to upload their own music, which, like iTunes has allowed
musicians world wide to collaborate and get signed by record labels.

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