Hugh Holesome Posted May 28, 2013 Report Share Posted May 28, 2013 Near Detroit is a museum that contains much from Thomas Edison, including his actual Menlo Park Laboratory that was shipped here by Henry Ford (along with New Jersey soil for it to sit on, at Edison's request) On a recent shoot there I took my Sound Devices kit to meet it's Great Great Great Grandfather! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisnewton Posted May 28, 2013 Report Share Posted May 28, 2013 must have been very interesting. I'd love to hear one of the old recordings direct from the cylinder. Did you get a chance to listen? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjamin Gandy Posted May 28, 2013 Report Share Posted May 28, 2013 The first voice ever recorded on a phonautograph in 1860. Must've been played back optically, because it was etched onto blackened paper and there was no reproduction method. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Au_Clair_de_la_Lune_(1860).ogg And Bell's voice recorded onto phonograph in 1885, eight years after its invention. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alexander_Graham_Bell%27s_Voice.ogg I wonder what people would say if you turned up on set and unpacked one of these bad boys: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hugh Holesome Posted May 29, 2013 Author Report Share Posted May 29, 2013 @ChrisNewton This machine still records and plays back. In the photo above they were placing aluminum foil over the cylinder which the demonstrator will use to record her shouting (these units are not very sensitive so yelling would help move the element better). This would then be played back through the same horn. Very similar to the photo Gandy Moon provided but a lot shorter horn. I suppose it's pretty difficult to "wow" a crowd holding smartphones anymore but as a soundie I had to appreciate where sound and picture both came from. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Thomas Posted June 2, 2013 Report Share Posted June 2, 2013 The guy recording in Gandy's photo is Aleks Kolkowski, who's building an archive of music recorded on way cylinder: http://www.phonographies.org/about/aleks-kolkowski/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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