Digital Recording - History

History

  • In 1937, British scientist Alec Reeves files the first patent describing Pulse-code modulation.
  • In 1943, Bell Telephone Laboratories develops the first digital scrambled speech transmission system, SIGSALY.
  • In 1957, Max Mathews of Bell develops the process to digitally record sound via computer.
  • In 1967, the first digital audio magnetic tape recorder is invented. A 12-bit 30 kHz stereo device using a compander (similar to DBX Noise Reduction) to extend the dynamic range.
  • In the 1970s, Thomas Stockham makes the first digital audio recordings using standard computer equipment and develops a digital audio recorder of his own design, the first of its kind to be offered commercially (through Stockham's Soundstream company).
  • In 1970, James Russell patents the first digital-to-optical recording and playback system, which would later lead to the Compact Disc.
  • In 1972, Denon invents the first 8-track reel to reel digital recorder.
  • In 1978, Sound 80 Records of Minneapolis records "Flim and the BB's" (S80-DLR-102) directly to digital before pressing the vinyl LP. The mastering engineer is Bob Berglund. The recording system is a 3M Digital Audio Mastering System.
  • In 1979, the first digital Compact Disc prototype was created as a compromise between sound quality and size of the medium.
  • In 1979, the first digitally recorded album of popular music Bop 'Til You Drop by guitarist Ry Cooder is released by Warner Bros. Records. The album was recorded in Los Angeles on a 32-track digital machine built by the 3M corporation.
  • In 1982, the first digital compact discs are marketed by Sony and Philips, and New England Digital offers the hard disk recorder (Sample-to-Disk) option on the Synclavier, the first commercial hard disk (HDD) recording system. Also that same year, Peter Gabriel releases, Security, which was an early full digital recording.
  • In 1990, digital radio begins in Canada, using the L-Band.
  • In 1991 Alesis Digital Audio Tape or ADAT is a tape format used for simultaneously recording eight tracks of digital audio at once, onto Super VHS magnetic tape - a format similar to that used by consumer VCRs. The product was announced in January 1991 at the NAMM convention in Anaheim, California. The first ADAT recorders shipped over a year later in February or March 1992.
  • In 1996, optical discs and DVD players begin selling in Japan.

Read more about this topic:  Digital Recording

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    “To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
    —Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)

    “These anyway might think it was important
    That human history should not be shortened.”
    —Robert Frost (1874–1963)

    “The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.”
    —Samuel Butler (1835–1902)