Beginnings of The Commercial Record Industry
In 1887 Edison Labs turned their attention back to improving the phonograph and the phonograph cylinder. The following year, the Edison company debuted the Perfected Phonograph. Edison introduced wax cylinders 41⁄4 inches (11 cm) long, 21⁄4 inches (5.7 cm) in diameter, playing some 2 minutes of music or entertainment, which became the industry standard. Experimental music records were made around this time. The "brown wax" cylinder made its debut in March/April 1889. "Electric Light Quadrille" by Issler's Orchestra (external link) is an example of an 1889 brown wax cylinder (Superbatone #734--"The Real Sound of Ragtime").
Blank records were an important part of the business early on. Most phonographs had or could be fitted with attachments for the users to make their own recordings. One important early use, in line with the original term for a phonograph as a "talking machine", was in business for recording dictation. Attachments were added to facilitate starting, stopping, and skipping back the recording for dictation and playback by stenographers. The business phonograph eventually evolved into a separate device from the home entertainment phonograph. Edison Record's brand of business phonograph was called The Ediphone; see Phonograph cylinder and Dictaphone. Edison also holds the achievement of being one of the first companies to record the first African-American quartet to record: the Unique Quartet.
Read more about this topic: Edison Records
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