How many minutes of music fits on a wax cylinder?
2 minutes
The standard cylinders are about 4 inches (10 cm) long, 21⁄4 inches (5.7 cm) in diameter, and play about 2 minutes (120 s) of music or other sound. Over the years the type of wax used in cylinders was improved and hardened so that cylinders could be played with good quality over 100 times.
What recording sounds wax cylinders?
phonograph
In the late 1870s Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, a machine that could record and reproduce sound. The sounds were recorded on hollow cylinders made from wax and measuring about five cm in diameter and 11 cm in length. Each cylinder could record sound for up to two minutes.
How did Thomas Edison record his voice?
Thomas Edison created many inventions, but his favorite was the phonograph. In 1877, he created a machine with two needles: one for recording and one for playback. When Edison spoke into the mouthpiece, the sound vibrations of his voice would be indented onto the cylinder by the recording needle.
How do wax recordings work?
When a handle is turned, the cylinder rotates and also moves very slowly along. The stylus pushes into the wax and, when the cylinder is rotated, cuts a groove. The stylus also moves up and down very slightly as it vibrates with the sound and so the wax now contains a recording of the sound in the groove.
What did Edison before wax?
He experimented with a diaphragm which had an embossing point and was held against rapidly-moving paraffin paper. The speaking vibrations made indentations in the paper. Edison later changed the paper to a metal cylinder with tin foil wrapped around it.
What is the earliest sound recording?
On April 9, 1860—157 years ago this Sunday—the French inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville created the first sound recording in history. An eerie rendition of the folksong “Au clair de la lune,” the clip was captured by Scott’s trademark invention, the phonautograph, the earliest device known to preserve sound.
When did Edison invent sound recording?
1877
Who Invented Sound Recording? Thomas Edison was catapulted to international fame with his 1877 invention of the phonograph—a machine that recorded and played back anything that it “heard.” But Edison was not the first person to record sound.
When did Edison record sound?
Edison was most fond of the phonograph. As a result of his work on two other inventions, the telegraph and the telephone, Edison happened upon a way to record sound on tinfoil-coated cylinders in 1877.
When did they stop making cylinder records?
Their production ceased in 1912. A process for mass-producing duplicate wax cylinders was put into effect in 1901.