The Vinyl Countdown

The History of Vinyl



“There is also another invention called the phonograph,” wrote singer Lillie Moulton. “I sung in one through a horn and they transposed this on a platina roll and wound it off. The intonation I could recognise as my own, but the voice - dear me!” Moulton is thought to have sung the first song ever recorded.


In the late 1980s the vinyl record was a doomed format. The advent of the compact disc in the middle of the decade was such a phenomenal success that the record sales were a tiny percentage of the market. This was not surprising, for the format had been around for over a century. While technology had changed around it, the fundamental idea of the record had stayed much the same. And now, after twenty years, the compact disc is being talked about as a defunct technology, yet vinyl has witnessed an amazing feat of survival, adopted by a new generation, charmed like many before them.

Part of that charm is that it is such an arcane technology; you can actually see the sound on the surface, as the needle cuts through the grooves. This argument would cut no ice with an anally retentive stereo-phile, but it is this very physicality that spawned the DJ. The ability to manipulate sound in real time has long been one of the DJ's greatest tools, and ironically it has taken the CDJ years to catch up.

But for those who think the story of vinyl begins and ends with the venerable Technics SL1200 deck, here is a very potted history of the format.

The first effort to record sound came in 1806, when Englishman Thomas Young recorded vibrations from a tuning fork onto a wax covered drum. While this was prescient of future developments, unfortunately Young failed to have the foresight to invent a device to play the vibrations back. So it was left to geniuses such as Frenchmen Leon Scott de Martinville and Charles Cros, and Americans Thomas Edison, Chicester Bell, Charles Tainter and to a lesser extent, some guy called Alexander Graham Bell. Martinville took the lead in 1857, developing the phonoautograph, which translated sound waves onto the sooty surface of a rotating cylinder, by way of a large horn, a diaphragm and a pig's hair. He too neglected the playback half of the equation. Twenty years later Cros solved this problem - on paper only.

The Americans resolved to get this recording business working - but not for music. They had business in mind, dictation machines, message services and the like. Edison and Bell, as pre-eminent inventor types, could see a world of possibilities, and the chase for the holy grail of recording became a somewhat acrimonious pursuit. Bell, inventor of the telephone, and Edison, who would later develop the light bulb, got wrapped up in patent disputes, and when Chicester Bell and Charles Tainter bought their idea to Edison, he co-opted it without giving them credit.

Edison takes credit for inventing the record player. In 1877 he accidentally ran tin foil under a stylus he was experimenting with, and found he could record his voice. He worked five days and nights straight, and soon had a device that could both record and play back sound - the phonograph. In 1885 Chicester Bell and Tainter of Volta Laboratories created the Graphophone, the first to employ vertical-cut grooves, on a wax coated cylinder. Taking this to Edison in the hope of collaborating, they were disappointed when he took their idea and improved upon it by adding an electric motor for more consistent speed.

The next decade saw the format refined in various ways, and tentative steps towards a consumer level product. It was during this period that the entertainment potential of recording was realised, over the mundane applications of business. In 1888 Emile Berliner invented the gramophone, utilising a 7-inch disc, with two minutes recording time at 30rpm. From a zinc master engraved with acid, it was possible to press many rubber records.

When it became clear that business was not interested, graphophone franchisee The Columbia Phonograph Company decided in 1889 to lease them to fairgrounds, with great success. The following year the first jukeboxes were produced, a boon for the nascent music industry. This along with better reproduction of recorded sound cemented the future of the record player and its place in people's homes.

Consequent years saw many improvements and developments, in terms of sound quality and materials (including shellac, which would become the standard). The first decade of the 20th century saw the first double-sided discs, the introduction of the popular Victrola player, and the first ‘album’. This was Tchaikovsky’s ‘The Nutcracker Suite’, released on four double-sided discs, and called an album as it resembled a photo album.

1917 saw the first jazz record, ‘Livery Stable Blues’ recorded, while in 1925 amplification is introduced by Bell Telephone Laboratories, increasing the frequency range of recordings immensely. This and further moves towards the vinyl format saw the record survive the advent of commercial radio. Alan Blumlein developed stereo in 1931, and installed this recording system at the BBC’s legendary Abbey Road studio.

World War Two saw two important developments. Vinyl is used as a cheap replacement for shellac (the first vinyl release is in 1946), and the first DJs appeared as entertainment for troops. Following the war the 7-inch 45rpm single was popularised, especially as rock’n’roll began its ascendancy in the middle fifties.

The first stereo LPs were released in 1958 by RCA, but home players take a while to catch up with this development. Pop music changes the face of contemporary music, and the 1960’s saw massive advances in recording technology and techniques. Albums such as The Beatles ‘Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band’, Beach Boys ‘Pet Sounds’ embraced these developments.

Home stereo technology also developed, as did the requirements of commercial playback equipment. In 1972 Technics introduced the SL series of turntable, with direct drive instead of belt-drive, a far more consistent system. The flagship of these, the SL1200 was manufactured for radio, but DJs soon saw the manifest benefits of such a revolutionary machine. The rest, as they say, is history. The DJ became god, and vinyl has earned the right to exist in perpetuity. Amen.

Gavin Bertram.