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Phonautograph
Léon Scott de Martinville created the first device capable of recording sound signals called the “phonautograph.” His device could not reproduce sound signals. -
Phonograph
Thomas Alva Edison, working in his lab, succeeds in recovering Mary's Little Lamb from a strip of tinfoil wrapped around a spinning cylinder. He demonstrates his invention in the offices of Scientific American, and the phonograph is born. -
Music is put on record.
Cornetist Jules Levy plays "Yankee Doodle'' on a record. He was the origional arranger. -
Gramophone
Emile Berliner made the phonautograph into a disc music player, he called the “gramophone.” This was the first disc player made. -
Electric motor-driven phonograph
Edison introduces an electric motor-driven phonograph. The 12 brand-new cylinders included will store more than one hour of music. -
First talking movie
The first "talking movie" is demonstrated by Edison using his Kinetophone process, a cylinder player mechanically synchronized to a film projector. It was called The Jazz Singer. -
Blattnerphone
Harry Nyquist publishes the mathematical foundation for the sampling theorem basic to all digital audio processing, the "Nyquist Theorem." The "Blattnerphone" is developed for use as a magnetic recorder using steel tape. -
FM broadcasting
Edwin Armstrong developed the FM broadcasting for the first time in the Untied States. The stations they played were 87.8 - 107.9. -
Eight track stereophonic sound was used to make Fantasia.
Fantasia is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released by Walt Disney Productions. To make the film, the used a 8 track stereophonic sound system. -
Audio Cassette Tape
Philips invented the Compact Cassette medium for audio storage, introducing it at the Berlin Radio Show and in the United States in November 1964, with the trademark name Compact Cassette. -
First digital audio recording system
Sony developed the first digital audio recording devices to be used by professional studios. This was the first with a magnectic tape. -
CD Player
Sony introduces the first CD player.It is eagerly snapped up by professionals, sparking the digital revolution in recording equipment. -
MP3 Player
MP3 technology started in German in the year 1987. German Company named Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft started the research program for coding music with the high quality and low bit rate sampling at its institute. The project was controlled by an expert in mathematics and electronics, Harlheinz Bradenburg. Based on his 10 year long experience in music compression, Harlheinz Bradenburg invented MP3 players. -
Voice Activated Tape Recorders
Voice activated tape recorders were developed so that tape recorders could be turned on and off and only record when sound was present. This would save the tape for various types of covert recording. -
iPod
The 1st generation iPod Classic was released. Apple unexpectedly announced the first iPod at a price of $399.