Recording history. Five eras of sound

Since ancient times, man has tried to capture his feelings. And if the history of drawing and writing dates back thousands of years, the history of sound recording is much younger. Of course, there was singing and playing musical instruments, but this is again the reproduction of sound by a person.

The ringing of church bells can be called the first prototype of mechanical recording of sound. But not where the ringer shows his art, but the ringing of a pre-programmed melody. Such a "sound recording" has survived to this day, for example, in the chimes of the Spasskaya Tower of the Moscow Kremlin.

And for the first time such a solution was applied on the bell towers of the French city of Malin (Melechen) in the XIV century. Local craftsmen learned how to cast bells capable of reproducing the chromatic scale. A set of such bells was suspended and interconnected by a special wire system, and all this was called a carillon. It was only necessary to give the initial impulse to the first bell and then, the interconnected bells played the "recorded" melody. The news of such a miracle spread all over the world, and in Russia there were legends about the magical “crimson” ringing, and this expression is alive to this day.

Carillons spread throughout Europe and over time, instead of a complex and unreliable wire mechanism, a drum with ledges appeared. Rotating, the protrusions of the drum set in motion the thrust (or hammer) of a particular bell. The location of the protrusions was easier to "program" than to design a wire connection, so drums with different melodies appeared. Over time, craftsmen miniaturized carillons, and they began to settle in the homes of wealthy people.

These devices were not cheap, and the process of changing the drum (i.e. melody) is very laborious, and often impossible. Only in the second half of the 19th century did a German master think of replacing the drum with a disk. A relatively thin metal disc with protrusions was easier to manufacture, and most importantly, it was much easier to replace it with another one.

Devices operating on the principle of a set of irregularities that drive plates, rods, etc. many have been released. These are music boxes, watches, snuff boxes and much more. There were quite a few cylinders and discs with recorded melodies. But all these musical instruments could not record and reproduce the most important thing - the human voice.

Many minds have struggled with this, from scientists to self-taught. Perhaps the Frenchman Charles Cros came closest to solving this problem. A very versatile person, he was engaged in literature, and painting, and "communication with other planets", and many more interesting things. So he sent in April 1877 to the French Academy of Sciences a description of a device called the palephone (Voice of the Past). This apparatus was supposed to record sound by cutting grooves on a cylinder of soft material or on a "pancake" using a spiral method. Essentially, this is the idea behind vinyl records.

But, as often happened in those days, scientists from the Academy of Sciences did not attach any importance to this letter and sent it to the archive. The inventor offered some wealthy people to finance the creation of a working model, but also did not meet with understanding. Then he got carried away with another idea and almost forgot about his invention. He died in obscurity and in complete poverty.

More successful and persistent was the American Thomas Edison. Surprisingly, in the same 1877, he instructed a familiar craftsman to make a simple device called a phonograph according to his drawings. The cost of the work was $ 18, which at that time, although a lot, but not a fabulous amount. The device was equipped with a horn that concentrated the sound waves causing the membrane to which the needle was attached to vibrate. The needle, in turn, touched a rotating drum covered with a layer of soft lead foil. The drum was rotated by hand, and the horn with the needle moved along the guide, cutting grooves. The playback process took place in the reverse order.

Thomas Edison received a patent for his phonograph in February 1978. The device received the widest publicity, there was a huge resonance in society. Edison was very fond of his apparatus, but this was precisely what prevented him from applying the idea to another device. He registered about 100 patents for its improvement, but did not look more broadly at the problem. The phonograph was inconvenient, the quality of the recording was unimportant, and the duration of the phonogram was short. In addition, it was almost impossible to replicate records, and the life of musical cylinders was short.

This situation was taken advantage of by the American inventor, a native of Germany, Emil Berliner. It was he who realized the buried idea of ​​Charles Cros (not knowing about it) - recording not on a cylinder, but on a flat disk. Berliner called his device the gramophone. At first, a glass disk covered with soot was used, then a zinc disk with a wax coating was invented, grooves were scratched on it with an iridium needle, and then acid etching was carried out. After removing the wax, a very durable plate was obtained, which had a rather long service life.

But the main merit of Emil Berliner is that he understood the need to replicate media. It was he who began to make matrices, and then plates were stamped from a special composition. The inventor tried different components, and as a result, a mixture of shellac, spar and carbon black was born. Such records turned out to be quite high-quality and durable, they were produced until 1946.

Berliner constantly improved his gramophones until the French took revenge. In 1907, Guillon Kemmler decided to get rid of the bulky horn. He significantly reduced it, changed its shape and hid it in the case. Thus the gramophone was born. These devices, due to their relative mobility, replaced gramophones and for quite a long time, until the 60s, were in mass operation.

The plates have also improved. Thanks to the use of vinylite (polyvinyl chloride) as a material, the sound quality has become much better, the rotation speed has been reduced from 78 rpm to 33 rpm. Accordingly, it was possible to put not 2 compositions on one disc, but a whole album. By the end of their mainstream use in the 1980s, they had become the benchmark for sound quality in music. And even now, in the age of digital sound, vinyl records have remained especially revered in a narrow circle of audio gourmets. It is on vinyl (LP discs) that the sound is recorded without any transformations, in its original form.

Almost in parallel with gramophone recording, a magnetic method of sound recording appeared and developed. Back in 1888, the American Oberline Smith, impressed by a visit to the laboratory of Thomas Edison, thought about an alternative method of sound recording. He theoretically substantiated this possibility. However, a really working apparatus was built by the Dane Valdemar Poulsen in 1896. Recording was carried out on a wire that was wound on bobbins.

Such a carrier was not very practical, and in 1925 a flexible tape was patented in the USSR, showered with glue-based metal filings. The direction of research was correct, but it was not developed. Magnetic tape in the modern sense was patented by Fritz Pfleimer in Germany in 1927. And already in 1934, BASF began producing magnetic tape for a wide range of applications.

Magnetic recording opened up new horizons. Unlike gramophone recording, recording sound on magnetic tape was a fairly simple task and could be carried out outside special laboratories. True, the recording quality of the first tape recorders was worse than the gramophone, until the principle of high-frequency magnetization of the tape was proposed and introduced. After its improvement and active implementation in the late 30s and early 40s, tape recorders began to actively invade life as professional and household recording devices.

But in the field of sound reproduction, it was the recording that ruled the ball. And only with the improvement of tape recorders and magnetic tape in the 70s did records begin to lose ground.

In addition, it was in 1979 that the optical (laser) CD appeared, which revolutionized. The presented advantages in the absence of noise, impressive durability, non-contact reading method, compactness almost completely destroyed the production of records and related sound reproducing equipment. The benefits were not so obvious. Optical discs also scratch, don't last forever, and sound quality is no better than vinyl records.

But the digital revolution was unstoppable. More technological production, compactness of reproducing devices, sound quality sufficient for most people have done their job. With the development of digital electronics, it became possible to store sound on other media. An important feature of digital sound is the ability to operate as with arrays of digital data. It can be compressed using digital compression methods, transmitted without distortion over communication networks, and easily transferred from one medium to another. The benefits are of course obvious.

In addition, digitization methods are constantly being improved, new carriers of high-quality sound appear, such as DVD-audio, SACD. Musical compositions on such media are no longer inferior to vinyl sound, and maybe even surpass it. And with the development of high-speed Internet on a global scale, especially wireless, the scenario of the gradual death of physical media of audio and other multimedia content is quite possible.

St. Petersburg State University of Film and Television

ESSAY

by discipline

" Film and television equipment "

"History and modern development of sound recording"

completed:

student group 7751

Alferov I.V.

Saint Petersburg 2008

Plan

Introduction

background

magnetic sound recording

Optical discs

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

Sound recording is the process of storing air vibrations in the range of 20-20000 Hz (music, speech or other sounds) on any medium using special devices.

Gramophone records, audio cassettes, CDs, mini-discs, DVDs, Flash-cards: Mankind has come up with all sorts of information carriers to leave the memory of oneself - first of all, of one's voice - for centuries! However, the history of sound recording began with a not too pleasant episode: 130 years ago, American engineer Thomas Edison pricked his finger hard:

"Once I was working with a new model of my phone. The mood was just wonderful, and I sang in between times. I didn’t remember what exactly, because at that very moment a needle stuck to my finger the steel plate trembled under the influence of my voice. And then I thought: is it possible to somehow record these oscillations of the needle? For example, on a plate. After all, logically, if after recording the needle is passed along the tracks made earlier, it should reproduce the same sound! " - so the moment of insight was described by Thomas Edison himself, the inventor of the phonograph.

background

Attempts to create devices that reproduce sounds were made in ancient Greece. In the IV-II centuries BC. there existed theaters of self-moving figures - androids. The movements of some of them were accompanied by mechanically extracted sounds that formed melody.

During the Renaissance, a number of various mechanical musical instruments were created that reproduce this or that melody at the right time: barrel organ, music boxes, boxes, snuff boxes.

Musical hurdy-gurdy works as follows. Sounds are created using steel thin plates of various lengths and thicknesses placed in an acoustic box. To extract the sound, a special drum with protruding pins is used, the location of which on the surface of the drum corresponds to the intended melody. With uniform rotation of the drum, the pins touch the plates in a given sequence. By rearranging the pins in advance to other places, you can change the melodies. The organ grinder himself activates the hurdy-gurdy by turning the handle.

Music boxes use a metal disk with a deep spiral groove to pre-record the melody. In certain places of the groove, dotted recesses are made - pits, the location of which corresponds to the melody. When the disk, driven by a clock spring mechanism, rotates, a special metal needle slides along the groove and "reads" the sequence of applied dots. The needle is attached to a membrane that makes a sound each time the needle enters the groove.

In the Middle Ages, chimes were created - a tower or large room clock with a musical mechanism that strikes in a certain melodic sequence of tones or performs small pieces of music. These are the Kremlin chimes and Big Ben in London.

Musical mechanical instruments are just automatic machines that reproduce artificially created sounds. The task of preserving the sounds of living life for a long time was solved much later.

Many centuries before the invention of mechanical sound recording, musical notation appeared - a graphic way of depicting musical works on paper. In ancient times, melodies were recorded in letters, and modern musical notation (with the designation of the pitch of sounds, the duration of tones, tonality and musical lines) began to develop from the 12th century. At the end of the 15th century, music printing was invented, when notes began to be printed from a set, like books.

It was possible to record and then reproduce recorded sounds in the second half of the 19th century after the invention of sound recording.

mechanical sound recording

The first person who expressed the idea of ​​sound recording and sound reproduction was the Frenchman Charles Cros.

Cros was born in 1842 in Fabrezan (France). His family was talented: his brother was a painter and sculptor, his son was a poet. Kro himself was exceptionally gifted. He studied physics, chemistry, philology, medicine. In 1867 he invented the "autographic telegraph". He is also credited with the invention of the telephone and the process of tricolor photography. Kro even dealt with questions of interplanetary communications and wrote a pamphlet on this subject. He is also known as a talented poet and science fiction writer.

Cro was a poor man and had no opportunity to experiment and even pay the patent fee.

sound recording melody instrument instrument

Phonautograph (phonautograph) by Leon Scot 1857 - the first recording apparatus with a membrane

On October 10, 1877, a friend of Cros placed a note in "La semaine du Clerge" detailing Cros's invention. In this description, among other things, it was proposed to call the device "phonograph". This device is described precisely with a roller, and not with a disk, i.e. in the form that shortly thereafter gave his phonograph Edison.

Cros himself sent a letter on April 30, 1877 to the French Academy of Sciences, in which he not only outlined the essence of the phenomenon of sound reproduction, but pointed out the method of reproduction both using a roller and using a disk, which is recorded in a spiral. In fact, this is what we call today the gramophone record, and Kro justly deserves the title of its inventor.

On December 1877, Kro's letter was opened and read out at a meeting of the Academy of Sciences. But there the idea did not receive support, and his name was almost forgotten. Cros died in Paris at the age of 45 in 1887, the year of the practical implementation of the gramophone, which he never saw.

Of the great number of inventions of Thomas Edison, the phonograph is the main one.

Edison's application was made on December 24, 1877, and the patent, contrary to all the rules on the timing for ascertaining novelty and for filing claims by other persons, was issued to him already on February 19, 1878. These dates cannot but be compared with the dates of the announcement of Cros' ideas. The son of Charles Cros, Guy, wrote in 1927, not without a direct allusion, that the magazine "La semaine du Clerge", in which on October 10, 1877 a detailed description of Cros's phonograph was placed, enjoyed considerable distribution and fame in America at that time.

Edison phonograph

However, even 10 years later, when Berliner received a patent for the gramophone, the experts of the American Patent office still did not know about any of Cro's works.

Today, historians believe that Edison came to the invention of the phonograph on his own and that it happened by accident. He wanted to create a transmitter for the telephone in order to increase the range of telephone conversations many times over.

In the Edison phonograph, recording was made along a helical line by pressing a rather thick tin foil wrapped around a copper cylinder, rotated by hand at a speed of about 1 rpm, and the pitch of the screw on the cylinder was about 3 mm. For reproduction, a membrane located on the other side of the cylinder, equipped with a steel tip, served. The membrane itself consisted of vegetable parchment. A horn cone made of cardboard was put on the membrane. Edison made many design changes to the phonograph, but never achieved a clean sound.

Many inventors tried to improve the phonograph. The greatest success was achieved by Alexander Bell and Charles Tainter, who in 1886 took out a patent for a device they called the grafonon. They proposed to use transverse recording, cutting instead of extrusion, and as a recording medium - wax with the addition of paraffin and other substances. But it was not possible to overcome the shortcomings of the phonograph. It was time to put Cro's idea of ​​the gramophone record into practice.

In June 1887, Emil Berliner received a patent in the United States, and then in England and Germany for a gramophone, which was made in 1888 and demonstrated on May 16 of the same year at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.

At first, Berliner applied transverse recording on a roller, as in a phonograph, and then began to record on a disk using the Kro method. On a glass substrate, he applied soot with paraffin. The substrate was placed on the machine in an overturned position, so that the removed chips could fall down without interfering with the recording. After recording, the phonogram was covered with varnish and served to obtain a relief photographic print on the chromium-gelatin layer. Then Berliner began to try chemical processing methods, namely acid etching. Subsequently, he used zinc as a substrate, and wax as a protective layer. At the end of the recording, the zinc was etched in 25% chromic acid. Only the places drawn with a cutter were etched. Berliner used this zinc as the original and received galvanoplastic copies from it.

Berliner made no secret of his familiarity with Cro's work, but said he learned of Cro's ideas three months after he filed his patent application. Berliner's merit is that he organized the production of gramophones.

Gramophone and record

At the beginning of the XX century. many phonograph companies have attempted to record electrically, but the lack of electrical amplifiers has prevented this method from being realized. With the invention of the vacuum tube, this became possible.

In 1918, the "Gaumont Society" took out a patent for "reading phonograms with an electromagnetic player", that is, for an adapter. In 1924, several firms took out a patent for improved conditions for electrical recording. Since 1925, the electric method of recording with microphones has supplanted mechanoacoustic recording through a horn from production.

The first apparatus for reproducing records, created by Berliner in 1888, already contained the basic elements of a horn gramophone. Further work by various authors to improve the design led to the appearance of a model, which in 1902 was released to the public. It had a spring drive and a rigid connection between the horn and the membrane. This model is depicted in a painting by the artist F. Barro, who depicted a dog that recognizes the voice of its owner, transmitted by a gramophone. The company made this picture its trademark, and the name of the record company HMV (His Master's Voice - "His Master's Voice") became the most popular among record lovers for decades.

Further development of gramophones led to the creation of portable models with a sound duct inside a box, known as a "gramophone". This name was first given to the apparatus of the French company Pate. Subminiature gramophones were produced with a sliding tonearm in the form of a nickel-plated metal can with a diameter of 18 cm and a height of 8 cm.

Gramophone

With the development of radio technology, the acoustic recording method was completely replaced by the electrical method, which significantly improved the quality of the recordings.

There were radiograms, players (prefixes to receivers) and electrophones.

The spring motor was replaced by an electric motor, and the membrane was replaced by a pickup (adapter).

Gramophone with electromagnetic adapter and turntable

Until the end of 1948, the recording was made with a groove 140-180 microns wide, with an average recording density of 38 grooves per 1 cm. The rotation speed was 78 rpm, and the diameter of the plates was 25-30 cm. was 3-5 minutes, which is enough for short pieces of music.

With the introduction of electric reproduction, a speed of 331/3 rpm was introduced with the same plate dimensions. The smallest diameter at 331/3 rpm was set to 19 cm in order to obtain a reasonably good playback quality at the end of the recording. The groove width was chosen not less than 100 μm. However, this did not ensure continuous recording of symphonic works. This problem was solved only with the advent of long-playing records.

In 1948, the American company Columbia announced the release of records with a groove width of up to 70 microns. The recording density has increased by about two and a half times, and the sound duration has become almost 6 times longer than 78 rpm records of the same format.

In 1949, the American company RCA Victor produced 17.5 cm 45 rpm records and a turntable for them with an automatic record changer. The recording time of one side of the plate was 5 min 5 sec, later it was increased to 9 min using a variable recording step.

In 1954, 16 rpm records appeared under the name "talking book". The long recording time (with a diameter of 25 cm, about an hour for one side) made them convenient as teaching aids and for people with poor eyesight.

As early as 1928, Columbia offered to choose the distance between the grooves depending on the amplitude, which was written in a patent published in 1933. However, this idea was forgotten. Again this issue was raised by Rein, who tested his system in 1942 and completed it in 1950.

The use of re-recording from tape recorders instead of direct recording to a disk from microphones made it possible to obtain a time-preemptive signal to control the groove shift. Rhine's scheme proved to be complicated, and variable pitch recorders offered by Columbia and Teldec were used in practice.

When recording with a variable pitch of records with a wide groove, the gain in playing time was 15%, and for long-playing records - 25%. Variable pitch records were released in 1951 by Deutsche Grammofon, at the end of 1952 by Teldec, and since 1956 they have been produced in the USSR. Records with variable pitch do not require special reproducing equipment.

In addition to mechanical recording to disk, mechanical recording to tape is known. In 1931, in Germany, Tefifon manufactured devices with mechanical recording on an endless tape.

During this period of time, A.F. Shorin suggested using film as a medium for mechanical recording of sound. He designed the "shorinophone" apparatus, which was first used for scoring films, and then for recording music and speech in radio broadcasting, which increased the duration of the recording to several hours.

Recording and playback of sound in this device was carried out electromechanically on a used film tape. Shorinofon carried out multi-track mechanical transverse recording, which was played back on the same apparatus. When using 35 mm wide film, more than 50 grooves were placed on it. With a film roll of 300 m, this made it possible to obtain an eight-hour recording in a shorinophone. The role of the recording and reproducing element in the shorinophone was performed by a special head, into which a cutter was inserted for cutting a groove, and a corundum needle for reproduction.

Once cinematography became sound, it became necessary to make the sound follow the movement of the actors along the screen. In 1930, the French film director Abel Gance carried out spatial sound reproduction in the cinema hall, for which he installed loudspeakers not only behind the screen, but also in the hall itself.

After the advent of the telephone, the phonograph, broadcasting, and talkies, people began to notice the shortcomings of monophonic sound transmission. In 1881, at the World Exhibition in Paris, the inventor Clement Ader made the first two-channel sound transmission from the opera house. The transmission was carried out over telephone wires connected to two groups of microphones, one of which was located to the right and the other to the left of the stage. You can listen to the broadcast over the phone with a pair of headphones. In 1912 similar experiments were repeated in Berlin.

Until 1957, LP recording was monophonic only. But experiments were also carried out in the field of stereophonic recording. In 1931, the English inventor A. Blumlein proposed a method for stereophonic recording on a disk, in which the signals of both channels were simultaneously recorded with one cutter in the same groove. In his application, for which a patent was issued, Blumlein proposes two stereo recording methods: one is a combination of transverse and depth recording, the other - two mutually perpendicular components of the cutter vibration are directed at an angle of 45 ° to the disk surface. The insufficient level of recording-playback technology did not allow Blumlein's ideas to be realized at that time.

The American engineer Cook proposed a "binaural record", each side of which contained "right" and "left" records. Both records were played by one tonearm with two heads (adapters). The uneconomical use of disk space and the complexity of synchronization prevented this method from practical application.

In the Decca Records laboratory in London, an electrical method was developed for channel separation using filters, provided that one of the channels was recorded on a subcarrier frequency. In the US, a similar method is known as the Minter system. The carrier frequency method proved to be complicated and expensive.

Finally received recognition and the method of Blumlein 45/45. In the USA, the Vestrex company developed such a system, and already in 1958 the method was recommended as a unified international method for recording stereo records. Stereo records are made in the same formats and for the same speeds as mono LPs.

With the accumulation of experience and theoretical understanding, some disadvantages and limitations inherent in two-channel stereophony were revealed: the effect of a sound dip in the middle between the speakers, a narrow zone in which a stereo effect is felt, distortions in the localization of the sound source. Began to conduct experiments on three - and four-channel sound reproduction.

In 1969-1971. the first samples of four-channel (quadraphonic) equipment appeared on the world market: tape recorders, electrophones. Gramophone records. Quadraphony was perceived as a novelty, which is unlikely to be widely used: at too high a price - doubling the number of channels - improves the stereo effect.

The first gramophone records were pressed from a mixture based on shellac, which is a resin of natural origin, subsequently shellac was replaced by synthetic resins. Vinyl resin has been widely used. The exact composition of each brand of gramophone records was protected as a trade secret.

Gramophone records were recorded only in special recording studios. In 1940-1950 in Moscow on Gorky Street there was such a studio where for a small fee it was possible to record a small disc with a diameter of 15 centimeters - a sound "hello" to your relatives or friends. In those same years, on handicraft sound recording devices, jazz music records and thieves' songs, which were persecuted in those years, were clandestinely recorded. Used X-ray film served as the material for them. These plates were called "on the ribs", because bones were visible on them in the light. The sound quality on them was terrible, but in the absence of other sources they were very popular, especially among young people. For the manufacture of gramophone records, however, not only plastics were proposed, but also a number of other materials. So, for example, not only were patented in 1909, but also produced (by Carl Pivoda in Prague) glass gramophone records. According to reviews, these records hissed less than usual. Appeared on sale, including in Russia, even gramophone records made of chocolate.

magnetic sound recording

In 1898, the Danish engineer Voldemar Paulsen (1869-1942) invented an apparatus for magnetically recording sound on steel wire. He called it "telegraph". However, the disadvantage of using wire as a carrier was the problem of connecting its individual pieces. It was impossible to tie them with a knot, since it did not pass through the magnetic head. In addition, steel wire is easily tangled, and a thin steel tape cuts hands. In general, it was not suitable for operation.

Later, Paulsen invented a method of magnetic recording on a rotating steel disk, where information was recorded in a spiral by a moving magnetic head. Here it is, the prototype of a floppy disk and a hard disk (hard drive), which are so widely used in modern computers! In addition, Paulsen proposed and even implemented the first answering machine with the help of his telegraph.

In 1927, F. Pfleimer developed a technology for manufacturing a magnetic tape on a non-magnetic basis. On the basis of this development, in 1935, the German electrical company "AEG" and the chemical company "IG Farbenindustri" demonstrated at the German radio exhibition a magnetic tape on a plastic base coated with iron powder. Mastered in industrial production, it cost 5 times cheaper than steel, it was much lighter, and most importantly, it made it possible to connect pieces by simple gluing. To use the new magnetic tape, a new sound recording device was developed, which received the brand name "Magnetofon". It became the common name for such devices.

In 1941, German engineers Braunmüll and Weber created a ring magnetic head in combination with ultrasonic bias for sound recording. This made it possible to significantly reduce noise and obtain a record of much higher quality than mechanical and optical recordings (developed by that time for sound films).

Magnetic tape is suitable for repeated sound recording. The number of such records is practically unlimited. It is determined only by the mechanical strength of the new information carrier - magnetic tape.

Thus, the owner of a tape recorder, in comparison with a gramophone, not only got the opportunity to reproduce sound recorded once and for all on a gramophone record, but now he could also record sound on magnetic tape, and not in a recording studio, but at home or in a concert hall. It was this remarkable property of magnetic sound recording that ensured the wide distribution of the songs of Bulat Okudzhava, Vladimir Vysotsky and Alexander Galich during the years of the communist dictatorship. It was enough for one amateur to record these songs at their concerts in some club, as this recording spread with lightning speed among many thousands of fans. After all, with the help of two tape recorders, you can copy a record from one magnetic tape to another. The first tape recorders were reel-to-reel - in them a magnetic film was wound on reels. During recording and playback, the film was rewound from a full reel to an empty one. Before starting recording or playback, it was necessary to "load" the tape, i.e. stretch the free end of the film past the magnetic heads and fix it on an empty reel.

Reel-to-reel tape recorder with magnetic tape on reels

After the end of World War II, starting in 1945, magnetic recording became the most widely used throughout the world. On American radio, magnetic recording was first used in 1947 to broadcast a concert by popular singer Bing Crosby. In this case, parts of a captured German apparatus were used, which was brought to the United States by an enterprising American soldier demobilized from occupied Germany. Bing Crosby then invested in the production of tape recorders. In 1950, 25 models of tape recorders were already on sale in the USA.

The first two-track tape recorder was released by the German company AEG in 1957, and in 1959 this company released the first four-track tape recorder.

At first, tape recorders were tube, and only in 1956 the Japanese company Sony created the first completely transistorized tape recorder.

Later, cassette tape recorders replaced reel-to-reel tape recorders. The first such device was developed by Philips in 1961-1963. In it, both miniature reels - with a magnetic film and an empty one - are placed in a special compact cassette and the end of the film is pre-fixed on an empty reel. Thus, the process of charging a tape recorder with a film is significantly simplified. The first compact cassettes were released by Philips in 1963. And even later, two-cassette tape recorders appeared, in which the process of rewriting from one cassette to another was simplified as much as possible. Recording on compact cassettes - two-sided. They are issued for the recording time of 60, 90 and 120 minutes (on both sides).

Cassette recorder and compact cassette

On the basis of a standard compact cassette, Sony developed a portable player "player" the size of a postcard (Fig. 5.11)<#"117" src="/wimg/14/doc_zip11.jpg" />

Cassette player

The compact cassette "taken root" not only on the street, but also in cars for which the car radio was released. It is a combination radio and cassette recorder.

In addition to the compact cassette, a matchbox-sized microcassette was created for portable voice recorders and telephones with answering machine.

Dictaphone (from Latin dicto - I speak, I dictate) is a kind of tape recorder for recording speech with the aim, for example, of subsequent printing of its text.

microcassette

All mechanical cassette recorders contain more than 100 parts, some of which are movable. The recording head and electrical contacts wear out over several years. The hinged lid also breaks easily. Cassette recorders use an electric motor to pull the tape past the record heads.

Digital voice recorders differ from mechanical voice recorders by the complete absence of moving parts. They use solid-state flash memory as a carrier instead of magnetic tape.

Digital voice recorders convert an audio signal (such as a voice) into a digital code and record it on a memory chip. The operation of such a recorder is controlled by a microprocessor. The absence of a tape drive, recording and erasing heads greatly simplifies the design of digital voice recorders and makes it more reliable. For ease of use, they are equipped with a liquid crystal display. The main advantages of digital voice recorders are the almost instantaneous search for the desired recording and the ability to transfer the recording to a personal computer, in which you can not only store these recordings, but also edit them, re-record without the help of a second voice recorder, etc.

Optical discs

In 1979, Philips and Sony created a completely new storage medium that replaced the record - an optical disc (compact disc - Compact Disk - CD) for recording and playing sound. In 1982, mass production of CDs began at a factory in Germany. A significant contribution to the popularization of the CD was made by Microsoft and Apple Computer.

A CD is capable of storing a huge amount of information in a small physical volume. The possibility of repeated reading of the recorded data without wear of the media is also important, due to the absence of any mechanical contact between the reading device and the surface carrying the information. To this should be added the relatively low cost of the disks themselves and the devices needed to work with them. These advantages cannot fail to attract everyone who has to store huge amounts of data with minimal risk of losing it. And there are more and more of them. Wherever there are computers, there are bound to be powerful programs, archives and databases, images and sounds digitized. All this is conveniently stored on a CD.

A modern CD is a plastic disc about 120 in diameter and about 1 mm thick, with a 15 mm hole in the center. Around the hole there is an area about 10 mm wide for clamping in the spindle that rotates the disk. One side of the CD is usually beautifully designed and provided with brief information about the contents of the records.

The other - glitters and shimmers with all the colors of the rainbow. It has another visually distinguishable ring around the clamping area, which is stamped with a serial number in a barcode or other code, often understandable only to the disc manufacturer.

The most common CDs have the structure shown in Figure:

The thinnest reflective layer 2 of aluminum is applied to the base 1 of acrylic plastic. The metal is covered with a transparent protective polycarbonate film 3. The data is read by a laser beam 4. The usual process of making a CD consists of several stages: preparing data for recording, making a master disc (original) and matrices (negatives of the master disc), replicating a CD.

Information is applied to the smooth surface of an aluminum master disk by a laser beam, which, by changing the structure of the metal (in other words, by burning it), creates microscopic cavities on it. The alternation of differently reflecting light depressions and flat areas represents the data in the usual binary form for computers. Note that the dimensions of the depressions formed by the laser beam are very small - on a segment whose length does not exceed the thickness of a human hair, several tens of them can be accommodated.

What follows is reminiscent of the production of conventional gramophone records. The negative copies of the master disc serve as matrices for pressing the information-bearing depressions on the surface of the CD itself, which remains to be covered with aluminum, applied with a protective layer and provided with the necessary inscriptions. It is worth noting that there are other technologies for the production of CDs, including rewritable and rewritable, some of which will be discussed below.

Under the CD, inserted into the drive with the shiny side down and fixed in a rotating spindle, a reader moves along the radius with the help of a servomotor.

It consists of a semiconductor laser 1, a beam-splitting prism 2 with a lens 3 that focuses the beam on the disk surface 4, and a photodetector 5. The lens is equipped with drives for fine-tuning the beam position on the information track. It is clear that a laser of much lower power is used for reading than the one used to burn the depressions on the surface of the master disk.

The beam reflected by the aluminum surface is directed by the prism to the photodetector. If it is reflected from a shiny island between the depressions, an electric current appears in the photodetector circuit, the presence of which is interpreted as logical 1. The beam that falls into the depression is mostly scattered, as a result, the illumination of the photodetector and the current generated by it decrease - logical 0 is fixed.

The sensitive surface of the photodetector is divided into four sectors. This allows the microprocessor controlling the drive to determine if the beam is correctly positioned. If the beam deviated from the desired position (and this, as a rule, happens due to errors in the manufacture of the CD and the drive), the spot created by it on the surface of the photodetector will also shift, as a result of which its sectors will be illuminated unequally. Comparing the currents generated by each of the elements of the receiver, the microprocessor generates commands that correct the position of the lens, and, consequently, the beam on the surface of the reflective layer.

As already mentioned, data is recorded on a CD as a sequence of pits and intervals between them, forming one physical information track. Just one, in contrast to the usual way of recording on magnetic disks. This single track is a spiral that starts at the center of the disk and unwinds towards its edge. This CD is a bit like a traditional record, differing from it in the direction of the spiral and the non-contact method of reading data. The track begins with the service area necessary for drive synchronization: the reader must "know" when to expect the arrival of each of the recorded bits of information. A physical track can be divided into multiple logical tracks.

The continuous stream of bits read from the CD is divided into eight-bit bytes, logically grouped into sectors. Each sector consists of 12 bytes of synchronization, four bytes of a header containing the sector number and information about the type of record in it, 2048 bytes of the main data area and 288 bytes of additional information.

Several types of sectors are used. The first one is for digital audio only. The second one is the main one for all CDs. Its header is extended to 12 bytes due to the area of ​​additional information. The rest of this area is occupied by a data reading error detection code (four bytes) and two codes that allow them to be corrected: P-parity (172 bytes) and Q-parity (104 bytes). In sectors of the third type, the additional information area is made available to the user. So each of them can contain up to 2336 bytes of data, but without the ability to control the correct reading and error correction. Each logical track consists of sectors of only one type.

The first sectors of the CD contain its contents (Volume Table of Contents, VTOC) - something like a file allocation table (FAT) on magnetic disks. In general, the basic CD format according to the HSG standard (see below) is in many ways reminiscent of the format of a floppy disk, on the zero track of which not only its main parameters (number of tracks, sectors, etc.) are indicated, but also information about the placement of data is stored (directories and files).

The system area contains directories with pointers or addresses of areas where data is stored. The essential difference from a floppy disk is that the direct addresses of files located in subdirectories are indicated in the root directory of a CD, which greatly facilitates their search.

The classic "single" data reading speed, which only audio CD players work with today, is 175 KB/s, or about 75 sectors per second. Each logical track containing 300 sectors is played back at this rate in 4 seconds. The entire CD, if it consists only of sectors of the second type, contains 663.5 MB of data.

Computers use CD drives, which provide much faster data reading by increasing the spindle speed and correspondingly changing a number of other technical characteristics.

Musical optical CDs replaced mechanically recorded vinyl (phonograph records) in 1982, almost simultaneously with the advent of the first personal computers from IBM. This was the result of a collaboration between two giants of the electronics industry - the Japanese firm Sony and the Dutch Philips.

The history of the choice of CD capacity is curious. Sony CEO Akio Morita decided that the new products should meet the requirements of classical music lovers. After conducting a survey, it turned out that the most popular classical work in Japan - Beethoven's ninth symphony - sounds about 73 minutes. Apparently, if the Japanese were more fond of Haydn's short symphonies or Wagner's operas performed in their entirety in two evenings, the development of the CD could have taken a different path. But the fact remains. It was decided that the CD should be 74 minutes and 33 seconds long.

Thus was born the standard known as the "Red Book" (Red Book). Not all music lovers were satisfied with the chosen duration of the sound, but compared to 45 minutes of short-lived vinyl records, this was a significant step forward. When 74 minutes of music were counted into information capacity, it turned out to be about 640 MB.

In late 1999, Sony announced a new Super Audio CD (SACD) medium. At the same time, the technology of the so-called "direct digital stream" DSD (Direct Stream Digital) was used. A frequency response of 0 to 100 kHz and a sampling rate of 2.8224 MHz provide a significant improvement in sound quality over conventional CDs. Due to the much higher sampling rate, filters are no longer needed during recording and playback, as the human ear perceives this stepped signal as a "smooth" analog one. This ensures compatibility with the existing CD format. New HD single layer discs, HD dual layer discs, and hybrid HD dual layer discs and CDs are being released.

It is much better to store sound recordings in digital form on optical discs than in analog form on phonograph records or tape cassettes. First of all, the longevity of records is disproportionately increased. After all, optical discs are practically eternal - they are not afraid of small scratches, the laser beam does not damage them when playing records. So, Sony gives a 50-year warranty on data storage on disks. In addition, CDs do not suffer from the interference typical of mechanical and magnetic recording, so the sound quality of digital optical discs is incommensurably better. In addition, with digital recording, there is the possibility of computer sound processing, which allows, for example, to restore the original sound of old mono recordings, remove noise and distortion from them, and even turn them into stereo.

As storage media in such multimedia computers, optical CD-ROMs (Compact Disk Read Only Memory - that is, read-only CD-ROM) are used. Outwardly, they do not differ from audio CDs used in players and music centers. Information in them is also recorded in digital form.

The existing CDs are being replaced by a new media standard - DVD (Digital Versatil Disc or General Purpose Digital Disc). In appearance, they are no different from CDs. Their geometric dimensions are the same. The main difference between a DVD disc is a much higher recording density of information. It holds 7-26 times more information. This is achieved due to the shorter laser wavelength and the smaller spot size of the focused beam, which made it possible to halve the distance between the tracks. In addition, DVDs may have one or two layers of information. They can be accessed by adjusting the position of the laser head. On a DVD, each layer of information is twice as thin as on a CD. Therefore, it is possible to connect two discs with a thickness of 0.6 mm into one with a standard thickness of 1.2 mm. This doubles the capacity. In total, the DVD standard provides for 4 modifications: single-sided, single-layer 4.7 GB (133 minutes), single-sided, double-layer 8.8 GB (241 minutes), double-sided, single-layer 9.4 GB (266 minutes) and double-sided, dual-layer 17 GB (482 minutes). Minutes in parentheses are high digital quality video programs with digital multilingual surround sound. The new DVD standard is defined in such a way that future readers will be designed to play all previous generations of CDs, ie. respecting the principle of backward compatibility. The DVD standard allows for significantly longer playback times and improved quality of video playback compared to existing CD-ROMs and LD Video CDs.

The DVD-ROM and DVD-Video formats appeared in 1996, and later the DVD-audio format was developed to record high quality sound.

DVD drives are somewhat advanced CD-ROM drives.

CD - and DVD-optical discs became the first digital media and storage media for recording and reproducing sound and images.

Conclusion

Throughout the history of the development of the art and science of sound recording, man has striven to achieve the highest technical parameters and excellent aesthetic qualities of sound recording and reproduction, which in one way or another come down to a simple definition: how close is it to the natural perception of sound by a person with his own ears in a natural environment.

Sound recording today is not only a developed branch of show business with a multi-million dollar turnover, but also (which is much more important) a part of the musical and social culture that forms the aesthetic and ethical positions of the world's youth. The fact that 97 percent of listeners are familiar with classical works not in a live concert performance, but in a recording, does not surprise anyone. Annually, interdisciplinary conferences and seminars are held, dedicated to both the problems of standardization and the problems of preservation and restoration of records, the creation of international audio archive resources. Specialists are endlessly arguing about the advantages and disadvantages of various methods of signal conversion in sound engineering, the rate of obsolescence of sound recording and reproducing equipment beyond the sound barrier. All this makes the task of historical and technical analysis of the development of sound engineering more than relevant.

One hundred and forty years ago, on February 19, 1878, Thomas Edison received a patent for the phonograph, the first instrument for recording and reproducing sound. He made a splash in his time and preserved for us the music and voices of famous people of the late 19th century. We decided to recall how the phonograph was built, as well as to demonstrate how the voices of famous artists sounded when recorded with it.

Thomas Edison with his invention

Mathew Brady, 1878

Unlike modern devices more familiar to us, the phonograph recorded sound mechanically and did not need electricity. To do this, the phonograph has a tapering horn with a membrane at the end, to which a needle is attached. The needle is placed over a cylinder wrapped in metal foil, which after a few years was replaced by a wax coating.

The principle of operation of the phonograph is quite simple. During recording, the cylinder rotates in a spiral and constantly shifts slightly to the side. Sound entering the horn causes the diaphragm and needle to vibrate. Because of this, the needle pushes a groove in the foil - the more intense the sound, the deeper the groove. Reproduction is arranged in the same way, only in the opposite direction - the cylinder rotates, and the deflection of the needle when passing through the grooves causes the membrane to oscillate and thereby create a sound coming out of the horn.

Phonograph needle records sound vibrations on metal foil

UnterbergerMedien/YouTube

It is worth noting that a device quite similar in function and design just a few months before Edison and independently of him was invented by the French scientist Charles Cros. It had several design differences from the Edison phonograph, but the main thing is that the French inventor only described such a device, but did not create its prototype.

Of course, like any new invention, Edison's phonograph had many flaws. The recording quality of the first devices was poor, and the foil with the recording was only enough for a few plays. Also, since the recording and playback processes were essentially the same, loud sounds during playback could ruin the grooves on the foil.

By the way, the phonograph was not the first sound recording device. The very first device was called a phonoautograph and partly resembled a phonograph. It also had a tapering horn with a membrane and a needle at the end, located close to the rotating cylinder. But this needle did not push the grooves into the depth, but deviated horizontally and scratched lines on paper that had only visual value - they did not know how to turn such records back into sound. But now they are considered the first samples of the recorded human voice.

Phonautographic recording made in 1865

Smithsonian Institution Libraries

In 2008, researchers digitized the oldest surviving record. It was made in 1860 and shows the inventor of the phonautograph, Edouard Léon Scott de Martinville, singing the French song "Au clair de la lune":

However, it was the phonograph that became the first device that could reproduce previously recorded sound, and it influenced both people who were surprised by this possibility, and future devices for reproducing sound. For example, it was on the basis of the phonograph that the gramophone was created, the main difference of which was that its developers decided to record sound not on a cylinder with foil or wax, but on flat discs - gramophone records.

The historical value of the phonograph also lies in the fact that it made it possible to preserve a large number of recordings of voices and music from the late 19th century. It is known that during the first recording of the voice on the phonograph, Thomas Edison sang the folk children's song "Mary Had a Little Lamb", but it has not survived. The oldest phonograph recording known to date was made by Edison to demonstrate his invention at a museum in St. Louis in 1878:

The earliest surviving recording of Edison's own voice was made ten years later, in October 1888. It was no longer made on metal foil, but on a paraffin cylinder. It can be used to assess how much the quality of the recording has improved during the first years after the invention of the device:

There should have been an entry here, but something went wrong.

Records of some Russian artists of the late 19th century have also been preserved. In 1997, the only recording of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's voice known to date was found. It was made in 1890 by Julius Blok, who was the first to bring the phonograph to Russia. In addition to Tchaikovsky, the voices of opera singer Elizaveta Lavrovskaya, pianist Alexandra Hubert, conductor and pianist Vasily Safonov, and pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein can be heard on the recording. The audience wanted to persuade him to play the piano, but in the end only one of his remarks was heard on the recording:

Despite the fact that phonographs are no longer used seriously, their design is simple enough to assemble a working device with the help of improvised tools, which is what some enthusiasts are doing today:

In just over 100 years, humanity has gone from the phonograph to the CD. It was an exciting journey, during which new, more advanced sound recording / playback devices repeatedly appeared.

From cylinder to plate

It is curious that the first devices for recording and reproducing sound were similar to the mechanisms of music boxes. Both in those and in others, a roller (cylinder) was used, and then a disk, which, rotating, made sound reproduction possible. However, it all started not even with music boxes, but with ... European bell chimes. Here, namely in the Flandrian city of Melechen, from the 14th century they learned to cast chromatically tuned bells. Collected together, they were connected by a wire transmission to an organ-like keyboard, and such a musical construction was called a carillon. By the way, in French Melechen sounds like Malin - that's where the expression "raspberry ringing" came from. Human thought did not stand still, and very soon carillons began to be equipped with the already mentioned cylinders, on the surface of which pins were located in a certain order. These pins caught either the hammers that hit the bells, or the tongues of the bells. At the end of the 18th century, the roller with projections began to be used in more miniature devices - music boxes, where chromatically tuned combs with metal plates began to be used instead of bells. In the 19th century, Switzerland became the center for the production of clockwork music boxes. And in 1870, a German inventor decided to use a disk instead of a roller, marking the beginning of the wide popularity of caskets with interchangeable disks.

Music box with removable disk.

However, a variety of mechanical musical mechanisms (caskets, snuff boxes, clocks, orchestrions, etc.) were not able to give humanity the main thing - to make it possible to reproduce the human voice. The best minds of the Old and New Worlds took on this task in the second half of the 19th century, and the American Thomas Alva Edison won this correspondence race. However, one cannot help but recall the Frenchman Charles Cros, who was also a talented and versatile person. He dealt (and not without success) with literature, the automatic telegraph, the problems of color photography, and even "possible connections with the planets." On April 30, 1877, Cros submitted to the French Academy of Sciences a description of an apparatus for recording and reproducing speech - the "palephone". The Frenchman proposed to use not only a "roller", but also a "disc with a spiral record". Only Cro did not find sponsors for his invention. Events on the other side of the ocean developed quite differently. Edison himself described the moment when a truly brilliant thought came to him: “Once, when I was still working on improving the telephone, I somehow sang over the diaphragm of the telephone, to which a steel needle was soldered. Due to the vibration of the record, the needle pricked my finger, and it got me thinking: If you could record these vibrations of the needle, and then run the needle over the record again, why wouldn't the record speak?" As usual, Edison did not hesitate, but set about creating an unprecedented device. In the same 1877 year that Charles Cros described his "palephone," Edison gave his mechanic, John Crusey, a drawing of a fairly simple device, which he estimated to assemble at $18. However, the assembled apparatus became the world's first "talking machine" - Edison loudly sang a popular English children's song into the horn: "Marie had a little lamb" ("Marie had a little lamb"), and the device reproduced "heard", albeit with great interference .

Phonograph.

The principle of operation of the phonograph, as Edison dubbed his brainchild, was based on the transmission of sound vibrations of the voice to the surface of a rotating cylinder covered with tin foil. The vibrations were applied with the tip of a steel needle, one end of which was connected to a steel membrane that captured sounds. The cylinder had to be rotated by hand at a frequency of one revolution per second. Work on the phonograph began on July 18, 1877, as recorded in Edison's laboratory record book. On December 24, a patent application was filed, and on February 19, 1878, Edison received patent number 200521. To say that the phonograph made an international sensation is to say nothing. However, the design of the phonograph did not allow for high-quality reproduction, although Edison himself made improvements to the device for many years after the creation of the first phonograph. Perhaps Edison should have focused on creating (or modernizing) other sound recording devices, because the phonograph (like the graphophone developed by Bell (Bell) and Taynter (Taynter) was a dead end branch in the development of the sound recording / playback industry. However, Edison loved his phonograph too much for its uniqueness, because we owe the presence of more convenient audio media in our lives to an American inventor of German origin - Emile Berliner, who immensely expanded the horizons of sound recording.Of course, Berliner did not invent the modern CD, but it was he who received a patent for the invention of the gramophone in 1887 , which used records as an audio medium.

Gramophone.

Berliner moved to the US in 1870, where, incidentally, he got a job with Alexander Bell's telephone company and patented the carbon microphone. Well acquainted with the device of both the phonograph and the graphophone, he nonetheless refers to the idea of ​​using the disk, which, as we already know, was "successfully" buried by the French Academy of Sciences. In the apparatus called the gramophone, Berliner used a glass disc covered with soot, on which transverse recording was carried out. On September 26, 1887, Berliner received a patent for the gramophone, and on May 16 of the following year he demonstrated the device at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Very soon, Berliner abandons the soot disc and resorts to the acid etching method. The disc was now taken from zinc, covered with a thin layer of wax. The record was scratched with an iridium point, after which the disc was etched in 25% chromic acid. In less than half an hour, grooves with a depth of about 0.1 mm appeared, then the disk was washed from acid and used for its intended purpose. Berliner's merit also consisted in the fact that he realized the need to copy the recording from the original (matrix). The ability to replicate audio recordings is the cornerstone of the entire modern recording industry. In this direction, Berliner worked very hard. First, in 1888, he created the first phonograph record in Hiat celluloid, which is now in the National Library of Washington. But celluloid discs were poorly stored and wore out quickly, so Berliner tries other materials, in particular glass, Bakelite and ebonite. In 1896, Berliner uses a mixture of shellac, spar and soot in the plate. The shellac mass and the process of pressing records for Berliner were developed by Louis Rosenthal from Frankfurt. This time, the quality satisfied the inventor, and a similar mass of shellac was used to create gramophone records until 1946. Surprisingly, shellac was a hardened resin of organic origin, in the formation of which insects of the lac bug family take part. But even the shellac mass was far from perfect: gramophone records from it turned out to be heavy, fragile and thick. At the same time, Berliner worked hard to improve gramophones, realizing that it was necessary to increase the number of record lovers and, thereby, the market. In 1897, Berliner and Eldridge Jonson opened the world's first record and gramophone factory in the United States, the Victor Talking Machine Co. ". Then, in the UK, Berliner creates the company "E. Berliner's Gramophone Co. Already by the beginning of 1902, the enterprising inventor's companies sold over four million records!

Gramophone.

Progress did not bypass Russia either - in 1902, the first eight recordings of the legendary Russian singer Fyodor Chaliapin were made using Berliner equipment. However, the gramophone did not escape radical modernization - in 1907, an employee of the French company "Pate" Guillon Kemmler (Kemmler) decided to place a bulky horn inside the gramophone. The new devices began to be called "gramophones" (after the name of the manufacturer) and significantly facilitated their carrying. Subsequently (starting from the 50s of the twentieth century), gramophones were replaced by more advanced electric players, which played light and practical vinyl discs. Vinyl records were made from a polymeric material called vinylite (in the USSR, from polyvinylchloride). The playback speed was reduced from 78 to 33 1/3 rpm, and the duration of the sound - up to half an hour for one side. This standard has become the most popular, although records of other formats, in particular, with a rotation speed of 45 revolutions per minute (the so-called forty-five), were widely used.

Magnetic recording as an alternative

The possibility of converting acoustic vibrations into electromagnetic ones was proven by Oberlin Smith, who outlined the principle of magnetic recording on steel wire in 1888. Thomas Edison was also involved here, for Smith's experiments with magnetic recording were inspired by a visit to Edison's famous laboratory. But it was not until 1896 that the Danish engineer Valdemar Poulsen managed to create a workable device called the telegraph. Steel wire served as a carrier. A patent for a telegraph phone was issued to Poulsen in 1898.

Telegraph.

The fundamental principle of analog sound recording by magnetizing the medium has remained unchanged since then. A signal from the amplifier is applied to the recording head, along which the carrier passes at a constant speed (later it became a more convenient tape), as a result, the carrier is magnetized in accordance with the audio signal. During playback, the carrier passes along the reproducing head, inducing a weak electrical signal in it, which, amplified, enters the speaker. Magnetic film was patented in Germany by Fritz Pfleumer in the mid-1920s. At first, the tape was made on a paper basis, and later on a polymer one. In the mid-30s of the twentieth century, the German company BASF launched the serial production of a tape recorder, created from carbonyl iron powder or from magnetite on a diacetate basis. Around the same time, AEG launched a studio tape recorder for radio broadcasting. The device was called "tape recorder", in Russian it was transformed into a "tape recorder". The principle of "high-frequency bias" (when a high-frequency component is added to the recorded signal) was proposed in 1940 by German engineers Braunmull and Weber - this gave a significant improvement in sound quality.

The first "Walkman" cassette player.

Reel-to-reel tape recorders have been used since the 1930s. In the late 50s, cartridges appeared, but nevertheless, compact and convenient cassette recorders gained the greatest popularity. The first "cassette" was created by the Dutch company Philips in 1961. The peak of the development of tape recorders should be considered the appearance of Sony players of the brand "Walkman" in 1979. These small, non-recordable devices made a splash because now you could listen to your favorite music on the go, playing sports, and so on. In addition, the person with the player did not interfere with others, because he listened to audio recordings in headphones. Later, players with the ability to record appeared.

Digital Invasion

The rapid development of computer technology in the late 70s of the twentieth century led to the emergence of the possibility of storing and reading any information in digital form from appropriate media. And here the development of digital audio recording has gone in two ways. At first, the compact disc appeared and received the widest distribution. Later, with the advent of capacious hard drives, player programs that played compressed audio recordings went to the masses. As a result, the development of flash technologies at the beginning of the 21st century led to the fact that compact discs (meaning the Audio-CD format) were under the threat of oblivion, as happened with records and cassettes.

A rapidly outdated Audio-CD.

However, let's go back to 1979, when Philips and Sony "figured out" the production of laser discs for two. Sony, by the way, introduced its signal encoding method - PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) which was used in digital tape recorders. The latter were abbreviated DAT (Digital Audio Tape) and were used for professional studio recording. Mass production of CDs started in 1982 in Germany. Gradually, optical discs are no longer exclusively carriers of audio recordings. CD-ROM appears, and then CD-R and CD-RW, where it was already possible to store any digital information. On CD-R, it could be written once, and on CD-RW, it could be written and rewritten many times using the appropriate drives. Information on a CD is recorded as a spiral track of "pits" (recesses) extruded on a polycarbonate substrate. Reading / writing data is carried out using a laser beam. Information compression algorithms have helped to significantly reduce the size of digital audio files without much loss to human auditory perception. The MP3 format has become the most widespread, and now all compact digital music players are called MP3 players, although they certainly support other formats, in particular, also quite popular WMA and OGG. The MP3 format (short for English MPEG-1/2/2.5 Layer 3) is also supported by any modern models of music centers and DVD players. It uses a lossy compression algorithm that is insignificant for human ear perception. An MP3 file with an average bitrate of 128 kbps is about 1/10 the size of an original Audio-CD file. The MP3 format was developed by the Fraunhofer Institute Working Group led by Karlheinz Brandenburg in collaboration with AT&T Bell Labs and Thomson. MP3 is based on the experimental codec ASPEC (Adaptive Spectral Perceptual Entropy Coding). L3Enc was the first MP3 encoder (released in the summer of 1994) and the first software MP3 player was Winplay3 (1995).

And yet they turn...

MP3 player... one of many.

The ability to download a very large number of digital tracks to a computer or player, their quick sorting, deletion and re-recording have made compressed digital music a mass phenomenon that even the giants of the sound industry, who have been suffering losses from falling demand for Audio-CD for many years, cannot fight. . And yet, despite the fact that reels and cassettes have already become a thing of the past, the future of optical discs as media looks very promising. Yes, technologies have changed radically, but today, just like more than a hundred years ago, discs are spinning in order to please people with the next musical creation. The principle of spiral recording works perfectly to this day.

Today, the main recording methods include:
- mechanical
- magnetic
- optical and magneto-optical sound recording
- write to solid-state semiconductor flash memory

Attempts to create devices that could reproduce sounds were made in ancient Greece. In IV-II centuries BC. e. there existed theaters of self-moving figures - androids. The movements of some of them were accompanied by mechanically extracted sounds that formed melody.

During the Renaissance, a number of different mechanical musical instruments were created that reproduce this or that melody at the right time: barrel organ, music boxes, boxes, snuff boxes.

Musical hurdy-gurdy works as follows. Sounds are created using steel thin plates of various lengths and thicknesses placed in an acoustic box. To extract the sound, a special drum with protruding pins is used, the location of which on the surface of the drum corresponds to the intended melody. With uniform rotation of the drum, the pins touch the plates in a given sequence. By rearranging the pins in advance to other places, you can change the melodies. The organ grinder himself activates the hurdy-gurdy by turning the handle.

Music boxes use a metal disk with a deep spiral groove to pre-record the melody. In certain places of the groove, dotted recesses are made - pits, the location of which corresponds to the melody. When the disk, driven by a clock spring mechanism, rotates, a special metal needle slides along the groove and "reads" the sequence of applied dots. The needle is attached to a membrane that makes a sound each time the needle enters the groove.

In the Middle Ages, chimes were created - a tower or large room clock with a musical mechanism that strikes in a certain melodic sequence of tones or performs small pieces of music. These are the Kremlin chimes and Big Ben in London.

Musical mechanical instruments are just automatic machines that reproduce artificially created sounds. The task of preserving the sounds of living life for a long time was solved much later.

Many centuries before the invention of mechanical sound recording, musical notation appeared - a graphic way of depicting musical works on paper (Fig. 1). In ancient times, melodies were recorded in letters, and modern musical notation (with the designation of the pitch of sounds, the duration of tones, tonality and musical lines) began to develop from the 12th century. At the end of the 15th century, music printing was invented, when notes began to be printed from a set, like books.

Rice. 1. Music notation

It was possible to record and then reproduce recorded sounds only in the second half of the 19th century after the invention of mechanical sound recording.

mechanical sound recording

In 1877, the American scientist Thomas Alva Edison invented the phonograph, the first recording device to record the sound of the human voice. For mechanical recording and reproduction of sound, Edison used rollers covered with tin foil (Fig. 2). Such backing rolls were hollow cylinders about 5 cm in diameter and 12 cm long.

Edison Thomas Alva (1847-1931), American inventor and entrepreneur.

Author of more than 1000 inventions in the field of electrical engineering and communications. He invented the world's first sound recording device - the phonograph, improved the incandescent lamp, telegraph and telephone, built the world's first public power station in 1882, discovered the phenomenon of thermionic emission in 1883, which subsequently led to the creation of electronic or radio tubes.

In the first phonograph, a metal roller was rotated by a crank, moving axially with each revolution due to a screw thread on the drive shaft. Tin foil (staniol) was applied to the roller. It was touched by a steel needle connected to a parchment membrane. A metal cone horn was attached to the membrane. When recording and playing sound, the roller had to be rotated manually at a speed of 1 revolution per minute. When the roller rotated in the absence of sound, the needle extruded a spiral groove (or groove) of constant depth on the foil. When the membrane vibrated, the needle was pressed into the tin in accordance with the perceived sound, creating a groove of variable depth. So the method of "deep recording" was invented.

At the first test of his apparatus, Edison pulled the foil tightly over the cylinder, brought the needle to the surface of the cylinder, carefully began to rotate the handle and sang the first stanza of the children's song "Mary had a sheep" into the mouthpiece. Then he took the needle away, returned the cylinder to its original position with the handle, put the needle into the drawn groove and again began to rotate the cylinder. And from the mouthpiece, a children's song sounded softly, but clearly.

In 1885, the American inventor Charles Tainter (1854-1940) developed the graphophone—a foot-operated phonograph (like a foot-operated sewing machine)—and replaced the tin roll sheets with wax. Edison bought Tainter's patent, and instead of foil rolls, removable wax rolls were used for recording. The pitch of the sound groove was about 3 mm, so the recording time per roll was very short.

Edison used the same apparatus, the phonograph, to record and reproduce sound.

Rice. 2 Edison Phonograph

Rice. 3. T.A. Edison with his phonograph

The main disadvantages of wax rollers are their fragility and the impossibility of mass replication. Each entry existed in only one copy.

In almost unchanged form, the phonograph existed for several decades. As a device for recording musical works, it ceased to be produced at the end of the first decade of the 20th century, but for almost 15 years it was used as a voice recorder. Rollers for it were produced until 1929.

After 10 years, in 1887, the inventor of the gramophone, E. Berliner, replaced the rollers with disks from which copies can be made - metal matrices. With their help, well-known gramophone records were pressed (Fig. 4 a.). One matrix made it possible to print a whole circulation - at least 500 records. This was the main advantage of Berliner's records over Edison's wax rollers, which could not be replicated. Unlike Edison's phonograph, Berliner developed one apparatus for sound recording - a recorder, and another for sound reproduction - a gramophone.

Instead of deep recording, transverse recording was used, i.e. the needle left a tortuous trace of constant depth. Subsequently, the membrane was replaced by highly sensitive microphones that convert sound vibrations into electrical vibrations and electronic amplifiers.

Rice. 4(a). Gramophone and record

Rice. 4(b). American inventor Emil Berliner

Emil Berliner (1851-1929) German-born American inventor. Immigrated to the USA in 1870. In 1877, after the invention of the telephone by Alexander Bell, he made several inventions in the field of telephony, and then turned his attention to the problems of sound recording. He replaced the wax roller used by Edison with a flat disc - a gramophone record - and developed a technology for its mass production. Edison commented on the invention of Berliner as follows: "This machine has no future" and remained an implacable opponent of the disk sound carrier until the end of his life.

Berliner first demonstrated the prototype of the record matrix at the Franklin Institute. It was a zinc circle with an engraved phonogram. The inventor covered the zinc disk with wax paste, recorded sound on it in the form of sound grooves, and then etched it with acid. The result was a metal copy of the recording. Later, a layer of copper was added to the wax-coated disc by electroplating. Such a copper "cast" keeps the sound grooves convex. Copies are made from this electroplating disc - positive and negative. Negative copies are matrices from which up to 600 records can be printed. The record obtained in this way had a higher volume and better quality. Berliner demonstrated such records in 1888, and this year can be considered the beginning of the era of recordings.

Five years later, a method was developed for galvanic replication from the positive of a zinc disk, as well as a technology for pressing gramophone records using a steel printing matrix. Initially, Berliner made gramophone records from celluloid, rubber, and ebonite. Soon, ebonite was replaced by a composite mass based on shellac, a waxy substance produced by tropical insects. The plates became better and cheaper, but their main drawback was their low mechanical strength. Shellac records were produced until the middle of the 20th century, in recent years - in parallel with long-playing ones.

Until 1896, the disc had to be rotated by hand, and this was the main obstacle to the widespread use of gramophones. Emil Berliner announced a competition for a spring engine - inexpensive, technologically advanced, reliable and powerful. And such an engine was designed by mechanic Eldridge Johnson, who came to Berliner's company. From 1896 to 1900 about 25,000 of these engines were produced. Only then did Berliner's gramophone become widespread.

The first records were single-sided. In 1903, a 12-inch double-sided disc was released for the first time. It could be "played" in a gramophone using a mechanical pickup - a needle and a membrane. Sound amplification was achieved using a bulky bell. Later, a portable gramophone was developed: a gramophone with a bell hidden in the case (Fig. 5).

Rice. 5. Gramophone

The gramophone (from the name of the French company "Pathe") had the form of a portable suitcase. The main disadvantages of records were their fragility, poor sound quality and short playing time - only 3-5 minutes (at a speed of 78 rpm). In the pre-war years, stores even accepted "battle" records for recycling. Gramophone needles had to be changed frequently. The plate was rotated with the help of a spring motor, which had to be "started" with a special handle. However, due to its modest size and weight, simplicity of design and independence from the electrical network, the gramophone has become very widespread among lovers of classical, pop and dance music. Until the middle of our century, it was an indispensable accessory for home parties and country trips. Records were produced in three standard sizes: minion, grand and giant.

The gramophone was replaced by an electrophone, better known as a player (Fig. 7). Instead of a spring motor, it uses an electric motor to rotate the record, and instead of a mechanical pickup, first a piezoelectric one was used, and later a better one - a magnetic one.

Rice. 6. Gramophone with electromagnetic adapter

Rice. 7. Player

These pickups convert the vibrations of the stylus running along the soundtrack of the record into an electrical signal, which, after being amplified in an electronic amplifier, enters the loudspeaker. And in 1948-1952 the fragile gramophone records were replaced by the so-called "long-playing" ("long play") - more durable, almost unbreakable, and most importantly, providing a much longer playing time. This was achieved by narrowing and bringing together sound tracks, as well as by reducing the number of revolutions from 78 to 45, and more often to 33 1/3 revolutions per minute. The quality of sound reproduction during playback of such records has increased significantly. In addition, since 1958, they began to produce stereophonic records that create the effect of surround sound. The turntable stylus has also become significantly more durable. They began to be made from hard materials, and they completely replaced the short-lived gramophone needles. Recording of gramophone records was carried out only in special recording studios. In 1940-1950 in Moscow on Gorky Street there was such a studio where for a small fee it was possible to record a small disc with a diameter of 15 centimeters - a sound "hello" to your relatives or friends. In those same years, on handicraft sound recording devices, jazz music records and thieves' songs, which were persecuted in those years, were clandestinely recorded. Used X-ray film served as the material for them. These plates were called "on the ribs", because bones were visible on them in the light. The sound quality on them was terrible, but in the absence of other sources they were very popular, especially among young people.

magnetic sound recording

In 1898, the Danish engineer Voldemar Paulsen (1869-1942) invented an apparatus for magnetically recording sound on steel wire. He called it "telegraph". However, the disadvantage of using wire as a carrier was the problem of connecting its individual pieces. It was impossible to tie them with a knot, since it did not pass through the magnetic head. In addition, steel wire is easily tangled, and a thin steel tape cuts hands. In general, it was not suitable for operation.

Later, Paulsen invented a method of magnetic recording on a rotating steel disk, where information was recorded in a spiral by a moving magnetic head. Here it is, the prototype of a floppy disk and a hard disk (hard drive), which are so widely used in modern computers! In addition, Paulsen proposed and even implemented the first answering machine with the help of his telegraph.

Rice. 8. Voldemar Paulsen

In 1927, F. Pfleimer developed a technology for manufacturing a magnetic tape on a non-magnetic basis. On the basis of this development, in 1935, the German electrical company "AEG" and the chemical company "IG Farbenindustri" demonstrated at the German radio exhibition a magnetic tape on a plastic base coated with iron powder. Mastered in industrial production, it cost 5 times cheaper than steel, it was much lighter, and most importantly, it made it possible to connect pieces by simple gluing. To use the new magnetic tape, a new sound recording device was developed, which received the brand name "Magnetofon". It became the common name for such devices.

In 1941, German engineers Braunmüll and Weber created a ring magnetic head in combination with ultrasonic bias for sound recording. This made it possible to significantly reduce noise and obtain a record of much higher quality than mechanical and optical recordings (developed by that time for sound films).

Magnetic tape is suitable for repeated sound recording. The number of such records is practically unlimited. It is determined only by the mechanical strength of the new information carrier - magnetic tape.

Thus, the owner of a tape recorder, in comparison with a gramophone, not only got the opportunity to reproduce sound recorded once and for all on a gramophone record, but now he could also record sound on magnetic tape, and not in a recording studio, but at home or in a concert hall. It was this remarkable property of magnetic sound recording that ensured the wide distribution of the songs of Bulat Okudzhava, Vladimir Vysotsky and Alexander Galich during the years of the communist dictatorship. It was enough for one amateur to record these songs at their concerts in some club, as this recording spread with lightning speed among many thousands of fans. After all, with the help of two tape recorders, you can copy a record from one magnetic tape to another.

Vladimir Vysotsky recalled that when he first came to Tolyatti and walked along its streets, he heard his hoarse voice from the windows of many houses.

The first tape recorders were reel-to-reel (reel-to-reel) - in them, the magnetic film was wound on reels (Fig. 9). During recording and playback, the film was rewound from a full reel to an empty one. Before starting recording or playback, it was necessary to "load" the tape, i.e. stretch the free end of the film past the magnetic heads and fix it on an empty reel.

Rice. 9. Reel-to-reel tape recorder with magnetic tape on reels

After the end of World War II, starting in 1945, magnetic recording became widespread throughout the world. On American radio, magnetic recording was first used in 1947 to broadcast a concert by popular singer Bing Crosby. In this case, parts of a captured German apparatus were used, which was brought to the United States by an enterprising American soldier demobilized from occupied Germany. Bing Crosby then invested in the production of tape recorders. In 1950, 25 models of tape recorders were already on sale in the USA.

The first two-track tape recorder was released by the German company AEG in 1957, and in 1959 this company released the first four-track tape recorder.

At first, tape recorders were tube, and only in 1956 the Japanese company Sony created the first completely transistorized tape recorder.

Later, cassette tape recorders replaced reel-to-reel tape recorders. The first such device was developed by Philips in 1961-1963. In it, both miniature spools - with a magnetic film and an empty one - are placed in a special compact cassette and the end of the film is pre-fixed on an empty spool (Fig. 10). Thus, the process of charging a tape recorder with a film is significantly simplified. The first compact cassettes were released by Philips in 1963. And even later, two-cassette tape recorders appeared, in which the process of rewriting from one cassette to another was simplified as much as possible. Recording on compact cassettes - two-sided. They are issued for the recording time of 60, 90 and 120 minutes (on both sides).

Rice. 10. Cassette recorder and compact cassette

Based on the standard compact cassette, Sony has developed a portable player "player" the size of a postcard (Fig. 11). You can put it in your pocket or attach it to your belt, listen to it while walking or on the subway. It was called Walkman, i.e. "man walking", relatively cheap, was in great demand in the market and for some time was a favorite "toy" of young people.

Rice. 11. Cassette player

The compact cassette "taken root" not only on the street, but also in cars for which the car radio was released. It is a combination radio and cassette recorder.

In addition to the compact cassette, a microcassette (Fig. 12) the size of a matchbox was created for portable voice recorders and telephones with an answering machine.

Dictaphone (from Latin dicto - I speak, I dictate) is a kind of tape recorder for recording speech with the aim, for example, of subsequent printing of its text.

Rice. 12. Microcassette

All mechanical cassette recorders contain more than 100 parts, some of which are movable. The recording head and electrical contacts wear out over several years. The hinged lid also breaks easily. Cassette recorders use an electric motor to pull the tape past the record heads.

Digital voice recorders differ from mechanical voice recorders by the complete absence of moving parts. They use solid-state flash memory as a carrier instead of magnetic tape.

Digital voice recorders convert an audio signal (such as a voice) into a digital code and record it on a memory chip. The operation of such a recorder is controlled by a microprocessor. The absence of a tape drive, recording and erasing heads greatly simplifies the design of digital voice recorders and makes it more reliable. For ease of use, they are equipped with a liquid crystal display. The main advantages of digital voice recorders are the almost instantaneous search for the desired recording and the ability to transfer the recording to a personal computer, in which you can not only store these recordings, but also edit them, re-record without the help of a second voice recorder, etc.

Optical discs (optical recording)

In 1979, Philips and Sony created a completely new storage medium that replaced the record - an optical disc (compact disc - Compact Disk - CD) for recording and playing sound. In 1982, mass production of CDs began at a factory in Germany. A significant contribution to the popularization of the CD was made by Microsoft and Apple Computer.

Compared to mechanical sound recording, it has a number of advantages - a very high recording density and the complete absence of mechanical contact between the carrier and the reader during recording and playback. Using a laser beam, signals are digitally recorded on a rotating optical disc.

As a result of recording, a spiral track is formed on the disc, consisting of depressions and smooth areas. In playback mode, a laser beam focused on a track travels across the surface of a rotating optical disc and reads the recorded information. In this case, the cavities are read as zeros, and the areas that evenly reflect light are read as ones. The digital recording method provides almost complete absence of interference and high sound quality. The high recording density is achieved due to the ability to focus the laser beam into a spot smaller than 1 µm. This ensures long recording and playback times.

Rice. 13. Optical disc CD

In late 1999, Sony announced a new Super Audio CD (SACD) medium. At the same time, the technology of the so-called "direct digital stream" DSD (Direct Stream Digital) was used. A frequency response of 0 to 100 kHz and a sampling rate of 2.8224 MHz provide a significant improvement in sound quality over conventional CDs. Due to the much higher sampling rate, filters are no longer needed during recording and playback, as the human ear perceives this stepped signal as a "smooth" analog one. This ensures compatibility with the existing CD format. New HD single layer discs, HD dual layer discs, and hybrid HD dual layer discs and CDs are being released.

It is much better to store sound recordings in digital form on optical discs than in analog form on phonograph records or tape cassettes. First of all, the longevity of records is disproportionately increased. After all, optical discs are practically eternal - they are not afraid of small scratches, the laser beam does not damage them when playing records. So, Sony gives a 50-year warranty on data storage on disks. In addition, CDs do not suffer from the interference typical of mechanical and magnetic recording, so the sound quality of digital optical discs is incommensurably better. In addition, with digital recording, there is the possibility of computer sound processing, which allows, for example, to restore the original sound of old mono recordings, remove noise and distortion from them, and even turn them into stereo.

To play CDs, you can use players (so-called CD players), stereos, and even portable computers equipped with a special drive (so-called CD-ROM drive) and speakers. By now, there are more than 600 million CD players and more than 10 billion CDs in the hands of users in the world! Portable portable CD players, like magnetic compact cassette players, are equipped with headphones (Figure 14).

Rice. 14. CD player

Rice. 15. Radio with CD player and digital tuner

Rice. 16. Music center

Music CDs are recorded at the factory. Like phonograph records, they can only be listened to. However, in recent years, optical CDs have been developed for single (so-called CD-R) and multiple (so-called CD-RW) recording on a personal computer equipped with a special drive. This makes it possible to record on them in amateur conditions. CD-R discs can be recorded only once, but CD-RW discs can be recorded many times: like a tape recorder, you can erase the previous recording and make a new one in its place.

The digital recording method made it possible to combine text and graphics with sound and moving images on the personal computer. This technology is called "multimedia".

As storage media in such multimedia computers, optical CD-ROMs (Compact Disk Read Only Memory - that is, read-only CD-ROM) are used. Outwardly, they do not differ from audio CDs used in players and music centers. Information in them is also recorded in digital form.

The existing CDs are being replaced by a new media standard - DVD (Digital Versatil Disc or General Purpose Digital Disc). In appearance, they are no different from CDs. Their geometric dimensions are the same. The main difference between a DVD disc is a much higher recording density of information. It holds 7-26 times more information. This is achieved due to the shorter laser wavelength and the smaller spot size of the focused beam, which made it possible to halve the distance between the tracks. In addition, DVDs may have one or two layers of information. They can be accessed by adjusting the position of the laser head. On a DVD, each layer of information is twice as thin as on a CD. Therefore, it is possible to connect two discs with a thickness of 0.6 mm into one with a standard thickness of 1.2 mm. This doubles the capacity. In total, the DVD standard provides for 4 modifications: single-sided, single-layer 4.7 GB (133 minutes), single-sided, double-layer 8.8 GB (241 minutes), double-sided, single-layer 9.4 GB (266 minutes) and double-sided, dual-layer 17 GB (482 minutes). Minutes in parentheses are high digital quality video programs with digital multilingual surround sound. The new DVD standard is defined in such a way that future readers will be designed to play all previous generations of CDs, ie. respecting the principle of backward compatibility. The DVD standard allows for significantly longer playback times and improved quality of video playback compared to existing CD-ROMs and LD Video CDs.

The DVD-ROM and DVD-Video formats appeared in 1996, and later the DVD-audio format was developed to record high quality sound.

DVD drives are somewhat advanced CD-ROM drives.

CD and DVD optical discs became the first digital media and storage media for recording and reproducing sound and images.

History of flash memory

The history of the appearance of flash memory cards is connected with the history of mobile digital devices that can be carried with you in a bag, in the breast pocket of a jacket or shirt, or even as a key chain around your neck.

These are miniature MP3 players, digital voice recorders, photo and video cameras, smartphones and personal digital assistants - PDAs, modern models of cell phones. Small in size, these devices needed to expand the capacity of the built-in memory in order to write and read information.

Such a memory should be universal and be used to record any kind of information in digital form: sound, text, images - drawings, photographs, video information.

The first company to manufacture flash memory and put it on the market was Intel. In 1988, 256 kbit flash memory was demonstrated, which was the size of a shoebox. It was built according to the logical scheme NOR (in Russian transcription - NOT-OR).

NOR flash memory has relatively slow write and delete speeds, and the number of write cycles is relatively low (about 100,000). Such flash memory can be used when near-permanent data storage with very infrequent overwriting is needed, for example, to store the operating system of digital cameras and mobile phones.

NOR flash memory from Intel

The second type of flash memory was invented in 1989 by Toshiba. It is built according to the NAND logic circuit (in Russian transcription Ne-I). The new memory was supposed to be a less expensive and faster alternative to NOR flash. Compared to NOR, NAND technology provided ten times the number of write cycles, as well as faster speeds for both writing and deleting data. Yes, and NAND memory cells are half the size of NOR memory, which leads to the fact that more memory cells can be placed on a certain area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe crystal.

The name "flash" (flash) was introduced by Toshiba, as it is possible to instantly erase the contents of the memory ("in a flash"). Unlike magnetic, optical and magneto-optical memory, it does not require the use of disk drives using complex precision mechanics and does not contain a single moving part at all. This is its main advantage over all other information carriers and therefore the future belongs to it. But the most important advantage of such a memory, of course, is the storage of data without power supply, i.e. energy independence.

Flash memory is a microchip on a silicon chip. It is based on the principle of maintaining an electric charge in the memory cells of a transistor for a long time using the so-called "floating gate" in the absence of electrical power. Its full name Flash Erase EEPROM (Electronically Erasable Programmable ROM) translates as "fast electrically erasable programmable read-only memory". Its elementary cell, which stores one bit of information, is not an electrical capacitor, but a field-effect transistor with a specially electrically isolated area - a "floating gate" (floating gate). An electric charge placed in this region is capable of being stored for an indefinitely long time. When one bit of information is written, the unit cell is charged, an electrical charge is placed on the floating gate. When erasing, this charge is removed from the shutter and the cell is discharged. Flash-memory is a non-volatile memory that allows you to save information in the absence of electrical power. It does not consume energy when storing information.

The four most famous flash memory formats are CompactFlash, MultiMediaCard (MMC), SecureDigital and Memory Stick.

CompactFlash appeared in 1994. It was released by SanDisk. Its dimensions were 43x36x3.3 mm, and the capacity was 16 MB of flash memory. In 2006, 16 GB CompactFlash cards were announced.

MultiMediaCard appeared in 1997. It was developed by Siemens AG and Transcend. Compared to CompactFlash, MMC type cards had smaller dimensions - 24x32x1.5 mm. They were used in mobile phones (especially in models with a built-in MP3 player). The RS-MMC standard (i.e. "Reduced size MMC" appeared in 2004. RS-MMC cards had a size of 24x18x1.5 mm and could be used with an adapter where old MMC cards were previously used .

There are standards for MMCmicro cards (the dimensions are only 12x14x1.1 mm) and MMC +, which is characterized by an increased information transfer rate. At present, MMC cards with a capacity of 2 GB have been issued.

Matsushita Electric Co, SanDick Co and Toshiba Co have developed SD - Secure Digital Memory Card flash memory cards. The association with these companies includes such giants as Intel and IBM. This SD memory is produced by Panasonic, part of the Matsushita concern.

Like the two standards described above, SecureDigital (SD) is open. It was created on the basis of the MultiMediaCard standard, adopting the electrical and mechanical components from the MMC. The difference is in the number of contacts: MultiMediaCard had 7, and SecureDigital had 9. However, the relationship of the two standards allows the use of MMC cards instead of SD (but not vice versa, since SD cards have a different thickness - 32x24x2.1 mm).

Along with the SD standard came miniSD and microSD. Cards of this format can be installed both in the miniSD slot and in the SD slot, however, with the help of a special adapter that allows you to use the mini-card in the same way as a regular SD card. miniSD card dimensions are 20x21.5x1.4mm.

miniSD cards

microSD cards are currently one of the smallest flash cards - their dimensions are 11x15x1 mm. The main scope of these cards are multimedia mobile phones and communicators. Through an adapter, microSD cards can be used in devices with slots for miniSD and SecureDigital flash media.

microSD card

The capacity of SD flash cards has increased to 8 GB or more.

Memory Stick is a typical example of a closed standard developed by Sony in 1998. The developer of the closed standard takes care of its promotion and compatibility with portable devices. This means a significant narrowing of the distribution of the standard and its further development, since slots (that is, places for installing) Memory Stick are only in products under the brands Sony and Sony Ericsson.

In addition to Memory Stick media, the family includes Memory Stick PRO, Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick PRO Duo, Memory Stick PRO-HG, and Memory Stick Micro (M2) media.

Memory Stick dimensions - 50x21.5x2.8 mm, weight - 4 grams, and the memory capacity - technologically could not exceed 128 MB. The appearance of Memory Stick PRO in 2003 was dictated by Sony's desire to give users more memory (the theoretical maximum of this type of card is 32 GB).

Memory Stick Duo cards are distinguished by their reduced size (20x31x1.6 mm) and weight (2 grams); they are focused on the PDA and mobile phone market. The higher capacity variant is called the Memory Stick PRO Duo - in January 2007 an 8 GB card was announced.

Memory Stick Micro (size - 15x12.5x1.2 mm) are designed for modern models of mobile phones. The memory size can reach (theoretically) 32 GB, and the maximum data transfer rate is 16 MB/s. M2 cards can be connected to devices that support Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick PRO Duo and SecureDigital using a dedicated adapter. There are already models with 2 GB of memory.

xD-Picture Card is another representative of a closed standard. Introduced in 2002. Actively supported and promoted by Fuji and Olympus, whose digital cameras use the xD-Picture Card. xD stands for extreme digital. The capacity of cards of this standard has already reached 2 GB. xD-Picture Cards do not have an integrated controller, unlike most other standards. This has a positive effect on the size (20 x 25 x 1.78 mm), but gives a low data transfer rate. In the future, it is planned to increase the capacity of this media to 8 GB. Such a significant increase in the capacity of a miniature carrier was made possible by the use of multilayer technology.

In today's highly competitive market for flash memory replacement cards, new media must be compatible with users' existing equipment designed for other flash memory formats. Therefore, simultaneously with flash memory cards, adapter adapters and external readers, the so-called card readers, connected to the USB input of a personal computer, were released. Individual ones are produced (for a certain type of flash memory cards, as well as universal card readers for 3,4,5 and even 8 different types of flash memory cards). They are a USB drive - a miniature box in which there are slots for one or several types of cards at once, and a connector for connecting to the USB input of a personal computer.

Universal card reader for reading several types of flash cards

Sony has released a USB flash drive with a built-in fingerprint scanner to protect against unauthorized access.

Along with flash cards, flash drives, the so-called "flash drives", are also produced. They are equipped with a standard USB connector and can be directly connected to the USB input of a PC or laptop.

Flash drive with USB-2 connector

Their capacity reaches 1, 2, 4, 8, 10 or more gigabytes, and the price has recently dropped sharply. They have almost completely replaced standard floppy disks, which require a drive with rotating parts and have a capacity of only 1.44 MB.

On the basis of flash cards, digital photo frames have been created, which are digital photo albums. They are equipped with a liquid crystal display and allow you to view digital photographs, for example, in a slide film mode, in which photographs replace each other at certain intervals, as well as enlarge photographs and view their individual details. They are equipped with remote controls and speakers that allow you to listen to music and voice explanations for photos. With a memory capacity of 64 MB, they can store 500 photos.

History of MP3 players

The impetus for the appearance of MP3 players was the development in the mid-80s of an audio compression format at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany. In 1989, Fraunhofer received a patent for the MP3 compression format in Germany and a few years later it was granted by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). MPEG (Moving Pictures Experts Group) is the name of an ISO expert group that works to create standards for encoding and compressing video and audio data. The standards prepared by the committee are given the same name. MP3 is officially called MPEG-1 Layer3. This format made it possible to store audio information compressed dozens of times without a noticeable loss in playback quality.

The second most important impetus for MP3 players was the development of portable flash memory. The Fraunhofer Institute developed the first MP3 player in the early 1990s. Then came the Eiger Labs MPMan F10 player and the Rio PMP300 player from Diamond Multimedia. All early players used built-in flash memory (32 or 64 MB) and connected via a parallel port rather than USB.

MP3 became the first mass-accepted audio storage format after CD-Audio. MP3 players were also developed based on hard drives, including those based on the miniature IBM MicroDrive hard drive. One of the pioneers in the use of hard disk drives (HDDs) was Apple. In 2001, she released the first iPod MP3 player with a 5 GB hard drive that could store about 1,000 songs.

It provided 12 hours of battery life thanks to a lithium polymer battery. The dimensions of the first iPod were 100x62x18 mm and the weight was 184 grams. The first iPod was only available to Macintosh users. the next version of the iPod, which appeared six months after the release of the first, already included two options - iPod for Windows and iPod for Mac OS. The new iPods received a touch wheel instead of a mechanical one and were available in 5GB, 10GB and later 20GB versions.

Several generations of iPod have changed, in each of them the characteristics have gradually improved, for example, the screen has become color, but the hard drive is still used.

In the future, they began to use flash memory for MP3 players. They have become more miniature, reliable, durable and cheap, they have taken the form of miniature key chains that can be worn around the neck, in the breast pocket of a shirt, in a handbag. The function of an MP3 player began to be performed by many models of cell phones, smartphones, and PDAs.

Apple has introduced a new MP3 player iPod Nano. It replaces the hard drive with flash memory.

It allowed:

Make the player much more compact - flash memory is smaller than a hard drive;
- Reduce the risk of failures and breakdowns by completely eliminating moving parts in the player's mechanism;
- Save on battery, because flash memory consumes much less electricity than a hard drive;
- Increase the speed of information transfer.

The player has become much lighter (42 grams instead of 102) and more compact (8.89 x 4.06 x 0.69 vs. 9.1 x 5.1 x 1.3 cm), a color display has appeared that allows you to view photos and show the album image during its playback. The memory capacity is 2 GB, 4 GB, 8 GB.

At the end of 2007, Apple introduced a new line of iPod players:

iPod nano, iPod classic, iPod touch.
- iPod nano with flash memory can now play video on a 2-inch display with a resolution of 320x204 mm.
- iPod classic with 80GB or 160GB hard drive allows you to listen to music for 40 hours and show movies for 7 hours.
- iPod touch with a 3.5-inch widescreen touch screen allows you to control the player with finger movements (English touch) and watch movies and TV shows. With this player, you can surf the Internet and download music and videos. To do this, it has a built-in Wi-Fi module.