 An Edison Gold Mould cylinder record, taken out of its storing tube (left), from c. 1900s | |
| Capacity | 2 minutes |
|---|---|
| Released | c. 1888 |
| Discontinued | 1929 |
Phonograph cylinders (also referred to asEdison cylinders after its creatorThomas Edison) are the earliest commercial medium forrecording and reproducing sound. Commonly known simply as "records" in their heyday (c. 1896–1916), a name which has been passed on totheir disc-shaped successor, these hollowcylindrical objects have an audio recording engraved on the outside surface which can be reproduced when they are played on a mechanical cylinderphonograph.[1] The first cylinders were wrapped withtin foil[2] but the improved version made ofwax was created a decade later,[3] after which they were commercialized. In the 1910s, the competing disc record systemtriumphed in the marketplace to become the dominant commercial audio medium.[4]
In December 1877,[5]Thomas Edison and his team invented thephonograph using a thin sheet oftin foil wrapped around a hand-cranked, grooved metal cylinder.[6] Tin foil was not a practical recording medium for either commercial or artistic purposes, and the crude hand-cranked phonograph was only marketed as a novelty, to little or no profit. Edison moved on to developing a practicalincandescent electric light, and the next improvements tosound recording technology were made by others.[4]
Following seven years of research and experimentation at theirVolta Laboratory,Charles Sumner Tainter,Alexander Graham Bell, andChichester Bell introducedwax as the recording medium, and engraving, rather than indenting, as the recording method. In 1887, their "Graphophone" system was being put to the test of practical use by official reporters of theUS Congress, with commercial units later being produced by theDictaphone Corporation.[7] After this system was demonstrated to Edison's representatives, Edison quickly resumed work on the phonograph. He settled on a thicker all-wax cylinder, the surface of which could be repeatedly shaved down for reuse. Both the Graphophone and Edison's "Perfected Phonograph" were commercialized in 1888. Eventually, a patent-sharing agreement was signed, and the wax-coated cardboard tubes were abandoned in favor of Edison's all-wax cylinders as an interchangeable standard format.[8]
Beginning in 1889, prerecorded wax cylinders were marketed. These have professionally made recordings of songs, instrumental music or humorous monologues in their grooves. At first, the only customers for them were proprietors ofnickelodeons—the firstjukeboxes—installed in arcades and taverns, but within a few years, private owners of phonographs were increasingly buying them for home use.[9] Unlike later, shorter-playing high-speed cylinders, early cylinder recordings were usually cut at a speed of about 120 rpm and can play for as long as three minutes.[5] They were made of a relatively soft wax formulation and would wear out after they were played a few dozen times.[10] The buyer could then use a mechanism which left their surfaces shaved smooth so new recordings could be made on them.[11]
Cylinder machines of the late 1880s and the 1890s were usually sold with recording attachments. The ability to record as well as play back sound was an advantage of cylinder phonographs over the competition from cheaperdisc record phonographs, which began to be mass-marketed at the end of the 1890s, as the disc system machines could be used only to play back prerecorded sound.[11]
In the earliest stages of phonograph manufacturing, various incompatible, competing types of cylinder recordings were made. A standard system was decided upon byEdison Records,Columbia Phonograph, and other companies in the late 1880s. The standard cylinders are about 4 inches (10 cm) long,2+1⁄4 inches (5.7 cm) in diameter, and play about two minutes of recorded material.[10]
Originally, all cylinders sold needed to be recorded live on the softer brown wax, which wore out after as few as 20 plays. Later cylinders were reproduced either mechanically or by linking phonographs together with rubber tubes.[12]
Over the years, the type of wax used in cylinders was improved and hardened, so that cylinders could be played with good quality over 100 times. In 1902, Edison Records launched a line of improved, hard wax cylinders marketed as "Edison Gold Moulded Records". The major development of this line of cylinders is that Edison had developed a process that allowed amold to be made from a master cylinder, which then permitted the production of several hundred cylinders to be made from the mold.[13] The process was labeled "Gold Moulded" because of thegoldvapor that was given off by goldelectrodes used in the process.[5]
The earliest soft wax cylinders were sold wrapped in thick cottonbatting. Later, molded hard-wax cylinders were sold in boxes with a cotton lining.Celluloid cylinders were sold in unlined boxes. These protective boxes were normally kept and used to house the cylinders after purchase. Their general appearance allowed bandleaderJohn Philip Sousa to deride their contents as "canned music", an epithet he borrowed fromMark Twain.[14]
On March 20, 1900, Thomas B. Lambert was granted a US patent (645,920) that described a process for mass-producing cylinders made fromcelluloid, an early hard plastic. (Henri Jules Lioret [fr] of France was producing celluloid cylinders as early as 1893, but they were individually recorded rather than molded.) That same year, the Lambert Company of Chicago began selling cylinder records made of the material. They would not break if dropped and could be played thousands of times without wearing out. The color was changed to black in 1903, but brown and blue cylinders were also produced. The coloring was purportedly because the dyes reducedsurface noise. Unlike wax, the hard, inflexible material could not be shaved and recorded over, but it had the advantage of being nearly permanent.[15][16] A 1905 Edison Phonograph may be seen and heard playing a celluloid cylinder at theMusical Museum, Brentford, England and the quality of the sound is surprisingly good.[17]
This superior technology was licensed by the Indestructible Record Company[18] in 1906 andColumbia Phonograph Company in 1908. TheEdison Bell company in Europe had separately licensed the technology and were able to market Edison's titles in both wax (popular series) and celluloid (indestructible series).[19]
In late 1908, Edison had introduced wax cylinders that played for nominally four minutes (instead of the usual two) under theAmberol brand. They were made from a harder (and more fragile) form of wax to withstand the smaller stylus used to play them. The longer playing time was achieved by reducing the groove size and placing them half as far apart. In 1912, the Edison company eventually acquired Lambert's patents to the celluloid technology, and almost immediately started production under a variation of their existingAmberol brand asEdison Blue Amberol Records.[20]
Edison designed several phonograph types, both with internal and external horns for playing these improved cylinder records. The internal horn models were calledAmberolas. Edison marketed its "Fireside" model phonograph with a gearshift and a 'model K' reproducer with two different styli, which allowed it to play both two-minute and four-minute cylinders.[21]
Cylinder records continued to compete with the growing disc record market into the 1910s, when discs won the commercial battle. In 1912,Columbia Records, which had been selling both discs and cylinders, dropped the cylinder format, while Edison introduced hisDiamond Disc format, played with adiamond stylus. Beginning in 1915, new Edison cylinder issues consisted of acoustic dubbings from Edison disc masters; they therefore had lower audio quality than the disc originals. Although his cylinders continued to be sold in steadily dwindling and eventually minuscule quantities, Edison continued to support the owners of cylinder phonographs by making new titles available in that format until the company ceased manufacturing all records and phonographs in November 1929. Many of the later issued Blue Amberols were dubbed electrically from electrical recorded masters[22][5]
Cylinder phonograph technology continued to be used forDictaphone and Ediphone recordings for office use for decades.[23]
In 1947, Dictaphone replaced wax cylinders with theirDictabelt technology, which cut a mechanical groove into a plastic belt instead of into a wax cylinder. This was later replaced bymagnetic tape recording. However, cylinders for older style dictating machines continued to be available for some years, and it was not unusual to encounter cylinder dictating machines into the 1950s.[24]
In the late 20th and early 21st century, new recordings have been made on cylinders for thenovelty effect of using obsolete technology. Probably the most famous of these are byThey Might Be Giants, who in 1996 recorded "I Can Hear You" and three other songs, performed without electricity, on an 1898 Edison wax recording studio phonograph at theEdison National Historic Site inWest Orange, New Jersey. This song was released onFactory Showroom in 1996 and re-released on the 2002 compilationDial-A-Song: 20 Years of They Might Be Giants. The other songs recorded were "James K. Polk", "Maybe I Know", and "The Edison Museum", the last a song about the site of the recording. These recordings were officially released online as MP3 files in 2001.[25]
Small numbers of cylinders have been manufactured in the 21st century out of modern long-lasting materials. Two companies engaged in such enterprise are the Vulcan Cylinder Record Company ofSheffield, England,[26] and the Wizard Cylinder Records Company inBaldwin, New York.[27]
In 2010 the British musical groupThe Men That Will Not Be Blamed for Nothing released the track "Sewer", from their debut album,Now That's What I Call Steampunk! Volume 1 on a wax cylinder in a limited edition of 40, of which only 30 were put on sale. The box set came with instructions on how to make a cylinder player for less than £20. TheBBC covered the release on Television onBBC Click, onBBC Online, and onRadio 5 Live.[28]
In June 2017 the Cthulhu Breakfast Club podcast released a special limited wax cylinder edition of a show.[29]
In April 2019, the podcastHello Internet released ten limited edition wax cylinder recordings.[30]
In May 2023,Needlejuice Records released wax cylinder singles forLemon Demon songs "Touch-Tone Telephone" and "The Oldest Man On MySpace", from albumsSpirit Phone andDinosaurchestra, respectively.[31]
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Because of the nature of the recording medium, playback of many cylinders can cause degradation of the recording. The replay of cylinders diminishes their fidelity and degrades their recorded signals. Additionally, when exposed to humidity, mold can penetrate a cylinder's surface and cause the recording to have surface noise. Currently, the only professional machines manufactured for the playback of cylinder recordings are theArchéophone player, designed by Henri Chamoux and the "Endpoint Cylinder and Dictabelt Machine" by Nicholas Bergh.[32] The Archéophone is used by the Edison National Historic Site,Bowling Green State University (Bowling Green, Ohio), the Department of Special Collections at theUniversity of California, Santa Barbara Library, and many other libraries and archives, including the Endpoint byThe New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.[32]
In an attempt to preserve the historic content of the recordings, cylinders can be read with aconfocal microscope and converted to adigital audio format. The resulting sound clip in most cases sounds better than stylus playback from the original cylinder. Having an electronic version of the original recordings enables archivists to open access to the recordings to a wider audience. This technique also has the potential to allow for reconstruction of damaged or broken cylinders.[33]
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