The History of Modern Recording

Question 1

What was music recorded onto in the 1940’s?

Answer 1

Acetate disc

Question 2

What was one of the main issues with recording straight to acetate disc?

Answer 2

The recording process was difficult and the mix and performances would have to be perfect as once disc was cut you couldn’t change it

Question 3

When were the first tape based machines developed and by who?

Answer 3

Germans during the Second World War developed the first tape based machines

Question 4

What were he settings of the first tape based machines?

Answer 4

Mono
1 single track on 1/4” tape
Ran at 15 inches per second

Question 5

What is track bouncing?

Answer 5

Filling the 4 tracks on a reel of tape with audio, mixing them down into one track on another tape machine and then recording again on the other three tracks

Question 6

What are the issues with track bouncing?

Answer 6

Increase in noise when the process was repeated a few times. Lack of control in mixing

Question 7

What techniques did Les Paul develop with his custom made 8 track recorder?

Answer 7

Overdubbing
Multi tracking 
Track bouncing 
Recording effects and delays 
Varispeed operations

Question 8

What features came with the 1/2” 3 track tape I 1960?

Answer 8

Emergence of stereo recordings
Minimal panning options
Any use of panning was polarised panning: left, centre or right

Question 9

When were 4 track tape machines emerge?

Answer 9

1964

Question 10

What were the differences between AM and FM radios?

Answer 10

AM broadcasted in mono

FM broadcasted in stereo

Question 11

What tape advances happened during the 1970’s?

Answer 11

8 track tape machines were widespread
16 track using 2” tape was emerging
Promise of 24 track machines

Question 12

What were the main issues of increased track counts?

Answer 12

Build up of noise

Track bleed

Question 13

What is synchronisation and when was it introduced?

Answer 13

Synchronisation is combining the track count of 2 - 3 tape machines and was introduced in the late 70’s

Question 14

When was the compact disc introduced?

Answer 14

1982

Question 15

What is a compact disc?

Answer 15

An optical disc used to store digital data

Question 16

What were the positives of a compact disc?

Answer 16

No noise issues
Small, compact format
Reliable
Clean sound

Question 17

What became the standard for mastering in the 90’s?

Answer 17

Digital audio tape

Question 18

What became popular in home recording in 1996?

Answer 18

Computer systems and sequencers

Question 19

What are the main features of computer based systems?

Answer 19

Unlimited track counts 
Use of midi as well as audio recording 
Infinite levels of undo 
Easy storage and portability
Plug ins for effects and processing 
Superior audio quality
Easy and cheap to replicate vintage and expensive processors

Question 20

What are many studios going back to?

Answer 20

Recording on tape machines and utilising digital for editing and processing

Question 21

What were the recording developments of the early 19th century?

Answer 21

Phonograph cylinder

Gramophone disc

Question 22

How does a gramophone disc work?

Answer 22

A circular disc with grooves read by the needle which is attached to a diaphragm and a sound horn

Question 23

What were the issues with early recordings?

Answer 23

Very poor quality
Suffered from distortion
Limited frequency response
Excess hiss and noise

Question 24

How did magnetic tape develop?

Answer 24

Restricted mono format and single track in early 1950’s

Stereo format and two channels of playback controlled by two separate heads in late 1950’s

Question 25

What did the introduction of thicker tape with smaller play and record heads mean?

Answer 25

4 - 8 track reel to reel take allowing for more room to experiment with layering and double tracking

Question 26

What is tape saturation?

Answer 26

Subtle overload of level and gain to create musical levels of distortion on analogue equipment

Question 27

What is the standard settings for all reproduced music?

Answer 27

Sample rate: 44.1kHz

Bit depth: 16

Question 28

What is sample rate?

Answer 28

Number of individual samples of information per second

Question 29

What is it depth?

Answer 29

Number of bit of data per sample

Question 30

What does a higher sample and bit depth rate mean?

Answer 30

A higher quality recording but a bigger file size