Gramophone

The gramophone (from Greek: gramma, writing; phone, sound) was the first sound recording and reproduction system that used a flat record, unlike the phonograph which recorded on a cylinder. It was also the most common device for reproducing recorded sound from the 1890s until the mid-1950s, when the 33 RPM vinyl record appeared. The gramophone was patented by Emile Berliner in 1887.

History

Berliner's invention was the result of a series of improvements to Thomas Alva Edison's phonograph. The latter, despite being the first to record, was very limited, as it did not allow mass production, and, therefore, the musicians had to repeat the piece several times in order to produce different copies. That's why the gramophone was so successful. It was less expensive to produce, it had a simpler mechanism, it brought together all the characteristics of its predecessor and improved them, since it facilitated mass duplication from the same mold. Thus, in 1901 Emilio Berliner formed a company to distribute them, the Victor Talking Machine. Event that started a war over the market between Edison and Berliner.

The main difference between the one and the other was that the phonograph worked with a cylinder, while the gramophone used a flat record. The competition between these two inventions made each one try to improve and surpass their adversary. Which led to Eldridge R. Johnson making the gramophone stop working by being powered by humans and manufacturing a motor; and that the discs were modified, making them of ebonite (a hard rubber material) with a diameter of five inches. But Edison did not give up and counterattacked by introducing wax cylinders, thus making recordings of up to four minutes long possible, and, later, celluloid, making them resistant and guaranteeing intelligible sound.

Parts of the gramophone

Turntable

In all gramophones the turntable rotates the record, an action that creates sound through the stationary needle that travels through its grooves.

Initially, in the first gramophones, the turntable was operated by turning a crank located on the side of the gramophone and the speed depended on how quickly the user turned the crank. The inventors later incorporated an automated pulley and belt system to provide continuous and stable power to the rotating platform after an initial start-up. Contemporary turntables use a motorized belt system that powers the turntable using an external power source, such as a power supply or battery.

Pills

Gramophones translate vibrations into sound using the pickup, which captures the vibrations and converts them into an electrical impulse that can be amplified and projected. The first pickups, also called membranes due to the way they function, were actually a small metal box so to speak containing a membrane that could be made of mica, aluminum or another thin and flexible material, which was connected by a link to the pick holder, receiving from the latter the vibrations produced when traveling through the groove of the disc, the support arm was hollow and carried those vibrations in air movement mode to a horn that was responsible for amplifying the sound, later they were made of glass, which were They corroded easily and often required a protective layer of gelatin to remain intact. They were later replaced by ceramic pickups, which gave rise to magnetic pickups, which provided a clearer sound and were easier and cheaper to produce.

Finally, some current pickups use a laser to read the grooves and interpret how these grooves will translate into vibrations.

Needle

The needle serves as the single connection point between the record itself and the gramophone. The stylus sits and travels through the grooves of a record, which generates vibrations that are gathered by the pickup. The first gramophones used materials such as sapphire or diamond for the needles, while today's needles tend to be made of common metals such as steel, copper or tungsten.

Arm

As the name suggests, the arm of a gramophone holds the pickup and needle in place while the record is rotated underneath. The arms of a gramophone must offer a balance between stability and mobility, while it itself has to remain at a fixed height for the duration of the spinning of the records, while also providing some lateral movement as the stylus moves. closer to the center of the disk as it rotates. Although older gramophone arms were stationary until they were placed by hand in the grooves of the record, contemporary arms are mechanized, moving and settling as soon as a record is placed on the turntable.

Operating principle

The gramophone uses an analog mechanical recording system, in which sound waves are transformed into mechanical vibrations, which move a plectrum that traces grooves that form a spiral on the surface of a metal or wax disc, which receives a metal bath that is then released forming a positive mold of the recording, which will be placed in a press that will press it against a thermoplastic material (as in the case of vinyl records, although in normal gramophone records a shellac-based paste) that when cooled forms a solid disk with the recording. Conversely, as the pick travels through the groove of the disc that rotates on the device's platter, mechanical vibrations are generated that vibrate a diaphragm located in the playing head of the arm, where the vibrations are transformed into sound, which is emitted and amplified through the speaker. The speed of the gramophone and the records it plays is 78 RPM.

The gramophone ended up prevailing over the phonograph due to the lower production cost of the recordings intended for this device, given that thousands of copies could be made from a single original mold. The phonograph could only make a single sound recording for each original performance. Therefore, when a recording was going to be made, multiple phonographs were available.

However, the phonograph had one advantage over the gramophone: users could record their own cylinders, with music or voices. This possibility had multiple applications that neither the gramophone nor the later vinyl record allowed, and which became available again with the appearance of open reel tape recorders, metal wire recorders, cassette tape recorders and digital devices, such as computers equipped with audio cards and portable digital recorders.

In several Spanish-speaking countries, the gramophone is also known as Vitrola, a word derived from the brand "victrola", from the company Victor.

Hot air gramophones: Paillard "Maestrophone"

The "Maestrophone" manufactured by the Paillard company, instead of using a clockwork motor, it came equipped with a hot air motor. When these machines were marketed, around 1910, hot air engines had been in operation for almost a century, as they had been patented by Robert Stirling. Its effectiveness had been demonstrated particularly in small power machines, like this one, which also required small heat sources. The gramophones operated by this system proved to be useful, especially for dance halls, since with a single charge of alcohol up to twelve hours of uninterrupted operation were obtained. Although the box of this gramophone had three glass sides to be able to monitor the operation of the device, there were many gramophones of this type that burned due to failures in the system or due to misuse by the user, so in the Today there are just over a dozen preserved around the world. In Spain these machines were marketed under the name "motofón".

Gramophones with mechanical amplification: Victor "Auxetophone"

The Auxetophone was a gramophone presented in August 1906 by the Victor company, which in addition to having a wind-up motor, was equipped with a compressed air amplifier and an air compressor driven by a electric motor, in order to produce a louder sound. However, it was expensive equipment ($500 at the time), so it was mainly used in hotels and large venues. It was removed from Victor's catalogs in 1915 and only 850 shipments were recorded from the company's headquarters in Camden. To achieve the primitive amplification of this device, the playback needle operated a valve located on the tonearm, regulating the amount of air passing through it towards the horn in a manner analogous to the vibrations of the needle, creating a louder sound than a diaphragm player.

Gramophone Le Violon qui chante

In 1903, the manufacturer of string musical instruments Reginald Herbert Payne and the engineer Thomas Broadvent patented a gramophone whose playing arm and amplifier speaker was a violin, which is why it was commercially called Le Violon qui chante, from the French expression, "The violin that sings". According to the inventors, this instrument was the best amplification box that had been created, therefore its capacity to reproduce music would be superior to that of a conical horn. The reading needle was mounted on the bridge of the violin.

Some brands that produced them

• Zonophone
• Victor Talking Machine Company
• Columbia
• Edison
• Sonora
• Odeon
• Parlophone

External links on the topic

• Wikimedia Commons hosts a multimedia category Gramophone.
• Berliner: the gramophone
• Operation of a gramophone
• Rene Rondeau explains the operation of Auxetophone (English)