The Development of Audio Technology
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Section Headings:
1. The History and Geography of Technology
2. The History and Geography of Practice
3. The History and Geography of Sound
The History and Geography of Technology
Probably the most obvious factor contributing to the transformations in recorded sound over the years and in different geographical locations is the development and dissemination of recording and production technology. In the mid-1920s we hear the change from acoustic to electric disc recording, and after the Second World War we witness the widespread introduction of tape-based recording, which the Germans had developed in the 1930s. Although Alan Blumlein patented a stereo recording system in 1931 and multiple tracks were used in film recording earlier than in the music industry, it was not until 1958 that the first commercial stereo records were released. During the 1960s and early 1970s tape track numbers expanded to three, four, eight, sixteen, then twenty-four. Simultaneously there was a change from valve to solid-state electronics, followed by the introduction of digital recording around 1980 and the move from tape formats to hard-disk recording in the late 1990s. During all these periods there were developments in product design that had a profound impact on recorded sound, such as improvements in microphones, mixing consoles, or speaker design, or the development of noise gates, the digital delay, and tape-noise reduction systems.
A further question to be addressed here is how evenly technology has been distributed around the world throughout the history of recording, and how variations in distribution have affected the approaches to, and the sound of, record production in different places at different times. While many of the major record companies disseminated their technology around the globe fairly evenly (EMI, for example, started studios in India, Australia, Africa, and South America in the early 1930s and generally kept them up to the same standard as Abbey Road in London), their studios were so large that most local people could not afford to hire them. Particular developments in local production facilities around the world have led to the establishment of unique recording practices which can have a major impact on recorded music. Thus the importing into the Congo of a mono tape recorder by a Belgian musician in the 1950s had a notable effect on the spread of Congolese Rhumba; the establishment of the Shifty portable eight-track facility in South Africa helped develop black music recorded for a black audience; and British suppliers’ offloading (at a reduced price) portastudio technology to Nigeria that failed to sell in the European market had an impact on access to the modes of production in the West African music industry in the 1980s and 90s.
George Brock-Nannestad's 2005 paper on the production of early 20th century recordings (before 1925)
Richard Osbourne's 2006 paper on the earliest format war: the disc versus the cylinder
Francois Ribac's 2005 JARP article on the social history of recording technology
The History and Geography of Practice
More broadly, there are other aspects of the application of technology that have different implications for recorded sound. Studio design, room size, and acoustic treatment have a significant impact in this respect. I have observed elsewhere that the difference in sound between American and British record productions in the late 1960s and early 1970s was due mainly to the larger size of ‘live’ rooms in Britain. The development of the acoustically dead Westlake style of studio design in the early 1970s eventually spread around the world and made a highly significant difference to the sound of recordings. The enormous cost of this kind of acoustic treatment raises the question of economics in general. The costs of setting up a studio to match the shifting capabilities of professional practice rose steadily throughout most of the twentieth century, but recent developments have taken us back almost to the point of Fred Gaisberg in 1910, in the sense that a relatively inexpensive and portable recording set-up that doesn’t require years of special training to operate can produce recordings whose sonic characteristics meet professional norms.
George Brock-Nannestad's 2005 paper on the production of early 20th century recordings (before 1925)
Mats Johansson's 2005 paper on recording practice and aesthetics in Scandanavian folk music
Eliot Bates' 2006 paper on distributed production techniques in Turkish Arabesk music
Eliot Bates' 2008 paper tactile and visual knowledge in Turkish Arabesk music
The History and Geography of Sound
Several authors cover various aspects of these developments, but less frequently considered is the way in which the sound of recordings changed as a result of technological innovations. Although this has been charted to a certain extent in technical papers for the Audio Engineering Society, the data is often in the form of numerical specifications and measurements. There have been some interesting discussions on the Intenet about why we find certain types of distortion attractive in recording. It seems that recording engineers make equipment choices that represent a practice-based manifestation of this phenomenon in all genres of music and from all musical cultures.
Changes in technology can impact on the character of recorded sound in a number of ways. For instance, a series of incremental changes in a particular type of product may generate a wider palette of sonic options, one example being the development of microphone technology or dynamic compressors over many years. There have also been modifications that cause a sudden improvement (or a sudden change) in an existing technology, such as the replacement of the tape delay by the digital delay. While not changing the nature of the effect, this altered not only the quality of the delay sound but also the level and nature of the control that could be exercised over it. There are examples too of the introduction of a new technique or procedure that changes the recording process in some way. Thus the advent of noise gates in the early 1970s had a significant impact on the amount of space in the sound of popular music, and hard-disk recording (a realistic option from the late 1990s) made cut-and-paste editing so easy that it changed conventional working practices and hence the shape and feel of recorded performance.
