Oldest Known Recording Unearthed From 1860

Previously the oldest recorded sound was thought to be Edison's phonograph recording of a children's nursery 

rhyme "Mary had a little lamb.." in 1877. So what did they use before the phonograph?

The "phonautograph", is used by etching paper covered in soot. US scientists used a virtual stylus to read the lines. The recording was found by audio historian David Giovannoni who said to the Associated Press "When I first heard the recording as you hear it ... it was magical, so ethereal,"

"The fact is it's recorded in smoke. The voice is coming out from behind this screen of aural smoke."

The phonautograph was made by a Parisian inventor, Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville. The new recording will be presented on 28 March at a conference of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections at Stanford University in California.

The video below is the 10 second clip of "Au Clair de la Lune".




This is the video of Edison's recording of "Mary had a little Lamb"



Thanks

Production Sound Mixer Video Interviews

Underneath all this typing it's sometimes nice to have a few videos to just watch and listen. Some of the rarest to find in the masses and masses of rubbish on youtube are some interviews with sound mixers (there the guys with boom operators) and sound recordists (they do both)


Desktop Computer Users and Mobile users just use the player below and further down is help to better your experience! If you like the video collection then please "Like" the playlist so more can find it, Thanks Again.

Below is a screenshot for the best user experience on your PC, Mac or mobile.

The Blue Circle Is For Full Screen Then Click The Red Circle For The Full Playlist

Heres another great one from Vimeo,

The famous Wilhelm scream

The Wilhelm Scream originates from the film Distant Drums in 1951. The scene in the video below soliders are wading through a swamp and one (Wilhelm) gets bitted and dragged underwater by an aligator, the scream was re-recorded in a single take, along with 5 others. the 4th 5th and 6th are also used earlier in the movie. 4-6 are all recognisable as the Wilhelm scream by many sound editors.

Below is the scene with the original Wilhelm Scream.

Below is a compalation of Wilhelm screams

Hope you enjoyed this,
Thanks,
Matt Price

The camera that changed the world

Film Link: Camera That Changed the World
Only available for the next 5 days.


This is a quick post about a documentary availible on the BBC iPlayer that shows the evolution of the portable camera and how important it was to the documentary genre. At around the 45 minuite mark there is a short section on the importance of the Nagra and sync sound. So if you can spare an hour over the next 5 days it's worth a watch.


Thanks,


Matt Price