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Waveform
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amplitude
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height of wave
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measured in bels (B) or decibels (dB)
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wavelength
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length of a wave
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cycle (frequency)
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frequency (pitch) measured in cycles per second Hertz
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audible range: 20-20,000 Hz
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Development Stage
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sound is vibrations
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recording sound
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"writing" those vibrations on a medium
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Eduouard-Leon Scott de Martinville
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hog's hair bristle and a funnel
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scratched the liquid surface (lamp black)
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Thomas Edison (1877)
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black foil cylinders
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playback by repositioning the needle on the surface
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Office Recording Machines
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Edison's phonograph (1877)
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patent for a type of answering machine
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Chichester Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter's graphophone (1886)
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wax cylinder
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complement the telephone
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Popular Music is Popular
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pre-recorded music on cylinders
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popular but difficult to mass produce
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cylinders were not very durable
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Berliner's Gramophone (1887)
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flat round disks
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zinc, coated with beeswax
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played on a turntable
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disks can be mass produced by pressing
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stamped with labels to differentiate title, performer, composer
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Victor Talking Machine Company
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Victrola (1906)
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record player inside a piece of furniture
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crank operated (1906)
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electrically operated (1925)
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an essential consumer goods by the 1920s
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Phonographs
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10-inch, 78 rpm record became the standard
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sales hurt by radio and the Great Depression
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made of shellac until WWII
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made from polyvinyl
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more durable
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better sound fidelity
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RCA vs. CBS format war
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CBS introduced 33 1/3 rpm long-playing record (1948)
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20 minutes of music on each side
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created market for multisong albums and longer classical music
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RCA developed a competing 45-rpm (1949)
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quarter-sized hole for jukeboxes
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invigorated market for sales of songs heard on jukeboxes
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incompatible formats
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truce reached in 1953
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LP became standard for long-playing albums
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45s became standard for singles
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record players were designed to play both formats
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magnetic tape
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developed in the 1930s
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reel to reel
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too much tape required to make a recording
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tape would break easily due to brittleness
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AGFA (German company) during WWII years used plastic magnetic tapes
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more durable
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sound editing
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multitrack mixing
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multichannel sound
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stereophonic sound (1931)
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Alan Blumlein
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commercially available in 1958
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recorded many different instruments which were mixed down to two, stereo tracks
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quadrophonic sound (1971)
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four-track sound
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did not catch on commercially
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Cassette Tapes (1960s)
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Portability of music
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Home dubbing: copy music from records or radio
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Sony Walkman
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digital recording
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Thomas Stockham, digital recorder in 1967
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analog vs. digital
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fluctuations
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encoded into binary
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compact discs
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Philips and Sony
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lower cost than vinyl
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debuted in 1983
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surpassed LP sales in 1987
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file-based recording media
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MP3 (1992) Motion Pictures Expert Group
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compressed file size, making exchange and storage easier
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Napster
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Supreme Court ruled against file-sharing services
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