Wired for sound (or maybe not )
The evolution of audio engineering that should be recorded' in history
One of life's great annoyances is teenagers that hang out at the back of the bus and blast music through their tinny phone speakers. It's not annoying because you'd rather be listening to Zeppelin's Second Album or Wagner's Tannh user - no, it's not the nature of the music, but the quality that grates so harshly.
But you'll be unsurprised to hear that it's been a long road in getting to the stage of immaculate audio that we've come to expect in film, TV and music. In this month's blog, we thought we'd give you a little rundown of the history of audio, if only to help build up your bank of useless pub quiz knowledge.
Where it all began
1877 is generally credited as the birth of recorded audio, and it's a familiar name linked to that birth: it was Thomas Edison - of lightbulb and Tesla-feud fame - who created the first phonograph, based on little more than a strip of tinfoil wrapped around a spinning cylinder. His track of choice? Mary Had a Little Lamb. Though as with all good science, his breakthrough was built on the back of the work of the grandly named douard-L on Scott de Martinville, and Charles Cross - both who had mastered the idea of recording music, but hadn't quite figured out how to play it back.
The next big jump was from the cylinders that Edison had been working on, to the gramophone of Emile Berliner - what we'll eventually come to recognize as a vinyl record. It's about 25 years later that magnetic recording is developed, and the oldest surviving magnetic recording is of Emperor Franz Josef of Austria (uncle to the famous Franz Ferdinand), but it won't be until the 60s that we get the cassette tape.
In 1906, the first possibility of making music really loud (like it should be) was made with the development of the triode vacuum tube, the first electronic signal amplifier. This will of course eventually become vital for the Spinal Tap joke about Amps that go all the way up to 11.
In 1929, audio gets geeky (because we all know engineers are cooler than mathematicians, right?), with Harry Nyquist's publication of the creatively named Nyquist Theorem ; a mathematical foundation for the sampling theorem basic to all digital audio processing.
And then in 1931 Alan Blumlein gets to thinking that if we have two ears, maybe we'd like to use them, and essentially patents the idea of stereo, whilst at Bell Labs practical work is underway to cut disks in a way that can actually deliver on that concept, using vertical and lateral cuts. This is a big development.
So too is what occurs in 1940, where Les Paul (of guitar fame) develops multi-track recordings; crucial to the Rock wave that was due to come in the 60s, and first used in film on Disney's Fantasia.
Big leaps and little steps all move you forward
As with much of technology, after some of these big, revolutionary' leaps comes a lot of tweaking and refining, pushing the boundaries of what can be done with the fundamental concept. We get various different sizes and type of vinyl disk, and various evolutions in recording, replicating and listening. All the while, audio quality is improving.
And then the digital revolution. The Compact Disk emerged in the 70s, and music production changed in earnest: digital tools gave sound engineers more creative possibilities than had ever been considered before. And the 90s then gave us Dolby surround sound - remembered by a generation of cinema goers for the overwhelming wave of sound that used to make your hairs stand up on the back of your neck before the film started.
From the listening side, we'd worked our way through Walkmans, personal compact disc players and mini disks, and the rise of the MP3 player came about - amazingly - as late as 1998. Digital was not just improving the production capabilities on offer, but the listening mechanisms for audiences.
And finally, of course, hot on the heels of that was to come the internet/communications revolution, taking all of the possibilities of digital and freeing it of geographical constraints. In 1998, Beethoven's Ode to Joy' was played at the Winter Olympics by delivering five live audio feeds from five continents to a conductor in Japan, using satellite and ISDN. At the time, a huge feat of technological engineering. Now? Pretty much your average Tuesday for a sound engineer.
Picture #Aksel Kolstad International Pianist
The evolution of a sound engineer
Of course, as this technological change has occurred, it has driven changes in the way the industry functions, and the professionals within it - diverse as their roles, duties and functions are. As electronic audio has opened up a new realm of possibilities, then the nature of the job has become increasingly creative, and not just an exercise in technical detail and refinement.
But what the electrification of audio has really facilitated is a change in where, how and when audio professionals can undertake their work. You might think of an audio engineer sat in a huge studio, in front of an immense mixing deck, buttons and flashing lights everywhere (and the wires oh so many wires).
And sure, if you have the luxury of space and budget, then all those tools are a godsend. But audio engineers are increasingly being asked to work in unusual circumstances; not only have the events of the past two years meant that often, going into a dedicated studio was impossible and working from home was the only option, but also - increasingly - sound engineers are working on outside broadcast projects. These aren't just complex in terms of the uncertain and complex conditions surrounding the recording process (you try miking up a presenter in gale force winds ), but also the
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Wired for sound (or maybe not )
