Sound recording and reproduction is the electrical, mechanical, electronic, or digital inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects.
Frances Densmore and Blackfoot chief Mountain Chief working on a recording project of the Bureau of American Ethnology (1916)
Emile Berliner with disc record gramophone
Singer Tatjana Angelini recording the Swedish voice of Snow White in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 1938
Magnetic audio tapes: acetate base (left) and polyester base (right)
Phonograph cylinder
Videos
Phonograph cylinders are the earliest commercial medium for recording and reproducing sound. Known simply as records in their heyday, a name since passed to their disc-shaped successors, these hollow
An Edison Gold Mould cylinder record, taken out of its storage tube (left), from c. 1900s
Edison wax cylinder phonograph c. 1899
Two Edison cylinder records (left and right) and their cylindrical cardboard boxes (center)
Brown wax cylinders showing various shades (and mold damage)