Magnetophon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article is about the tape recorder. For the music group see Magnetophone
Magnetophon was the brand or model name of the pioneering reel-to-reel tape recorder developed by engineers of the German electronics company AEG in the 1930s, based on the magnetic tape invention by Fritz Pfleumer. AEG created the world's first practical tape recorder, the K1, first demonstrated in Germany in 1935.
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[edit] History
[edit] Germany
The Magnetophon tape recorder was one of the first recording machines to use magnetic tape in preserving voice and music. However, early Magnetophons gave disappointing results. One of the first concerts to be recorded on a Magnetophon was by Sir Thomas Beecham and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, during their 1936 concert tour. When Beecham and the musicians heard the playback they were greatly disappointed with the distortion and noise on the recording. Some surviving tapes show a tendency toward overmodulation.[1]
Although adding a DC bias to the record head gave some improvement, it wasn't until 1941, when AEG engineers Hans Joachim von Braunmühl and Dr. Walter Weber accidentally discovered the technique of AC tape bias in which the addition of an inaudible high-frequency tone resulted in a striking improvement in sound quality. Magnetic media is inherently non linear, but AC bias was a technique whereby the tape's magnetisation was left in a state proportional to the instantaneous audio electrical signal. The Magnetophon became a high fidelity recording system that outperformed gramophone recording (which was the 78 rpm system at this time).
Many speeches, concerts, and operatic performances were recorded. Since many of the recordings survived World War II they were later issued on LPs and compact discs. AEG engineers made rapid strides in perfecting the system and had practical stereo recorders by 1943.
One of the more remarkable series of recordings took place at the Vienna State Opera House, also known as Wiener Staatsoper, in 1944, when the German composer Richard Strauss recorded many of his famous symphonic poems, including Don Juan, Till Eulenspiegel, and Also sprach Zarathustra, with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. That same year the Magnetophon was used to make the first stereophonic tape recordings, including a performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 with pianist Walter Gieseking and the Berlin Reichssender Orchestra conducted by Artur Rother. This remarkable performance was later issued by Varese Sarabande.
Magnetophon recorders were widely used in German radio broadcasts during World War II, although they were a closely guarded secret at the time. Allied intelligence experts knew that the Germans had some new form of recording system but they did not know the details of its construction and operation until working models of the Magnetophon were discovered during the Allied invasion of Germany during 1944-45.
American audio engineer Jack Mullin acquired two Magnetophon recorders and fifty reels of magnetic tape from a German radio station at Bad Nauheim near Frankfurt in 1945, and over the next two years he modified and developed these machines, hoping to create a commercial recording system that could be used by movie studios. This was an excellent invention for the time.
[edit] As a generic noun
Magnetophon became the generic word for the tape recorder in some languages including Czech, French ("magnetophone"), Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, Serbian ("magnetofon", only for reel-to-reel), Greek (magnitofono), Russian, Bulgarian, Slovak and Latvian.
[edit] See also
- Multitrack recording - The Magnetophon in American Music history
- Wire recording
- British Tape Recorder
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[edit] References
- ^ BASF LP releases
