The first known audio recording in human history is attributed to Leon Scott, the inventor of the phonautograph, who went down in history by recording his voice. The same researchers who later discovered and decoded that recording were the ones who, in 2011, presented to the world the first recordings made by Graham Bell and his team over 130 years ago. In this article, we tell you who they were, how they did it, and we guarantee you won't leave without having heard Graham Bell on a truly impactful sound journey through time.
The Historic Recordings
Graham Bell has the recognition he has because he earned it through experiments and discoveries made at a time when many were still focused on themselves or longed for the past more than the present. In one of his great experiments in the search for a patent, Graham Bell, along with Chichester Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter, went to a laboratory at the Smithsonian Institution to record sound using some new methods they were investigating. How did they record sound? By using a glass disc with a beam of light, which had been carefully preserved, far from public exposure until the moment of "un-recording".
The disc, more than 130 years old, contains not only some recordings but also the entire special history of how they sought to create a physical and preservable medium for sound. In the words of one of the project's researchers, Carlene Stephens: "these recordings were made using a variety of methods and materials such as rubber, glass, beeswax, aluminum foil, and even steel." Due to the fragile nature of the format in which the recording was contained, the preservation institute had been especially careful in its use and experimentation to extract the historical content we now have.
The conversion of the information contained and recorded over 130 years ago on those discs was achieved through the use of optical scanners that do not physically touch the impressions of Graham Bell, but rather scan them only with laser beams, capturing images to create a high-quality digital map of the disc, then removing all kinds of damage caused by the passage of time. Then, with the appropriate software, the images are transformed into sound through a specific conversion algorithm that identifies sound patterns, collecting and generating a conventional audio file.
Thus, after a very complex process, careful due to the historical nature of the documents, the team from the Library of Congress and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory managed to reveal what Graham Bell recorded so many, many years ago. So, without making you wait any longer, below you have the four available files in which you can hear a man saying "Barometer", "To be or not to be", "Mary had a little lamb", "Day 11", among other things. From now on, you can feel fulfilled; you have listened to a bit of history.
Listen to the Recordings
https://old.neoteo.com/por-que-tu-voz-se-oye-diferente-en-una-grabacion/
