Turntables Timeline

1857Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville

Édouard-Léon created the phonautograph which

records sounds using a rotating cylinder but it does

not playback audio.

It is the first known device to record sound.

1877

Thomas Edison

Thomas created the first hand-cranked

Phonograph. It is demonstrated in the scientific

American magazine.

1887Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander created the graphophone which

included a floating stylus that produced clearer

sound and used wax cylinders.

1892

Emile Berliner

Emile patents the first gramophone disc records

these eventually made cylinders obsolete,

1895

Thomas Edison

Edison amplifies the sound of the phonograph

by adding a horn and begins mass production.

1901

Victor Talking Machine Company

The Victor Talking Machine Company

is founded and it becomes America's

leading producer of records and

phonographs.

1906Reginald Fessenden

Reginald Fessenden; an American engineer

is the first person to play music over the

Airwaves.

1931

Alan Dower Blumlein

Alan Dower invents stereophonic sound for

recording he was an EMI researcher for the

British music recording and publishing company.

1939

Magnetic tape was invented.It is used for magnetic recording and is made of a thin magnetic coating which is on a strip of plastic film.

1950s

The 45 rpm 7 inch record is invented.

This is a type of vinyl.

1955

Edward P. Casey

Edward P. Casey from New york creates the

first custom built turntable.

1969

The technics direct drive system SP-10 was released.It was designed for studio use.

1972

The revolutionary direct drive turntable was created by Matsushita Technics it was called Technics SL- 1200.It was a hi-fi turntable.

1978

The 2nd generation SL-1200 MKII turntable was created by technics.It has slider pitch control for beat matching.

1981

Scratching's first vinyl was used on the album - the adventures of grandmaster flash on the wheels of steel.

2004

The digital turntable was invented it can play CDs and MP3s from a SD .Panasonic released the technics SL-DZ1200 digital turntable.

2005

Serato created software that allows analogue turntables to be able to play audio files via special timecode records.This software was called scratch live.

2008

Scott de Martinville's phonautogram from April 9,1860 recording is played back from more than 150 years ago by the First Sounds Collaborative in the United States.