The first use of audio technology is unknown. We might speculate that a stone age hunter cupped his hands to his mouth in order better to project a warning cry to a colleague but as to the first utilisation of external systems, no-one knows. Initial invention aside, even a superficial glance at classical Greek and Roman architecture will confirm that both cultures had a good empirical grasp of practical acoustic technology. The well-known acoustic properties of the amphitheatre are but one example. In fact, there was much more to early audio technology than the acoustic design of auditoria: Roman theatres employed simple but effective passive mechanical systems whereby the performer would stand in front of a resonating chamber built in to the back stage wall. Folded horn designs not entirely dissimilar to twentieth century loudspeakers were also occasionally used.

Later architects developed these ideas further, especially in the design of churches, some of which have the acoustic precision and complexity of a contemporary, multi-acoustic recording studio. Think, for instance, of the famous Whispering Gallery of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London from which a visitor can clearly hear conversation from far below. In this instance, the underside of the dome is acting as a gathering and focussing element in a manner not dissimilar to a reflecting telescope. Long before the arrival of electronic amplification, concert halls were designed with shell-like rear walls and ceilings to reflect sound forward and down in the direction of an audience. These fundamental approaches to design remain in use to this day. See, for instance, London’s Wigmore Hall or even the Hollywood Bowl.

As far as recording technology is concerned, recent research has suggested that its history goes back considerably further than is conventionally acknowledged. My late colleague Hugh Davies suggested, perhaps whimsically, that ancient Chinese cultures had the ability to play back sound in a limited way by having a sharpened bamboo tube attached to a door track a groove “recorded” in the floor. Allegedly this recording expressed thanks for closing the door! There have also been suggestions that Leonardo da Vinci invented an early recording device using mechanical principles not unlike those adopted by Thomas Edison several hundred years later. As far as I am aware, however, there is no substantial evidence to support either claim, attractive as they undoubtedly may be.

It is Edison who is conventionally credited with the invention of sound recording as we know it. Working in his laboratory at Menlo Park, USA, he made what is generally accepted as the first reproducible sound recording when, in 1877, he declaimed part of the poem “Mary had a little lamb” into his experimental phonograph. Edison soon went on to create a marketable product: the wax cylinder recorder/player. The cylinder was found to have significant shortcomings and was superseded by a flat disk but the basic principles remained the same. Unfortunately, for many years, it was impossible to achieve a consensus on rotational speed. As a result, both cylinders and disks would be recorded at anything between 60 and 100 rpm neccesitating variable speed controls to allow the setting of “correct” pitch. Ultimately the speed of 78 rpm and disk diameter of 10 inches predominated and, in this format, recording continued largely unchanged until the advent of electronic systems consequent upon the invention of the thermionic valve (vacuum tube in American parlance) by Lee de Forest in 1907.

For the first time, it became possible to interpose the medium of electricity between recording and replay. Amplification became available and, by this means, it was possible to cut and play disks “electrically”. This advance notwithstanding, the essential recording medium and procedure still remained unchanged until the advent of magnetic recording. Despite the relative clumsiness of the disk medium, creative applications began to emerge, sometimes using disks with more than one spiral groove. In parallel with these developments came the creation of early electronic instruments although a wide range of electromechanical instruments retained the upper hand for many years to come, indeed 78rpm recordings made on shellac disks designed to be played on “acoustic”, clockwork-powered gramophones continued to be released in the UK until the late 1950s/early 1960s.

Electronics – in particular amplification - technology was the key to the emergence of the new approache and also to the development of early sound reinforcement and PA systems. The removal of the need to listen to electrically reproduced signals using relatively poor quality headphones and their replacement with far higher-quality loudspeakers quickly showed the shortcomings in microphone technology. The carbon microphone - essentially a telephone mouthpiece - was simply incapable of realising the full range of frequencies to which these new systems could respond and a period of rapid development ensued, resulting in the invention of a range of microphone types including various forms of dynamic and condenser systems. This leapfrogging pattern of development has continued to appear throughout the subsequent development of audio technologies.

Studio technology per se emerged from the development of the radio industry in the 1920s and 30s, utilising much the same hardware: microphones, amplifiers, loudspeakers and so on. Audio processing (in electronic form) was initially virtually nonexistent and formed no part of the creative toolkit. Very few companies went to the extent of creating purpose-designed studios: most music recording was carried out on location - classical ensembles in concert halls and dance bands in dance halls. With a few rare exceptions, only radio stations and film studios had dedicated and equipped recording facilities.

During the 1920s and 30s, the vast majority of audio recording was carried out in one of two media: the shellac (or wax) disk and photographic film. Microphone technology advanced steadily: some classic designs still in use today were evolved during this period. Electronics began to have an impact on the process with the implementation of early valve mixing facilities (prompted in part by the increasingly sophisticated demands of the film industry) and the first processing circuits emerged in the form of equalisers and dynamics controllers. These were used primarily to compensate for deficiencies in the programme chain (particularly with respect to AM radio) and were not to emerge as “effects” systems until the 1960s.

The immediate prewar period saw the advent of magnetic recording. Early systems had used metal ribbon as the recording medium but, with the development of cellulose-based chemistry, the fledgling plastics industry was able to supply a suitable support medium for metal oxide tapes. Recognisable tape recorders were first produced in the late 1930s by the German company AEG but, before substantial development could take place, war intervened and the energies and output of the plastics industry were turned elsewhere. Audio, as a predominantly entertainment-oriented industry, found itself firmly on the back burner throughout the war.

Nonetheless, its supporting technologies - electronics and radio - developed at an astonishing rate, largely driven by military demands for improved power, quality and general performance. Thus it was that when the passing of the war reactivated interest in audio and recording, there emerged a range of new, improved tools and techniques which had spun off from military technology. The all-important plastics industry was now able to address demands for tape base material and to embark upon the series of developments that led to modern recording media. Nonetheless, the predominant recording technologies remained as before: disk for music and radio and photographic emulsion for film.

Recording studios as such were still extremely rare and record companies were most commonly regarded as adjuncts to music publishing houses. Little by little, however, audio technology began to spread over a wider area: from jukeboxes to transportable tape recorders and even portable valve radios, the influence of sound recording, reproduction and transmission increased. With this growth came the parallel expansion of the record industry with its associated sales charts and increasingly substantial financial turnover. Thus funded, it became realistic for the first time to consider a substantial development and expansion of studios. In the main this took the form of the establishment of large facilities tied to major record companies. In London the main protagonists were EMI and Decca who, between them, developed many of the recording techniques still used to this day. However, most of these techniques were oriented towards classical recording: the major companies were still relatively uninterested in popular music, a situation which continued until the 1960s.

By contrast, America, with its huge numbers of radio stations with regional orientations, evolved into a highly differentiated market. There was, for example, no single national style of popular music. In some areas, jazz would predominate: in others, the leading style might be country or blues or swing or whatever. The consequence of this was that, not only did America possess numerous specialist radio stations served by large numbers of independent record labels but that they, in turn, employed the services of small recording studios, often one-man operations where much hardware was created in-house. These small studios were characterised by uniqueness of approach and individual sound. Much of their equipment was derived from military surplus hardware and the products of relatively few manufacturers such as Ampex whose early tape machines were the mainstay of this emerging industry. Typically one or two-track machines with all-valve electronics and singularly massive mechanics, these machines and their immediate descendants held sway until the late 1950s and early 1960s when their multitrack offspring took over the role of studio workhorses. Outboard equipment was generally limited but slowly increased as an audio hardware industry dedicated to recording rather than broadcasting was born.

Within a relatively short time, the direct-to-disk approach to recording had vanished to be completely replaced by tape as the preferred medium. Studio output was still generally released on record although the fragile 10 inch 78 rpm shellac disk was slowly replaced by the more durable 7 inch 45 rpm vinyl equivalent. In 1946, the LP (or microgroove) disk was premiered by RCA but failed to achieve significant market penetration until the mid 1950s. This format was originally designed to allow an entire symphony (around 45 minutes duration) to be recorded on one disk rather than the battery of 12 inch 78s that preceded it.

Once more, the plastics industry was a key player in this development, making vinyl available at relatively low cost. This synthetic material, when heated and subsequently pressed, proved able to resolve finer detail than the relatively crude shellac that was used for the traditional 78 disk. As a consequence, it was possible to create a denser packing of the concentric groove and hence increase playing time, in itself further enhanced by a reduction of rotational speed to the apparently rather odd value of 33 1/3 rpm.

So, driven by the radio and jukebox markets, the demand for popular music soared upwards, creating in its wake countless backroom studios. Even so, only a few major record companies operated substantial studio facilities: the Sinatras and Crosbys were more likely to cut their albums on film sound stages than in purpose-designed recording facilities. Outside this mainstream genre, the small independent studio ruled supreme, each with its own idiosyncratic house sound. Thus it was that the legendary studios of the time came about: Norman Petty’s Clovis Studios (birthplace of the unique sound of Buddy Holly), Sun Studios in Memphis (home of the early work of Elvis Presley) and many others. As equipment became ever more sophisticated and hence expensive, small studios suffered from finance problems and many vanished forever. Survivors were constrained to embark on programmes of substantial expansion (and investment). During this period, further legends were created: Gold Star, Ocean Way, Stax and Motown to name just a few.

Meanwhile, the English industry had changed relatively little, due in part to restrictive broadcasting policies. England had three national radio stations of which only one played any significant amount of popular music (and even that was constrained by the insistence of the Musicians Union that the playing of music from records be highly restricted). There were no local or commercial radio stations save one beamed from mainland Europe. As a consequence, the English popular music scene was substantially dominated by American imports resulting in a low rate of development of the native recording industry, an imbalance that remained uncorrected until the early/mid 1960s.

These constraints notwithstanding, the English industry expanded and developed, albeit slowly and with minimal finance. Small independent studios began to appear, perhaps the best known being that of independent producer Joe Meek. These studios, like their American predecessors, acquired a reputation for technical innovation but, contrary to the American experience, this trend was fiercely resisted by major players such as EMI and Decca who still controlled a substantial proportion of the pressing and distribution of finished product. Nonetheless, a uniquely identifiable “English sound” began to emerge. This came more by accident than by design since it was normally the case that English producers and engineers sought to emulate their American counterparts !

The characteristic richness and loudness of American recordings stemmed largely from superior equipment and larger studios: at a time when 8 track was pretty much the norm in the US, many English studios were still bouncing from mono recorder to mono recorder, indeed the 4 track format did not see the light of English day until 1964, some four years later. The boom years of the 1960s led to an explosion of English popular culture, nowhere more than in the recording industry which saw a phase of dramatic expansion and - led largely by the work of the Beatles and George Martin - experimentation. No longer was the studio simply a venue for recording a performance, it became an audio workshop where sounds were constructed, transformed and ultimately assembled.

This work was initially undertaken using existing resources but, very quickly, the earning potential of the recording industry began to exert an influence on equipment manufacturers with the result that solid-state circuitry developed rapidly, bringing with it the advantages of compactness and enhanced performance. It became possible to produce mixing desks with what seemed huge numbers of channels and inboard facilities. In parallel with this came the expansion of tape machines which rapidly grew from four to eight to sixteen and finally to twenty four tracks. Outboard equipment too, developed. No longer were studios satisfied with hardware borrowed from broadcasting or performers: an entire industry came into being with the sole purpose of producing audio processors and related equipment. Dynamics processors, equalisers and “effects units” abounded, many of the latter having disappointing audio performance: digital signal processing was still a number of years in the future.

Nonetheless, a fascination with experimentation became the norm, especially in English studios. People experimented with tape manipulation (looping, reversal, transposition etc), electronic treatments (vocoders, ring modulators, delay lines etc) in fact just about anything capable of producing an interesting sound (using the undamped strings of a piano as a reverb unit, using the mouth as a tuned filter, even recording underwater!) The trend towards experimentation proved an unacceptably expensive luxury for many and thus was born the demo studio. These facilities were generally simply equipped with perhaps no more than eight track recording systems but were relatively low-cost and allowed composition and arrangement to be undertaken at leisure.

These studios were superseded in the 1980s by the individual project studio. This was a simple, economical facility that could be installed in a spare room, allowing composers and performers to undertake substantial preproduction work before moving into a more comprehensively equipped commercial studio. From standard equipment, a whole range of “project” designs were devolved such as small tape formats which allowed up to 24 tracks to be recorded on one-inch tape (rather than the far more expensive commercial standard of two-inch). A huge range of low-budget hardware, and, latterly, software was created to satisfy this ever-increasing demand, forming ultimately the largest single sector in professional audio. With the increasing complexity of recording practice came the need for automation, especially in the mixing stage where numbers of tracks to be combined now vastly exceeded the numbers of hands able to access the necessary controls at any one time.

Computer systems began to emerge in the early/mid 1970s and have developed steadily ever since. At this stage recording was still entirely analogue but, in the late 1970s, the classical fraternity borrowed a technique from broadcasting to allow digital audio recording on videotape. With some modification, this has remained the preferred medium for digital mastering until the last two or three years. From this same time, digital recording technology began to emerge, first in the form of magnetic recorders and subsequently as computer-based random access systems. After its initial high cost, digital recording, especially using computers, became increasingly affordable and much recording work devolved from the high-cost commercial studio to the smaller home facility, in many cases without perceptible loss of audio quality.

From relatively humble beginnings and with a couple of false starts, the recording business and the technologies that surround and support it have evolved into the largest single industry of all time, exceeding by an order of magnitude the expenditure of the military/defence conglomerates. As such, it is massively influential and has a profound effect upon our culture: witness the transitions from “conventional” music to rock & roll to pop, to rock to punk, back to pop once more and then to the disparate manifestations of rap, rave, house, ambient and so forth. All of these musical genres have been readily identifiable by their characteristic sound-styles and, in part at least, these distinctions seem attributable to the influence of the technologies used in their creation. More or less all of these have been accompanied to a greater or lesser extent by other parallel cultural phenomenae. In a sense, the music of an era reflects (or is reflected by) the culture of its time. This is a simple and direct correlation but there is one yet deeper: I would assert that the music of a given culture not only reflects the qualities of that culture but that it is also a function of its enabling technology. In accepting this possibility we must accept that the power of audio technology is highly significant, especially in an era of mass communications.

In a fragmented society, we can hardly be surprised to find that our musical culture is not only divided, but that its most predominant manifestation is based upon dissection (ie sampling), a process which, by its’ nature, leads to a similar fragmentation. It may or may not be productive to discuss whether music and recording  hold a mirror to society or vice versa. We shall see.