Magnetophon
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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. [1]
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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 Mozart's 39th Symphony played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham, during their 1936 concert tour. The recording was made on an AEG K2 Magnetophon running at 100cm/s. The tape used was the early black Iron Oxide Fe2O3 type. When Beecham and the musicians heard the playback they were greatly disappointed with the distortion and noise on the recording. This recording survived until the 1990s and has been transferred. The tape is now "lost". Some other surviving tapes show a tendency toward overmodulation.[2]
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 on LP by Varese Sarabande. Later in 1993, the Audio Engineering Society (AES) issued a special CD for the 50th birthday of stereo recording. This CD not only includes the Emperor piano concerto, but also remarkable stereo recordings of a Brahms Serenade, as well as the last movement of Buckner's 8th Symphony conducted by Karajan. Piano Library also issued the Emperor concerto, and Iron Needle issued the Brucker recordings (catalog IN 1407).
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" (stole) 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. American popular vocalist Bing Crosby would use the technology, as modified by Mullin and the fledgling Ampex company, to record his radio broadcasts in the more relaxed atmosphere of the recording studio, which was a significant break from the then-norm of live studio audience broadcasts. This was an excellent invention for the time.
According to sources in Germany and probably unknown to Mullin, RCA had actually been shown the technology and offered a license shortly before the war.
[edit] As a generic noun
Magnetophon became the generic word for the tape recorder in some languages including Czech, French ("magnétophone"), Italian ("magnetofono" - reel to reel), Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, Serbian ("magnetofon" - only for reel-to-reel), Greek (magnitofono), Russian (магнитофон - magnitofon), Bulgarian, Slovak, Spanish (magnetófono or magnetofón) and Latvian (magnetofons).
[edit] See also
- Multitrack recording - The Magnetophon in American Music history
- Wire recording
- British Tape Recorder
[edit] References
- ^ History Department at the University of San Diego. "Magnetic Recording History Pictures". http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/recording/tape.html.
- ^ BASF LP releases
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