Oldest Known Human Voice Recording

[Hugh Robjohns]

Most would say it was Edison... but actually, the French got there first. A man called Edouard-Léon Scott de Martinville who invented sound recording via his phonautograph in 1857 — 20 years before Edison invented his phonograph.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/reel/video/p0j7x5 ... uman-voice

[The Elf]

Thank you! Fascinating.

[zenguitar]

And was he recording Keith Richards?



Andy

[Folderol]

Fascinating

[Eddy Deegan]

Very interesting! I read an article a while back which speculated about the possibility of audio recordings being unintentionally encoded in the grooves of ancient pottery as it was being made on the wheel.

I very much doubt it would be a common thing, even if possible, but the prospect of a fragment of recording of the background chatter being captured through some fortuitous combination of a thin stick tracing a decoration and something exciting it in just the right way is intriguing.

[alexis]

Amazing!

(A little SpectraLayers or RX anyone? )

[adrian_k]

Yeah but you might have problems getting the right stylus now?

[Tomás Mulcahy]

There are some more audio examples here. Very spooky.
https://www.firstsounds.org/sounds/scott.php

[yeroc]

Not a bad take of the tune. Probably should have spent more on comps, some Melodyne massaging. EQ'd a bit more air and some parallel compression maybe.

Thanks for sharing Hugh

[alexis]

Funny, I don't know why the octave up version seemed much more intelligible.

[johnny h]

Sounds terrible!

[Hugh Robjohns]

Yeah... I wonder why?

[Arpangel]

Very interesting! I read an article a while back which speculated about the possibility of audio recordings being unintentionally encoded in the grooves of ancient pottery as it was being made on the wheel.

I very much doubt it would be a common thing, even if possible, but the prospect of a fragment of recording of the background chatter being captured through some fortuitous combination of a thin stick tracing a decoration and something exciting it in just the right way is intriguing.

"The Stone Tapes"

[jimjazzdad]

Apparently Alexander Graham Bell owned a phonautograph, so it also had a part in the development of the telephone.

[Zukan]

Little know fact: Moses had an audio book of the Tablets but the verion he had was a recording of Keith Richards instructing God of the 'ways'.

I have this recording. It's on MPParchment but requires Enoch's lossless code to work.

[tea for two]

When there's ancient carvings of what looks like helicopter, submarine, they probably had a Nagra as well lol.

[MarkOne]

Most would say it was Edison... but actually, the French got there first. A man called Edouard-Léon Scott de Martinville who invented sound recording via his phonautograph in 1857 — 20 years before Edison invented his phonograph.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/reel/video/p0j7x5 ... uman-voice

Great link. Thanks Hugh.

So we can add this to the list of things that Edison is credited with and didn't actually invent.

[Hugh Robjohns]

To be fair to Edison, his machine both recorded and reproduced audio.

Edouard-Léon Scott de Martinville's invention only recorded the audio waveform for analytical purposes, and there was no intention to play it back.

[ConcertinaChap]

Brilliant link. Thanks, Hugh.

CC