Magnetophon

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
This article is about the tape recorder. For the music group, see
Magnetophone
.
Tonschreiber from a German radio station in World War II.

Magnetophon was the brand or model name of the pioneering

Berlin Radio Show
. [1][2][3]

Later models introduced the concept of AC tape bias, which improved the sound quality by largely eliminating background hiss. The resulting reproduction was so great an advance on any existing recording method that even those well acquainted with the industry could not tell the recordings from live play. Adolf Hitler used these machines to perform what appeared to be live broadcasts from one city while he was in another. A cache of 350 of these tapes was released years later when they were found in Koblenz.[4]

Two later model Magnetophons were taken to the United States after the war, having been found in

I.G. Farben (BASF division) as well as the AC bias system. The Army officer who tracked them down, Jack Mullin, would use these machines as the basis of his own designs, which he first demonstrated to the San Francisco chapter of the Institute of Radio Engineers in May 1946, and later at the MGM Studios in Hollywood in October of that year. Attending the SF demo were Ampex engineers Harold Lindsey and Myron Stolaroff, who were inspired to design their own reel-to-reel recorder based on Mullin's modified Magnetophon.[5] Mullin's friend, Richard Ranger, had also designed his own take on the Mullinized Magnetophon called the Rangertone; however, a demonstration of that machine to Bing Crosby did not go well. Mullin then arranged for Crosby to experience a demonstration of the machine designed by Lindsey and Stolaroff: the Ampex Model 200A. Although an initial showcase of the Ampex machine was unable to demonstrate recording, the audio quality of its playback was good enough to get Crosby to agree to work with them. With Bing Crosby arranging financial support for start-up manufacturing, the Ampex 200A went into production and within three years most major recording studios had purchased one.[6]

History

The Magnetophon tape recorder was one of the first recording machines to use magnetic tape in preserving voice and music. At first, early Magnetophons gave disappointing results. One of the first concerts to be recorded on a Magnetophon was Mozart's

Sir Thomas Beecham, during their 1936 concert tour. The recording was made on an AEG K2 Magnetophon running at 100 cm/s. The tape used was the early black iron oxide Fe3O4 type. When Beecham and the musicians heard the playback, they were greatly disappointed with the distortion and noise on the recording. Although the original tape is now lost, the recording survived until the 1990s and has been transferred. Some other surviving tapes show a tendency toward overmodulation.[7]

Later in 1939, the Fe3O4 oxide was replaced by the Fe2O3 type, which gave a significantly better recording quality, so much that the formula became a worldwide standard until the 1970s when chromium dioxide tapes appeared.

Adding a

78 rpm
system of the 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. One of the more remarkable series of recordings took place at the Vienna State Opera House, also known as

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
.

AEG engineers made rapid strides in perfecting the system and had practical

Philharmonic Orchestra
.

Magnetophon recorders were widely used in German radio broadcasts during World War II, although they were a closely guarded secret at the time. The Allies were aware of the existence of the pre-war Magnetophon recorders, but not of the introduction of high-frequency bias and PVC-backed tape.[9] Their intelligence experts knew that the Germans had some new form of recording system but they did not know the full 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 two Magnetophon recorders and fifty reels of magnetic tape from a German radio station at Bad Nauheim near Frankfurt in 1945. The allied forces were traveling through Germany during WWII when they first discovered the device. The Allies then handed the Magnetophon over to Mullin.[10] Over the next two years Mullin modified and developed these machines, hoping to create a commercial recording system that could be used by movie studios. American popular vocalist Bing Crosby, dissatisfied with the quality of existing radio network recordings was prevailed upon to invest in this development and 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. In 2008, at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards Ceremony, Ampex received the company's first Grammy Award for Technical Achievement, to honor their contribution sixty years earlier of the Ampex 200, which "revolutionized the radio and recording industries". Ampex 200 co-designer Myron Stolaroff was among the company's employees representing Ampex who accepted the award.[11]

As a generic noun

Magnetophon became the

generic word
for the tape recorder in some languages including German ("Magnetophon"), Swedish ("magnetofon"), Czech, Polish (magnetofon), French (magnétophone), Italian (magnetofono - only for reel-to-reel), Romanian, Serbian, Croatian (magnetofon - only for reel-to-reel), Greek (μαγνητόφωνο - magnitofono), Russian (магнитофон - magnitofon), Bulgarian (магнетофон - magnetofon), Slovak, Spanish (magnetófono or magnetofón), Hungarian (magnetofon - commonly shortened to magnó), Finnish (magnetofoni - commonly shortened to mankka), Estonian (magnetofon - commonly shortened to makk), Lithuanian (magnetofonas), Latvian (magnetofons) and Ukrainian.

See also

References

  1. ^ History Department at the University of San Diego. "Magnetic Recording History Pictures". Archived from the original on May 9, 2008.
  2. ^ "1935 AEG Magnetophon Tape Recorder". MIX. Penton Media Inc. September 1, 2006. Archived from the original on 8 February 2013. Retrieved 18 June 2010.
  3. ^ Engel, Friedrich Karl; Peter Hammar (2006-08-27). "A Selected History of Magnetic Recording" (PDF). Retrieved 18 June 2010.
    A brief history of magnetic tape from the BASF Historian and the founding curator of the Ampex museum.
  4. ^ Fox, Barry (9 February 1984). "The real history of tape recording". New Scientist: 45.
  5. ^ "Stanford Libraries' Ampex Model 200A Magnetic Tape Recorder, Restored by Larry Miller". Audio Engineering Society. AES. Retrieved 5 February 2016.
  6. ^ "Ampex 200A - 1947-1948, Ampex 300 - 1949". Museum of Magnetic Sound Recording. MOMSR. Retrieved 5 February 2016.
  7. ^ BASF LP releases
  8. ^ "Beethoven: Piano Concertos / Gieseking"
  9. ^ Information from 'BBC Engineering 1922-1972' by Edward Pawley, page 387.
  10. ISBN 0-19-500475-2
    .
  11. ^ "Ampex Honored at 50th Annual Grammy Awards Ceremony: Recognized for Outstanding Technical Achievement". businesswire.com. Business Wire. Retrieved 5 February 2016.

Sources

External links
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