In 1877, Edison was working on a machine that would transcribe telegraphic messages, which could later be sent over the telegraph repeatedly. This inspired him to try singing into the machine to hear it recorded. He termed his invention a ‘phonograph’, and it worked by recording sounds on round cylinders. However, poor recording quality was a big issue.
Improving on Edison’s design, Alexander Graham Bell invented the first graphophone which recorded sounds on records instead of cylinders, allowing for mass production of recorded materials. This version offered better sound quality, but it also had a drawback that each cylinder had to be recorded separately.
In 1887, Emile Berliner was granted his first patent on a device called gramophone. It had all the similar characteristics of Edison’s phonograph and Bell’s graphophone, but the storage medium was not wax or tinfoil-covered cylinders, but flat records made of glass. Thus, the mass production of records was made possible.
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