Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-06-10
WANTED A PHONOGRAPH
BY DIR. EDWIN E. SLOSSON
(Science SerVice)

I am not satisfied with my phonograph. I
get lot of fun out of it but it has it's faults.
II. has nasal tone like New England old.
maid speaking French with cold in her
head. Some things it does we'll, as well as
the original, the ringing of bell, certain
violin strings, the shrill notes of the piccolo
the clearcut tones of the xylophone and CALI.
Curci. But my favorite musical instruments.
the pipe-organ and the bass-drum, come out
mere ghosts Of themselves. A choir sounds
like quarrel. Lastly dislike having every
piece of music cut off at the end of three
and half minutes regardless of its natural
length.
Now all these faults might be remedied.
The scratching and other extraneous noises
. come from the friction of the needle which
has to drag up and down a sort c. scenic rail.
way route in the hill-and-dale machines or to
rub along the sides of crooked trough in
the lateral-cut machines. The heavy arm
presses down the point and has to be swung
around by it. The recording needle that
draws wavy line in the wax corresponding
to the sound waves, meets with greater re.
sistance the deeper the curve 1t has to dig,
This must distort the tones in proportion to
the swing of the vibration.
To get perfect photograph we must have
CD frictionless point Of recording and re-
producing, (2) A weightless lever to carry
the tone-box, CD non-resisting substance to
take the impression, and ca and an un-
limited record. .A
B.
But they are not. The means Of accomplish
ing them are already known. Light will
draw a line upon sensitiveness film in.
SIMULTANEOUSLY and without friction or re.
sistance. two-by-four beam of light ten
feet long weighs exactly nothing. It can
be swung around through space without the
slightest effort or retardation.
l fancy that the photograph o. the future
will record it's music by, ray of light re.
Elected from minute mirror stuck on the,
back of the diaphragm of the mouthpiece and
cast upon roll of sensitized celluloid like a
motion picture film. The most economical
way of using this would be run the wavy trail
back and forth across the strip; "oxen-wise,"
as the ancient Greeks used to call it when
they wrote that way. In this way a great
deal Of sound could be recorded on very
snort strip. Such a message could be sent by
mail for slight postage and would not break
the way disk records do. Duplicate records
could be printed from the original negative
quickly, perfectly and cheaply so the records
would cost us less than they do now or the
monograph dealers would make more money,
one or the other.
TO reproduce the music or tho message all
That would be necessary would be a bright
light, an electric battery, solenium cell or
some other means of Transforming the alter
nations of light and shade into a. varying cur-
rent which would set the diaphragm Of the
receiver to vibrating as in the ordinary tele-
phone. The reel Of film could be as long
as we liked SO we could have the vocal books
and papers that were promised us twenty
years ago but which have never been deliver
ed.
In fact it seems to me that the phonograph
makers have been SO absorbed in manufac-
turing machines and putting out records of
opera and jazz that they have not paid at
tentton to the improvement of the inven-
ton. They put the same old mechanism into
fine period furniture when they might bet
ter be devising better ways of recording and
reproducing sound. a