page_title: History of sound recording
section_title: The Magnetic Era (1945 to 1975)
hierarchical_section_title: History of sound recording / Overview / The Magnetic Era (1945 to 1975)
caption_attribution_description: English: Early model Studer professional tape recorder, 1969
context_page_description: The history of sound recording - which has progressed in waves, driven by the invention and commercial introduction of new technologies — can be roughly divided into four main periods:
  the "Acoustic" era, 1877 to 1925
  the "Electrical" era, 1925 to 1945
  the "Magnetic" era, 1945 to 1975
  the "Digital" era, 1975 to the present day.
  Experiments of capturing sound on a recording medium for preservation and reproduction began in earnest during the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s. Many pioneering attempts to record and reproduce sound were made during the latter half of the 19th century – notably Scott's phonautograph of 1857 – and these efforts culminated in the invention of the phonograph by Thomas Edison in 1877. Digital recording emerged in the late 20th century and has since flourished with the popularity of digital music and online streaming services.
context_section_description: The third wave of development in audio recording began in 1945 when the allied nations gained access to a new German invention - magnetic tape recording. The technology was invented in the 1930s but remained restricted to Germany (where it was widely used in broadcasting) until the end of World War II. Magnetic tape provided another dramatic leap in audio fidelity — indeed, Allied observers first became aware of the existence of the new technology because they noticed that the audio quality of obviously pre-recorded programs was practically indistinguishable from live broadcasts. From 1950 onwards, magnetic tape quickly became the standard medium of audio master recording in the radio and music industries, and led to the development of the first hi-fi stereo recordings for the domestic market, the development of multi-track tape recording for music, and the demise of the disc as the primary mastering medium for sound. Magnetic tape also brought about a radical reshaping of the recording process — it made possible recordings of far longer duration and much higher fidelity than ever before, and it offered recording engineers the same exceptional plasticity that film gave to cinema editors — sounds captured on tape could now easily be manipulated sonically, edited, and combined in ways that were simply impossible with disc recordings. These experiments reached an early peak in the 1950s with the recordings of Les Paul and Mary Ford, who pioneered the use of tape editing and "multi-tracking" to create large 'virtual' ensembles of voices and instruments, constructed entirely from multiple taped recordings of their own voices and instruments. Magnetic tape fueled a rapid and radical expansion in the sophistication of popular music and other genres, allowing composers, producers, engineers and performers to realize previously unattainable levels of complexity. Other concurrent advances in audio technology led to the introduction of a range of new consumer audio formats and devices, on both disc and tape, including the development full-frequency-range disc reproduction, the change from shellac to polyvinyl plastic for disc manufacture, the invention of the 33rpm, 12-inch long-playing (LP) disc and the 45rpm 7-inch "single", the introduction of domestic and professional portable tape recorders (which enabled high-fidelity recordings of live performances), the popular 4-track cartridge and compact cassette formats, and even the world's first "sampling keyboards" - the pioneering tape-based keyboard instrument the Chamberlin, and its more famous successor, the Mellotron.
caption: During the magnetic era, sound recordings were usually made on magnetic tape before being transferred to other media.
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