FIG. 191.—THE GRAPHOPHONE, RECORDING AND REPRODUCING DEVICES.
In [Fig. 191] is shown on the left a cross section of the diaphragm, recording stylus, and wax cylinder, of the graphophone, the stylus plowing a tiny groove in the wax cylinder in the act of recording the speech, and on the right is shown the reproducing stylus traversing the record groove in the wax cylinder, and the diaphragm chamber with which the ear tubes are connected. The grooves in the wax, although giving forth mechanical movement that is translated into sound, are very minute, being only 6⁄10,000 of an inch deep.
When the possibilities of the graphophone became known, capital was quickly supplied for its commercial exploitation, and the Columbia Phonograph Company was organized. At the present time, owing to the great increase in the business, the control of the graphophone business is vested in two branches, the Columbia Phonograph Company, which has charge of the selling, and which has offices throughout all the principal cities of this country and some of the larger ones of Europe, and the American Graphophone Company, which attends to the manufacturing branch, and whose factory is located at Bridgeport, Conn., where, it is said, that in 1898 the production of the factory reached the point of one graphophone for every minute of the day, making a total daily output of 600 machines. Although the Bell and Tainter patents of 1886 represent the basic principles of the graphophone, its development and perfection have been contributed to in many subsequent improvements by Messrs. Bell, Tainter, McDonald, and others. The more important of these are covered by patents No. 375,579, Dec. 27, 1887; No. 380,535, April 3, 1888; No. 527,755, Oct. 16, 1894, and No. 579,595, March 30, 1897.
At the beginning of this industry it was thought that the principal use of the instrument would be found in business applications, to take the place of the stenographer, but it proved difficult to revolutionize office methods, especially as the earlier machines were somewhat intricate, and the business man had no time to divide in engineering a machine. These difficulties, however, have been so far overcome by modern improvements and simplification of the machine that its use in business houses as an amanuensis has become quite common. The greatest use of the graphophone is, however, for amusement purposes. Its songs, orchestral and solo renditions, and its humorous monologue reproductions constitute to-day a great library of wax cylinders, regularly catalogued and sold by the thousands. It will readily be understood that the formation of the cylinders must constitute a great business of itself when it is remembered that many record cylinders accompany each graphophone, and that the latter are turned out at the rate of one a minute by a single company. Many thousands of these cylinders are made daily. Some are sent out simply as plain wax cylinders, onto which the records are made by the voice of the purchaser, while others have records made for them of popular music, monologues in dialect, humorous speeches, etc. The waxy composition, which is in reality a species of soap, is melted in huge pots, and then passes from one floor to another, undergoing a refining process in its progress, and finally reaches the molds. These molds are arranged in rows around a horizontal wheel about eight feet in diameter. The wheel is kept revolving, and a man on one side is kept constantly busy in filling the molds with the molten material as they reach him. A half revolution of the wheel brings the filled molds to the other side of the room, and by that time the material has hardened sufficiently to enable another attendant, stationed there, to remove the cylinders from the molds. Thus the wheel is kept going, receiving at one side a charge of the melted wax and discharging at the other molded cylinders, which are afterwards turned true on the surface. The record-making department is both unique and interesting. Here the records of music are produced, and they are made by bands and performers engaged for the purpose, many of which, operating at the same time, produce such a medley as to be scarcely distinguishable to the visitor. The records are tested by about half a hundred women, each of whom has a little compartment or booth framed in by glass partitions. The duty of the tester is to decide upon the merits of the record by actually listening to it on the graphophone.
A very important feature in record-making, from a commercial standpoint, is in means for cheaply duplicating records. If every record cylinder had to be made by the separate act of a performer such records would be very expensive. An original record is first made by some celebrated musician or speaker, and this record is afterwards multiplied and reproduced in large numbers. For this purpose an original record by suitable mechanism is made to take the place of the speaker or singer, and so multiplies and reproduces the original record. The duplicating of records was contemplated by Edison from the first, as seen in his British patent, 1,644 of 1878, and later appliances for accomplishing such results are covered under Tainter’s patent, No. 341,287, Bettini’s, No. 488,381, and McDonald’s, No. 559,806. The diaphragms used in the recorders and reproducers are made of French rolled plate glass, thinner than a sheet of ordinary writing paper. The recording stylus is shaped like a little gouge to cut the little grooves in the wax, while the corresponding stylus of the reproducer has a ball-shaped end to travel in the groove. Both the recording stylus and reproducing ball are made of sapphire, chosen on account of its hardness, to resist the great frictional wear to which they are subjected. When a record is to be effaced from a cylinder, it is turned off smooth on a sort of lathe, and the cutting tool or knife for this purpose is also made of sapphire.
The latest, loudest, and most impressive form of the talking machine is the “Graphophone Grand.” This has a horn attachment exceeding the big horn of a brass band in size, and the wax cylinder is about four inches in diameter. Its reproductions in music and speech are so full and strong as to be clearly heard at the most remote part of a large hall, and its versatile voice lends effective rendition to all sorts and kinds of sounds, from the inspiring chords of “A Choir Invisible” to the grandiloquent and facetious rattle of a noisy and hustling auctioneer.