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Edison cylinder recorder
Edison gold moulded cylinder record, c. 1904.
cylinder recording
phonograph record
The role of chemistry in Thomas Edison's inventionsHow Thomas Edison changed the world.
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Learn about the project of digitization wax cylinder recordings of Irish music at University College CorkAn overview of a project in which fragile wax cylinder recordings of Irish music were digitized at University College Cork, Cork, Ireland.
See all videos for this articlecylinder recording, earliest form of phonograph record, invented by Thomas A. Edison in 1877. The sound to be recorded was focused by a horn onto a diaphragm, causing it to vibrate; the vibrations were transmitted to a stylus and modulated its motion as it followed a helical path along the surface of a yielding material (such as wax) that coated a cylinder rotating under the stylus. See also phonograph.
This article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Augustyn.
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