Niall’s Weblog

The world’s oldest known playable audio recording was in fact engraved on a lead cylinder sometime in 1878 or so. It was made by a man called Frank Lambert who also invented the typewriter.

In any case, this very early recording is speculated to have been made as work towards building a talking clock. An mp3 of the recording is available, where you can hear a series of unintelligible noises, followed by silence, followed by Lambert counting out the time from one o’clock to twelve o’clock, although ten o’clock is mysteriously absent. Finally, the last section of the recording is more unintelligible sound, thought to perhaps have been recorded backwards.

I find this all quite fascinating - a particularly eerie audio experience, particularly to hear that voice, and the fact that ten o’clock is ominously missing!

Tags: phonograph, talking clock, vintage audio

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 29th, 2007 at 3:13 pm and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.