My last article, which received tremendous interest, was on the History of Audio Recording. I am grateful to all of you that read it and made it a great success. This article is no less important. We certainly can’t discuss the History of Audio Recording without also discussing the History of the Microphone. Neither can exist without the other. Together, let’s explore the birth and development of this incredible invention.

A microphone is, simply stated, a device that captures “waves” in the air created by the voice or any other noise transmitter and translates those waves into electrical signals. Another way to say it is to convert acoustic power into electrical power. After the sound waves are converted into electrical signals, to hear them again in an acoustic setting, they must be converted back to acoustic power through some kind of loudspeaker. It is amazing to think with all the technological advancements in the last 40 years, we still use this simple process on our stereo, computer or ipod.

Have you attended a concert lately? The relatively weak signal from a voice or musical instrument is created, changed into electrical energy by some sort of microphone, boosted through a series of power amplifiers and, finally, converted back to acoustic energy through loudspeakers. It is easy to sit, enjoy the music, and forget to be thankful for this amazing power that was created in our universe which we enjoy our entire day.

Let’s meet some of the visionary people who discovered and developed the universal principles that created a microphone.

Johann Phillip Reis (1834-1874)

This German physicist designed a “sound transmitter” that employed the use of a metallic strip that rested on a membrane with a metal point contact that would complete a circuit as the membrane vibrated. His basic belief that, as the membrane responded to the increase and decrease of acoustic energy and bounced the metal point up and down with more intensity and increased the amplitude of electrical current, was brilliant. Unfortunately, this early effort was not developed enough to produce speech that could be understood.

Elisha Gray (1835-1901)

This American inventor would one day become one of the founders of the Western Electric Company. Gray’s design was called a “liquid Transmitter”. The “liquid” was an “acidic” solution. This was an incredible innovation. A diaphragm was attached to a movable electrically conductive rod that was immersed in the acidic solution. A second rod was fixed. With a battery attached, a circuit could be completed between the two rods. Acoustic vibrations traveling through the diaphragm caused the distance between the two rods to vary. The result was that this variance produced corresponding changes in electrical resistance in the acidic cell, changing the levels of current. These variations could be translated to a week audible sound.

Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922)

Famous for his development of the telephone, he employed a similar device as Gray to produce the first transmission of intelligible speech over his primitive telephone. Most of us have heard of the famous words of Bell to his assistant, “Mr. Watson, come here. I want you.” The true inventor of the telephone, though, became a legal dispute between Bell and Gray. The courts remained neutral regarding their claims due to the overall poor quality of these early devices.

David Edward Hughes(1831-1900)

While Bell and Gray slugged it out in the courts, Hughes was diligently working to produce the first working microphone. Already a pioneer and patent holder in the telegraph industry by 1855, he designed a new kind of microphone by 1878. It was a completely different design that Bell and Gray. It incorporated the use of carbon granules loosely packed into an enclosed space. When the acoustical pressure varied as they traveled through the diaphragm, the electrical resistance that traveled through the carbon granules changed proportionally. The resulting sound was noisy and full of distortion but it was a significant step forward. Since early reports in the newspaper compared his device with a microscope, ” it acts for the ear much in the same way that the microscope serves the eye,” Hughes coined the current name “microphone” to his invention.

Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931)

Edison took Hughes design and made it simple, cheap to manufacture, efficient and durable. He created a cavity filled with granules or carbonized anthracite coal packed between two electrodes, one of which was attached to a thin iron diaphragm. His refinements became the basis for all the telephone transmitters used in most of the telephones for the last century. Further, Bell Telephone and Bell laboratories are still incredible companies that continue to produce new communication technologies.

With the invention of the radio, new broadcasting microphones, like the Ribbon Microphone in 1942, were invented. The Ribbon Microphone originally employed the use of an aluminum ribbon that was placed between two poles of a magnet to generate voltages by electromagnetic induction. As the sound wave caused the ribbon to move, the induced current in the ribbon was proportional to the particle velocity in the sound wave. Ribbon microphones have historically been delicate and expensive. Today’s modern materials make present-day ribbon microphones durable enough for loud rock music and stage use.

An incredible step forward in microphone development occurred in 1964. Bell Laboratories researchers James West and Gerhard Sessler created the electroacoustic transducer, an Electret Microphone. The Electret Microphone was a type of Condenser Microphone that offered greater reliability, higher precision, lower cost, and a smaller size. It revolutionized the microphone industry with almost one billion manufactured each year. Further, during the 1970′s, dynamic and condenser microphones were developed, allowing for a lower sound level sensitivity and a clearer sound recording.

Currently, microphones are so much a part of our daily life that we take them for granted. After writing this article, I have decided to put them on my list of things to be grateful for. Since I am a pilot, my safety is partially dependent on my being able to communicate on my radio. Guess what I use to talk on my headset? You guessed it, a microphone!

As for the future, many new and incredible innovations are being explored.

1) Laser Velocity Transducers

2) Optical Microphones

3) Direct Digital Output

4) Force Feedback technologies that are used in conjunction with an Optical Microphone

You can click on the “quality_microphones” link below at my web site to see some of the latest microphones.

I hope that you have learned some important information about Microphones. As innovation continues at a rapid rate, the ones we use today may become a future exhibit in the Smithsonian Institution. Until then, they will continue to be an invention that taps into a universal principle that improves our lives.

The truth is, the universe is filled with probably billions of incredible things that we have just not discovered. As in the past, present and will be in the future, those that possess the faith and perseverance to tap into the universal mind are those that will discover and share the secrets of the universe with all of us.

Music has been part of life since early history. Archaeological finds of musical instruments date back to thousands of years BC. We read in the Bible that in Abraham’s time it was common practice to celebrate special events with songs accompanied by harps and timbrels. Song and music was part of life in the Exodus. The Bible tells us that Israel marched to songs in the wilderness after fleeing Egypt. When Israel’s King Saul was depressed he found comfort from David’s music. David enjoyed singing and dancing to the Lord by the sound of the trumpet.

In Jesus’ time we note that He sang Psalms and Hymns with His disciples, whenever they got together at their special Jewish memorial feasts. The followers of Jesus were referred to as Christians after their persecution started and had to flee Jerusalem to the neighboring countries. From here the Gospel was exported to the Gentiles, and with it also the songs such as Psalms and Hymns. In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians he encourages them to communicate to one another in Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs.

Early Composers

Moses composed songs of praise and thanksgiving to the Lord. King David wrote most of the Psalms which were prayed as well as sung in Bible times. It has been recorded that King Solomon composed many songs, note “The Songs of Solomon”, a book in the Old Testament.

During the Middle Ages very little was recorded in terms of music and songs. Then in the early 1500′s the Reformation took place in Germany and with it Christian Music took on a new meaning. Martin Luther, a gifted musician, composed many Christian hymns which were sung by the congregations in the protestant churches. In the catholic churches however, the priests were chanting the hymns mostly in Latin, which the uneducated congregation could not understand. Luther’s influence in Christian music was very significant; He wrote hymns for the congregation to sing and understand. One of his best known hymns was A Mighty Fortress is Our God. This hymn is still sung in many churches around the world.

Luther’s influence on the Christian religion had a profound affect on church life. It resulted in a renewed message of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ alone England also had their Reformation which ended the Roman Catholic power over the church there, and finally a total break from Rome under Henry VIII. England experienced a revival in the church in the latter part of the 1700′s through the Wesley brothers, John & Charles. Charles’ gift of music resulted in more than 600 hymns, which brought a new sense of praise and worship into the church.

During this period we also recognize the classical composers of Christian Music such as Georg Friedrich Handel (Messiah) and Johann Sebastian Bach (Passion according to St Matthew) Just to name a couple.

Gospel Music in America

Christian music entered America in two ways. It was introduced by the Spanish through Mexico into the southern parts of the United States. British immigrants also introduced this music at the east coast and then gradually spreading to the west. As the early immigrants were leaving England because of religious persecution, they found freedom in their new country. The African American people influenced the style of worship music in the American south greatly, and a new sound filled the church auditoriums. These new compositions identified with the Israelite slavery in Egypt. In the early years the slaves were allowed to attend church with their masters, but were segregated from the whites. As time went on the African American population in the south built their own churches and their worship songs developed into what is known as Southern Gospel.

With the Christian revival taking place right across the country from the late 1700′s right into the 1900′s many new stiles of Christian music was created. The Pentecostal revival movement brought forth many gifted songwriters and musicians who used their talent solely for the worshiping their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Today we Christians are blessed by availability of the enormous variety of Gospel Music, the many worship songs and hymns produced by so many talented artists from all over the world.

“Darkstep” is an offshoot of drum and bass music that began to take shape at the end of the 1990s. Like other drum and bass subgenres, its musical characteristics include heavy use of sampled breakbeats and synthesized bass and the overall song structure and length is consistent with jungle and other drum and bass styles.

However in contrast to more mainstream drum and bass artists, darkstep producers create a gloomier mood in their music through the use of atmospheric synthesizer melodies, film samples and influences from industrial and other alternative genres of music. Nonetheless the main focus of darkstep tracks tends to be the combination of the often distorted and “twisted” lead bass sound and the heavy drum beat. Additionally, rather than sampling breakbeat loops played by actual drummers, as is the norm in other drum and bass genres, darkstep producers often write their own drum loops using drum machines (either hardware or software based).

While other drum and bass and breakbeat genres of music often include an MC during live performances, this is seldom the case in darkstep. A similarity with other live drum and bass sets, however, is that darkstep producers rarely play live instruments during shows and instead make use of DJ equipment to create live mixes of their (and other artists’) tracks.

The term “darkstep” is regularly used interchangeably with the terms “techstep” (from which the word “darkstep” is derived) and “neurofunk,” though some within the drum and bass scene argue that these are separate (though highly similar) subgenres. The general contention is that “techstep” includes more influences from hardstyle and hard techno genres while darkstep is simply (as the name implies) darker and more minimal.

Geographically, darkstep is most often associated with Europe, where it originated. Specifically, the split between early drum and bass and jungle sounds and darkstep took place in countries like the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom around 1996. To a lesser extent the genre also enjoys niche popularity in North America and South Africa as well.

Important darkstep producers include names like Ed Rush, The Panacea, Teebee, Counterstrike, Edgey, Black Sun Empire, Current Value and Technical Itch. Record labels such as Metalheadz (UK), Renegade Hardware (UK), Prspct (Netherlands), Moving Shadow (UK), Subtitles Recordings (Norway), Freak Recordings (UK) and Outbreak Records (UK) have also helped to popularize the genre.

You may be wondering when exactly did rock/pop music begin? There’s no clear answer to this. Some might say that it started with the advent of rock n roll with Bill Haley and the Comets in 1952. Others would say Elvis, although not the first but surely the original truly global superstar. Yet none of these were really the first. Rock n roll has its roots in blues which has its roots back to the 19th century with black immigrants trying to escape from their slave driven lives. Fast forward to the early 20th. century and some of the earliest recordings on 78 began to appear. Players from this time such as Bobby Jo and Robert Johnson helped to form the structure of early blues

Robert Johnson had recorded only thirty songs during his short life as he was prevented from achieving true fame while alive by being poisoned by a jealous husband. He died shortly before he was being sought to appear at the ‘Spirituals To Swing’ concert in 1938 by record producer John Hammond. As a result, his reputation only took off after Hammond released an album of his recordings for Columbia in the early sixties. Later blues exponents like Muddy Waters and Eric Clapton admitted borrowing heavily from these early stalwarts.

In the 50′s, artists took the basic blues style and used electric guitars, drums and double bass for the first time creating early rock n roll, later known as rockabilly. Stalwarts like Chuck Berry, Buddy Hollie and Jerry Lee Lewis were the most famous protagonists here. Later Elvis in the US and to a lesser extent, Cliff Richard (later leading the Shadows) in the UK brought rock n roll to a truly worldwide audience. This paved the way for the 60′s beat era which could be considered the true beginning of pop music as we know it today, certainly as far as bands were concerned.

In the 50′s and early 60′s, it was mostly lead solo artists with just a backing band. With the advent of the beat era, bands dominated with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys from the US taking the world by storm. Even so, The Beatles later admitted being heavily influenced by those earlier rock n roll and blues artists. They mostly played rock n roll and blues covers at their pre-fame Hamburg concerts. in the early 60′s. The Beatles however, were the first band to successfully blend classical music textures with rock n roll to form perfectly crafted pop songs. While bands like The Rolling Stones continued with the mainly rock n roll theme,

The Beatles took their finely crafted style further in the seminal album ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ in 1967 by utilizing new studio techniques and instruments never used before. They used a new instrument called ‘the Melotron’ This was basically a keyboard which played looped tape recordings. of real instruments. The most famous sound from this was probably the flute used on the ‘Strawberry Fields’ single recorded at the same time but later dropped from the album. The Melotron though, was cumbersome and unreliable and had a rather grainy sound. Even so It was regarded as the forerunner of the electronic sampler, invented nearly 20 years later. Infinitely more flexible than the Melotron, the sampler helped build the framework for modern pop,dance and R&B music.

The Beatles ‘Sgt.. Pepper’ album with its groundbreaking recording techniques was preceded the year before by their ‘Revolver’ album. These LP’s helped popularize a new wave in music known as psychedelic or acid rock, named after the mind bending effects of LSD drugs. Pink Floyd also recorded their debut album ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ in the studio next door at the same time that The Beatles recorded Sgt. Pepper. It was reported that Pink Floyd were a direct influence to The Beatles as a result. This new style incorporated new guitar effects like Fuzz, flanger anger and delays. These were used along side the earliest portable synthesizers such as the therein and mini Moog. invented by Bob Moog.

In America, the Beach boys responded with the ‘Pet sounds’ LP in 1966 and later that year released the first big psychedelic hit ‘Good Vibrations’. About this time, the band ‘Jefferson Airplane’ recorded their debut album which was also the first LP to come out of the new San Franciscan music scene. This got the record industry’s attention and they had two of the earliest psychedelic hits ‘White Rabbit’ and ‘Somebody to Love’ in 1967.

Meanwhile in Los Angeles, Jim Morrison joined with members of The Psychedelic Rangers and Rick and the Ravens to form ‘The Doors’ They were initially turned down by Columbia but were signed to Electra Records and released their self titled debut LP in 1967. The album included the 7 minute long hit single ‘Light my Fire’ one of the first to break the typical three minute pop and rock song barrier.

Back in Britain, radio broadcasting was very limited because the BBC were the only organization allowed to broadcast on the mainland and had just two pop music shows The Saturday club and Easy Beat Radio Luxembourg partially filled the gap but it was left to pirate radio, broadcast from ships out at sea with DJ John Peel’ which enabled the new style to reach a mass audience, often eclipsing the BBC in popularity. The BBC responded in the end with the advent of Radio 1 in June 1967. With the existing labor government making pirate radio illegal in Britain several months later, Du’s like John Peel rather than risk arrest joined radio 1 which had a much more informal and relaxed style as opposed to the staid and conservative approach favored by the BBC until then. This perfectly suited psychedelic pop and rock and John Peel championed this in his late night shows. playing new genres of music and introducing new and unsigned bands in the Peel sessions. He did this for nearly four decades until his death in 2004.