Many Strides Have Been Made in Sound Engineering

Award-winning music industry executive and sound engineer Larry Ryckman heads AfterMaster Audio Labs, with studios in Hollywood. In partnership with superstar Justin Timberlake, Larry Ryckman and AfterMaster offer top-quality engineering and mastering services using industry-shaking technology that enhances sound clarity and depth while preserving the integrity of the original source.

Sound engineering technology has come a long way since its beginnings almost a century and a half ago. Toward the close of the 1870s, Thomas Edison showed the staff of Scientific American magazine how the phonograph worked by replaying “Mary Had a Little Lamb” as it had been recorded on a tinfoil-wrapped spinning cylinder. 

A decade later, German-American inventor Emile Berliner patented the first gramophone to make use of a flattened disk. His innovation enabled the mass production of phonograph records. 

In 1895, Guglielmo Marconi transmitted the first wireless radio signals across the Atlantic Ocean. In 1906, Lee DeForest’s triode vacuum tube was the first device to amplify a signal electronically.

Fast-forward to the 1930s, with electricity and the microphone assisting in the production of records from wax discs used to stamp molds for 78-rpm records made from a shellac composite.

The post-World War Two years saw major developments in recording on tape, and innovators began producing microgroove LP records. This was also the era when the profession of sound engineer began to come into its own, as a separate individual was tasked with cutting the mastering discs based on the tapes made in a recording studio.