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History of multitrack recording
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History of multitrack recording
Multitrack recording of sound is the process in which sound and other electro-acoustic signals are captured on a recording medium such as magnetic tape, which is divided into two or more audio tracks that run parallel with each other. Because they are carried on the same medium, the tracks stay in perfect synchronization, while allowing multiple sound sources to be recorded at different times.
The first system for creating stereophonic sound (using telephone technology) was demonstrated by Clément Ader in Paris in 1881. The pallophotophone, invented by Charles A. Hoxie and first demonstrated in 1922, recorded optically on 35 mm film. Some versions used a format of as many as twelve independent monaural tracks in parallel on each strip. Each track was recorded one at a time in separate passes and were not intended for later mixdown or stereophony because each monophonic program was unrelated to the next - any more than one random album would be related to the next. Unlike with later half-track and quarter-track monophonic tape recording, the multiple tracks simply multiplied the maximum recording time possible, greatly reducing cost and bulk.
Alan Blumlein, a British engineer at EMI, patented systems for recording stereophonic sound and surround sound on disc and film in 1933. The history of modern multitrack audio recording using magnetic tape began in 1943 with the invention of stereo tape recording, which divided the recording head into two tracks. In 1948, Chicago's Armour Research Foundation announced that its staffer, physicist Marvin Camras, had produced a three-channel machine with "three parallel magnetic tracks on the same tape".
The next major development in multitrack recording came in the mid-1950s, when the Ampex corporation devised the concept of 8-track recording, using its "Sel-Sync" (Selective Synchronous) recording system, and sold the first such machine to musician Les Paul. However, for the next 35 years, multitrack audio recording technology was largely confined to specialist radio, TV and music recording studios, primarily because multitrack tape machines were both very large and very expensive – the first Ampex 8-track recorder, installed in Les Paul's home studio in 1957, cost US$10,000 – roughly three times the US average yearly income in 1957, and equivalent to $114,633 in 2025.
Affordable home multitrack recorders using magnetic tape were introduced in the 1970s. In 1979, the introduction of the TASCAM Portastudio presented a novel format of four tracks running in the same direction and doubled tape speed for the compact audio cassette as its medium, making good-quality four-track multitrack recording available to the average consumer for the first time. TASCAM and Fostex soon introduced reel-to-reel multitrack recorders that also boosted the number of tracks relative to the width of the magnetic tape, such as eight tracks on ¼-inch tape. By then, electronics companies were already introducing digital audio recording systems that used analog magnetic tape as storage media for the digital multitrack data.
By the 1990s, computer-based digital multitrack recording systems such as Pro Tools and Cubase were being adopted by the recording industry, and soon became standard. By the early 2000s, rapid advances in home computing and digital audio software were making digital multitrack audio recording systems available to the average consumer, and high-quality digital multitrack recording systems like GarageBand were being included as a standard feature on home computers.
Stereo sound recording on tape was perfected in 1943 by German audio engineers working for the AEG corporation. Around 250 stereo tape recordings were made during this period (of which only three have survived), but the technology remained a closely guarded secret within Germany until the end of World War II. After the war, American audio engineer John T. Mullin and the Ampex corporation pioneered the commercial development of tape recording in the US, and the technology was rapidly taken up by radio and the music industry due to its superior sound fidelity and because tape – being a linear recording medium – could be easily edited, by physically cutting and splicing the tape, to remove unwanted elements and create a 'perfect' recording. Two-track tape recording was rapidly adopted for modern music in the early 1950s because it enabled signals from two or more separate microphones to be recorded simultaneously, enabling both twin-track mono recordings (with the voices on one and music on the other) as well as true stereophonic recordings to be made and edited conveniently, which in turn facilitated the rapid expansion of the consumer high-fidelity ("HiFi") market. Stereo (either true binaural two-microphone stereo or multimixed) quickly became the norm for commercial classical recordings and radio broadcasts, although many pop music and jazz recordings continued to be issued in mono sound until the late 1960s.
Much of the credit for the development of multitrack recording goes to guitarist, composer and technician Les Paul, who lent his name to Gibson's first solid-body electric guitar. His experiments with tapes and recorders in the early 1950s led him to order the first custom-built eight-track recorder from Ampex, and his pioneering recordings with his then wife, singer Mary Ford. But it was Patti Page who was the first vocalist to record her own voice, sound on sound, with a song called "Confess", in 1947: Bill Putnam, an engineer for Mercury Records, was able to overdub Page's voice, due to his well-known use of technology.
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History of multitrack recording
Multitrack recording of sound is the process in which sound and other electro-acoustic signals are captured on a recording medium such as magnetic tape, which is divided into two or more audio tracks that run parallel with each other. Because they are carried on the same medium, the tracks stay in perfect synchronization, while allowing multiple sound sources to be recorded at different times.
The first system for creating stereophonic sound (using telephone technology) was demonstrated by Clément Ader in Paris in 1881. The pallophotophone, invented by Charles A. Hoxie and first demonstrated in 1922, recorded optically on 35 mm film. Some versions used a format of as many as twelve independent monaural tracks in parallel on each strip. Each track was recorded one at a time in separate passes and were not intended for later mixdown or stereophony because each monophonic program was unrelated to the next - any more than one random album would be related to the next. Unlike with later half-track and quarter-track monophonic tape recording, the multiple tracks simply multiplied the maximum recording time possible, greatly reducing cost and bulk.
Alan Blumlein, a British engineer at EMI, patented systems for recording stereophonic sound and surround sound on disc and film in 1933. The history of modern multitrack audio recording using magnetic tape began in 1943 with the invention of stereo tape recording, which divided the recording head into two tracks. In 1948, Chicago's Armour Research Foundation announced that its staffer, physicist Marvin Camras, had produced a three-channel machine with "three parallel magnetic tracks on the same tape".
The next major development in multitrack recording came in the mid-1950s, when the Ampex corporation devised the concept of 8-track recording, using its "Sel-Sync" (Selective Synchronous) recording system, and sold the first such machine to musician Les Paul. However, for the next 35 years, multitrack audio recording technology was largely confined to specialist radio, TV and music recording studios, primarily because multitrack tape machines were both very large and very expensive – the first Ampex 8-track recorder, installed in Les Paul's home studio in 1957, cost US$10,000 – roughly three times the US average yearly income in 1957, and equivalent to $114,633 in 2025.
Affordable home multitrack recorders using magnetic tape were introduced in the 1970s. In 1979, the introduction of the TASCAM Portastudio presented a novel format of four tracks running in the same direction and doubled tape speed for the compact audio cassette as its medium, making good-quality four-track multitrack recording available to the average consumer for the first time. TASCAM and Fostex soon introduced reel-to-reel multitrack recorders that also boosted the number of tracks relative to the width of the magnetic tape, such as eight tracks on ¼-inch tape. By then, electronics companies were already introducing digital audio recording systems that used analog magnetic tape as storage media for the digital multitrack data.
By the 1990s, computer-based digital multitrack recording systems such as Pro Tools and Cubase were being adopted by the recording industry, and soon became standard. By the early 2000s, rapid advances in home computing and digital audio software were making digital multitrack audio recording systems available to the average consumer, and high-quality digital multitrack recording systems like GarageBand were being included as a standard feature on home computers.
Stereo sound recording on tape was perfected in 1943 by German audio engineers working for the AEG corporation. Around 250 stereo tape recordings were made during this period (of which only three have survived), but the technology remained a closely guarded secret within Germany until the end of World War II. After the war, American audio engineer John T. Mullin and the Ampex corporation pioneered the commercial development of tape recording in the US, and the technology was rapidly taken up by radio and the music industry due to its superior sound fidelity and because tape – being a linear recording medium – could be easily edited, by physically cutting and splicing the tape, to remove unwanted elements and create a 'perfect' recording. Two-track tape recording was rapidly adopted for modern music in the early 1950s because it enabled signals from two or more separate microphones to be recorded simultaneously, enabling both twin-track mono recordings (with the voices on one and music on the other) as well as true stereophonic recordings to be made and edited conveniently, which in turn facilitated the rapid expansion of the consumer high-fidelity ("HiFi") market. Stereo (either true binaural two-microphone stereo or multimixed) quickly became the norm for commercial classical recordings and radio broadcasts, although many pop music and jazz recordings continued to be issued in mono sound until the late 1960s.
Much of the credit for the development of multitrack recording goes to guitarist, composer and technician Les Paul, who lent his name to Gibson's first solid-body electric guitar. His experiments with tapes and recorders in the early 1950s led him to order the first custom-built eight-track recorder from Ampex, and his pioneering recordings with his then wife, singer Mary Ford. But it was Patti Page who was the first vocalist to record her own voice, sound on sound, with a song called "Confess", in 1947: Bill Putnam, an engineer for Mercury Records, was able to overdub Page's voice, due to his well-known use of technology.
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