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Volta Laboratory Experimental Recording
From the collection of National Museum of American History. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
This is an experimental sound recording made in the Volta Laboratory, Washington, D.C., on 11 March 1885. The recording process involved focusing a beam of light, projecting it through a liquid, and causing sound waves to interrupt both the light and the liquid to expose a prepared photographic plate. The recording, which starts at the center and spirals outward, is of variable density, that is the areas of exposure vary in density according to volume and pitch of the sound recorded. Process is described in U.S. Patent 341,213 awarded Alexander Graham Bell, Chichester A. Bell, and Charles Sumner Tainter on 4 May 1886.
National Museum of American History’s own descriptionSubjects
Credit lineVolta Laboratory Experimental Recording. ca 1885. Volta Laboratory Associates. National Museum of American History, Gift of Alexander Graham Bell. CC0.
