Experts Find Oldest Voice Recording, From 1860

**SKOL** · 03-28-2008, 09:05 AM

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23835160/?GT1=43001

WASHINGTON - U.S. audio historians have discovered and played back a French inventor's historic 1860 recording of a folk song Ã¢â‚¬â€ the oldest-known audio recording Ã¢â‚¬â€ made 17 years before Thomas Edison invented the phonograph.

"It's magic," audio historian David Giovannoni said on Thursday. "It's like a ghost singing to you."

Here's the recording:

http://www.firstsounds.org/sounds/1860-Scott-Au-Clair-de-la-Lune.mp3

**C Mac D** · 03-28-2008, 09:20 AM

The EQ is all off... way too much treble. They need to buy a new condenser mic for recordings like this. Whoever produced this recording should be ashamed of himself.

**BloodyHorns82** · 03-28-2008, 09:42 AM

Sound quality is pretty bad...wouldn't even have known that was a song if not for the description.
What do you expect though for 1860?

**C Mac D** · 03-28-2008, 09:52 AM

"BloodyHorns82" wrote:

Sound quality is pretty bad...wouldn't even have known that was a song if not for the description.
What do you expect though for 1860?

Maybe I have high standards...

**V4L** · 03-28-2008, 10:15 AM

Pretty dang cool

Cant really understand but thats a LONGGGGGGGG time ago

**Prophet** · 03-28-2008, 10:18 AM

That is quite the recording, don't think Edison should be worried though.

**Zeus** · 03-28-2008, 10:19 AM

"Prophet" wrote:

That is quite the recording, don't think Edison should be worried though.

Such bullshit.
It's not porn, so it couldn't have been the first.

=Z=

**BadlandsVikings** · 03-28-2008, 10:24 AM

sounds like the poltergeist lady

**Mr Anderson** · 03-28-2008, 10:27 AM

Giovannoni said he learned on March 1 of its existence in an archive in Paris and traveled to the French capital a week later. Experts working with the First Sounds group then transformed the paper tracings into sound.

See, this is a recording from sounds produced in 1860, but never played back until 2008.

Edison was recording and playing back sound in 1877.

I read further in the article and see this quote, which explains what I just said more clearly.

"But actually the truth is he was the first person to have recorded (sound) and played it back. There were several people working along the lines of Scott, including Alexander Graham Bell, in experimenting Ã¢â‚¬â€ trying to write the visual representation of sound before Edison invented the idea of playing it back," Giovannoni said.