DJ TASK 3

TURNTABLES

The first turntable as we know it arrived in 1895, when German-born American immigrant Emile Berliner introduced a commercial version of a record player he had been developing for seven years. Utilising a flat disc instead of a cylinder, the gramophone, as it was called, garnered wide public acclaim. Unlike Edison’s cylinders, gramophone records—made first from hard rubber, then from shellac, and later from vinyl—could easily be mass produced. As a result, the gramophone dominated the consumer market, with companies such as the Victor 

The first turntable as we know it arrived in 1895, when German-born American immigrant Emile Berliner introduced a commercial version of a record player he had been developing for seven years. Utilising a flat disc instead of a cylinder, the gramophone, as it was called, garnered wide public acclaim. Unlike Edison’s cylinders, gramophone records—made first from hard rubber, then from shellac, and later from vinyl—could easily be mass produced. As a result, the gramophone dominated the consumer market, with companies such as the Victor Talking Machine Company marketing “Victrolas” to the public.

The invention of the low-cost radio in the aftermath of World War I threatened to bankrupt the recording industry. Ironically, however, radio technology led to improvements in record-making, specifically through the use of electronically amplified disc cutters. By 1925, all phonograph discs were being manufactured utilising this new technology.

AROUND THE TURNTABLE

PLATTER: The platter is the rotating circular part of the turntable where the