A Short History of Motion-Picture Sound Recording in the United States

This paper presents a step-by-step outline of the many problems encountered and the ingenious solutions developed before the optically recorded photographic soundtrack as we find it today on the release print could become a practical reality. Starting with the first attempts to record sound on cylinders, disc or film, the authors catalog and illustrate the challenges, the difficulties and the technologies which overcame them, the important turning points, and the finally established and surviving systems. (The early developments of magnetic sound recording are covered in a companion paper in this issue by Loren Ryder.) A copious array of bibliographic references permits the more interested reader to delve deeper into the history of motion-picture sound recording.