Analog recording
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Analog recording is the first way humans were able to store sounds for later playback. It was first successfully used by Thomas Alva Edison.
The modern examples of the analog recording are:
- Gramophone record (aka phonograph record, vinyl, etc).
- Magnetic tape.
- Reel-to-Reel recorders.
- Compact cassette.
The analog recording method stored sounds as a continual wave in the media, rather than the discrete numbers used in digital recording. The wave was stored as a physical texture on a phonograph record, or a fluxuation in a magnetic field strength in a magnetic tape recording.
One of the drawback of analog recordings was the poor fidelity. It is difficult to filter out noise introduced into the recording media. Repeatedly playing a gramaphone record, for example, would introduce wear that made the original recording more difficult to hear over the noise level. Good-quality equipment and careful removal of dust would reduce, but not eliminate, this problem.