record players were way ahead of their time everyone knows that the sound comes from the grooves but how on Earth can a Groove in a plastic frisbee generate the sweet ear nectar that is Yellow Submarine it's because sound is just vibration say you were to speak into a big horn that had a stretched out balloon at the end that stretched out balloon is going to vibrate along when you speak into said horn and that vibration is the same vibration your eardrum makes to let you hear sound so say you then taped a pencil that would
vibrate with the balloon if I put a piece of paper against the pencil you'd see something like this useless scribbles now if I move the piece of paper at a constant pace you'd see this slightly less useless scribbles congratulations you just recorded your voice good job that scribble on your piece of paper is the sound waves or vibration that you were making by speaking into the horn but there's no way to play it back it's literally just a piece of paper only what if it wasn't what if instead of making a 2d line we make
a 3D line and that's what these guys did back in the 1800s the gramophone say Lady Gaga sings into a Big Horn that would focus and direct the sound onto a diaphragm which is essentially just a fancy stretched out balloon from before the diaphragm would vibrate and attached to the diaphragm would be a stylus or needle that would cut these vibrations into a wax record creating a 3D line with bumps and valleys if you take that wax record and put it through a chemical bath you'll have a metal record you can then use that metal
record as a stamp on Old plastic frisbees now we have a record but the question still stands how does it play music you actually literally just do everything backwards first start spinning the disc at the same speed you spun the wax record when recording then drop the needle into the groove the bumps and valleys are going to cause that needle to make the exact same vibrations as the needle that recorded the original sound and just like how you record the original sound the needle is connected to a diaphragm and that diaphragm is going to make
the exact same vibration as the original recording and vibration is sound so all we need to do is amplify that vibration by adding a comically Big Horn and you'll get the exact same sound made by Lady Gaga but modern records don't use Big Horns so how does that work well modern record players are a little bit more digital instead of a horn it's a speaker and instead of a flimsy balloon it's a copper coil vibrating in between two magnets as the copper coil moves between the two magnets it makes electricity that goes to a speaker
creating sound but it's the 80s and only losers use vinyl anymore the cassette tape now what sort of sorcery is used to put Michael Jackson into this measly piece of black Scotch tape magnets the answer is magnets in fact the actual process is kind of just a futuristic magnetic version of a vinyl step one record some music say your Michael Jackson as Michael Jackson you aren't going to sing into some big horn you're going to sing into a microphone how can a microphone capture your Hees and hahas well let's get it open inside of the
microphone you'll find a diaphragm that vibrates when you speak into it just like the balloon the diaphragm is either connected to a copper coil kind of like the record player where the sound vibrates the coil sending different strengths of electricity or the diaphragm is connected to a capacitor which is basically just a fancy plate as you speak the diaphragm moves and this vibration changes the distance causing a change in stored energy resulting again in different strengths of electricity step two magnets so now we have electricity how does that help well it's easier to think of
the electricity as the pencil in our original example and that makes the Magnetic Tape the paper the recording head is the point of contact the different strengths of electricity make changes to the magnetic fields on the tape surface this creates a little pattern of magnetization that almost exactly replicates the original sound wave but how do we read said magnetization well just like before it's the same process but backwards put your tape into a boom box and there will be a playback head there too as the tape passes over the playback head the changes in the
magnetic field on the tape make an electric signal this is the same electric signal that was made when recording the electricity is sent to a speaker which has a diaphragm just like the microphone creating a big old vibration and thus you hear the sweet harmony that is Michael Jackson but nobody listens to Michael Jackson cuz he is just so 10 years ago welcome to the '90s now instead of a frisbee or Scotch tape we use a fat glorified ring to record sound onto this fat ring we use a microphone that works the same way as
before except this time we take that electricity and convert it into ones and zeros that represent the original sound wave and that's a lot of words so how the freak do we do that by looking at the voltage for example if the voltage is this High we give it a one if it's this low we give it a zero Now using a teeny laser we put these ones and zeros on a disc where pit represents a one and an untouched land represents a zero but these pits and lands are so small the disc seems smooth
now if you put this disc into your crusty 1992 Honda cord it's going to read it also with a laser this laser bounces off the CD if there's a pit it bounces a bit differently and writes down a one there's a land bounces the same and writes down a zero but how do these ones and zeros magically become music again same thing but backwards first we use a digital to analog converter but you can just call him DAC DAC will generate a certain amount of electricity depending on whether it reads a one or zero this
creates the same electric stream that was in the microphone when originally recording and just like before the electric stream is sent to a speaker which has a diaphragm that vibrates depending on how much electricity it receives creating weak knees heavy arms and Mom spaghetti and all that information is actually not free it's going to cost you one subscribe and I'm just going to flip this around it's going to ask you a couple questions you know we appreciate tips in the form of a like comments even if you feel that
