Thomas Edison is commonly given credit for inventing the first recording device, the cylinder phonograph in 1877.  Edison was influenced by earlier work on the telegraph and telephone by Alexander Graham Bell who turned sound waves into electrical current and back again with his telephone demonstration in 1876. Danish inventor Valdemar Poulsen patented the a working magnetic recorder in 1898 using recording onto a magnetic coil.  German engineers Fritz Pfleumer and Herman Bucher began recording on magnetic tape in 1935, debuting their “Magnetophone K1”.

Bing Crosby’s gift of a reel-to-to-reel tape recorder to guitarist and inventor Les Paul launched the era of multitrack recording.  In 1953 Paul built an eight-track tape recorder and Ampex Corporation released the first commercial multitrack recorder in 1955.

Denon and the record label Decca pioneered digital audio recording in the mid 1970s. Digital recording converts the audio signal into electrical signals - on/off pulses - rather than electro-magnetic signals. Digital recording and the development of the Personal Computer revolutionized the recording industry as it brought high-quality multitrack recording to the masses.