Analog recording is a technique used for the recording of

analog signal An analog signal or analogue signal (see spelling differences) is any continuous signal representing some other quantity, i.e., ''analogous'' to another quantity. For example, in an analog audio signal, the instantaneous signal voltage varies ...

s which, among many possibilities, allows analog audio for later playback. Analog audio recording began with mechanical systems such as the

phonautograph The phonautograph is the earliest known device for recording sound. Previously, tracings had been obtained of the sound-producing vibratory motions of tuning forks and other objects by physical contact with them, but not of actual sound waves ...

and

phonograph A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

. Later, electronic techniques such as

wire Overhead power cabling. The conductor consists of seven strands of steel (centre, high tensile strength), surrounded by four outer layers of aluminium (high conductivity). Sample diameter 40 mm A wire is a flexible strand of metal. Wire is co ...

and

tape recording An audio tape recorder, also known as a tape deck, tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder, is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its presen ...

were developed. Analog recording methods store

s directly in or on the media. The signal may be stored as a physical texture on a

phonograph record A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts near ...

, or a fluctuation in the

field strength In physics, field strength means the '' magnitude'' of a vector-valued field (e.g., in volts per meter, V/m, for an electric field ''E''). For example, an electromagnetic field results in both electric field strength and magnetic field streng ...

of a magnetic recording. Analog transmission methods use analog signals to distribute audio content. These are in contrast to

digital audio Digital audio is a representation of sound recorded in, or converted into, digital form. In digital audio, the sound wave of the audio signal is typically encoded as numerical samples in a continuous sequence. For example, in CD audio, samp ...

where an analog signal is sampled and quantized to produce a

digital signal A digital signal is a signal that represents data as a sequence of discrete values; at any given time it can only take on, at most, one of a finite number of values. This contrasts with an analog signal, which represents continuous values; a ...

which is represented, stored and transmitted as discrete numbers.

References

Film and video technology Film and video terminology Mass media technology Recording Television terminology Video storage {{Sound-tech-stub

See also

References