Musicians and Music Producers today have at least a laptop to have a software to operate their music, but how was it like back a hundred years ago? A YouTube Personality, Rob Scallon, took the time to record his music on the equipment.

This creative musician tried to record a soft acoustic song, a silly “old time” song, and a heavy metal song. This is very interesting for the fact that this will be all recorded on a roll of wax. How the equipment works, the musician will be performing directly in front of a large coned-shaped horn that is connected to a needle. The needle can be altered vertically to either apply or release pressure to the wax directly below the needle. The rolled wax would be on a rotating mechanism that allows the roll to spin but also move horizontally so it doesn’t record in the same spot. A note to add is that the wax also has to be under a little heat so it is allowed to be carved by the needle.

The science behind the equipment is that the instrument being played produces sound waves, which travel in a small room by the waves bouncing off physical objects. If loud enough, you can cause the physical object to vibrate. So when you play into the horn, it starts to vibrate it. The needle begins to vibrate because it is also connected to the horn, therefor needle starts to carve itself on the rotating wax. To play the audio back, you have to apply the needle on a piece of glass that is in a shape of a hemisphere that is also on top of the wax so it can help magnify and reverse the process of recording.

You can check the video for yourself on YouTube under his own name, Rob Scallon.