I can sort of understand records mimicing the sound of instruments, but voices are so unique, how did we ever figure out the exact carving of a piece of vinyl that when you drag a needle across it, you’ll get the same sound as x or y person’s voice exactly?
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human voices are complex, but like all sounds, all they are is a bunch of soundwaves. the ‘sound’ of a soundwave is just its frequency. they have a little needle vibrate at the frequencies of the thing theyre recording, and let it run over a blank vinyl. the needle ‘carves the frequencies’ into the vinyl by just vibrating at those frequencies. then, whenever a vinyl player needle is dragged over those carvings, the needle will vibrate at the same frequencies the carving needle vibrated at, which lets the vinyl player play whatever sound was happening when the vinyl was carved.
Basically, to carve a record, you “read” on it forcefully, creating the grooves to be read back later. Just as a record informs the sound that speakers will play back later does the microphone inform the sound to be written.
Rob Scallion actually recorded on wax cylinders and this video shows the process.
My understanding is that compression is actually built into the process, because the surface depth is so limited. Record players actually uncompress the signal as it goes out to the speakers.
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