Graphical sound

Graphical sound or drawn sound (Fr. son dessiné, Ger. graphische Tonerzeugung,; It. suono disegnato) is a sound recording created from images drawn directly onto film or paper that were then played back using a sound system. There are several different techniques depending on the technology employed, but all are a consequence of the sound-on-film technology and based on the creation of artificial optical polyphonic sound tracks on transparent film.

History

The first practical sound-on-film systems were created almost simultaneously in the USSR, USA and Germany. In Soviet Russia Pavel Tager initiated the first developments in 1926 in Moscow.

In 1927, just over a few months later, Alexander Shorin started his research in Leningrad. The popular version of his “Shorinophone”, widely used for field and studio sound recording, was based on a mechanical reproduction of gramophone-like longitudinal grooves along the filmstrip. Another version of Shorin’s system – “Kinap”, mainly used for sound-on-film production, was based on a variable area optical recording on film – “transversal” recoding as it was called in Russia.