German-born inventor Emile Berliner was the man behind the birth of the vinyl record

On this day 130 years ago Emile Berliner filed for a patent for his gramophone, taking on Edison at his own game

Emile Berliner in 1927 with the microphone he invented.

THERE has been a resurgence of vinyl records in recent years, possibly a reaction to digital music collections, which can be erased in a minute and aren’t as much fun to pass on to grandchildren.

But those flat black plastic discs may have been cylinders if it hadn’t been for the inspiration of one man, Emile Berliner, who 130 years ago today filed for a patent of a device that played flat, disc records. He called it the gramophone, a competitor for Thomas Edison’s phonograph that used a wax cylinder for recording.

While Edison’s name is well known, Berliner is not nearly as famous. But he was also a brilliant inventor whose gramophone arguably had a greater impact on music today. He is also credited with several other inventions and was the founder of Deutsche Grammophon, the world’s oldest surviving recording label.

Berliner was born in Hanover in 1851, one of 13 children in the family of Jewish merchant Samuel Berliner. He left school at 14 to begin an apprenticeship as a merchant, to follow in the family tradition, but had a passion for tinkering with inventions in his spare time.

German-American inventor Emile Berliner, in 1920, with the model of the first phonograph machine he invented.

In 1870 he migrated to the US to avoid being drafted to fight during the Franco-Prussian War and to seek new opportunities. He took any job that would help pay for his studies in physics at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York.

In 1877 while working for the Bell Telephone company he invented a telephone receiver that improved on the technology employed by Alexander Graham Bell on the phone he had patented the year before. What Berliner invented was, in effect, an early form of the microphone.

He branched out on his own in 1883 and began researching recording technology, looking for ways to improve on Edison’s 1878 invention of the phonograph. It resulted in Berliner filing for a patent for a gramophone in September 1887, which was granted in November.

Unlike previous machines Berliner’s recordings were made on a flat disc, which were easier to make and mass produce. His use of a playback stylus that moved horizontally rather than vertically also removed some of the problems with gravity distorting the sound on Edison’s machines.

Thomas Edison, the man who invented the telephone, the electric light bulb and the gramophone.

It took a bit of tinkering to get the disc right, but by December 1888 he had a product that he could sell to the public. He gave demonstrations across Europe in 1889, and later in the year the first pressing of 25,000 hard rubber discs, measuring about 5 inches (12.7cm) — coincidentally, the size of a CD — were released. But because of problems with patents at the time, he had to sell his gramophones and the records exclusively in Europe.

When he returned to the US in 1891 he set up the US Gramophone Company and improved on his design, commissioning engineer Eldridge Johnson to create a spring-winding mechanism that played the records at a constant speed. In 1894, Berliner introduced larger 7 inch (17.78cm) discs. The gramophone was now no longer just a toy.

In 1898 he sent his nephew to Europe to set up a recording company for classical music, which became Deutsche Grammophon.

However, he was having problems with copycat manufacturers. A disagreement with production partner Frank Seaman over sales rights left Berliner unable to sell his machines in the US so he moved operations to Canada in 1900 and created the Berliner Gramophone Company.

His Master's Voice (HMV) logo featuring "Nipper" the dog, was registered as a trademark in Britain in 1900.

Meanwhile, Johnson took over the US Gramophone Company, renaming it the Victor Talking Machine Company. It was later called His Master’s Voice (HMV), named after the painting of a dog, “Nipper”, listening to a record that had been used as a logo by some branches of Berliner’s Gramophone Company and was now used by Johnson’s company.

His battles with Johnson and Seaman were not his only struggles. He also had a long-running dispute with Edison over credit for the invention of the microphone, but the Supreme Court found in Edison’s favour in 1892.

These battles left Berliner soured on sound technology. Instead he became interested in other areas and is credited with inventing the first radial aircraft engine as well as an early helicopter that lifted a man into the air on three occasions. While he didn’t get credit for inventing the helicopter, some of his ideas would influence later designs.

By the time he died of a heart attack, in 1929, his discs had become standard and had driven Edison’s cylinders off the market.