section_path: Forms of mass media/Audio recording and reproduction
section_name: Audio recording and reproduction
paragraph_text: Audio recording and reproduction
  
  Sound recording and reproduction is the electrical or mechanical re-creation or amplification of sound, often as music. This involves the use of audio equipment such as microphones, recording devices and loudspeakers. From early beginnings with the invention of the phonograph using purely mechanical techniques, the field has advanced with the invention of electrical recording, the mass production of the 78 record, the magnetic wire recorder followed by the tape recorder, the vinyl LP record. The invention of the compact cassette in the 1960s, followed by Sony's Walkman, gave a major boost to the mass distribution of music recordings, and the invention of digital recording and the compact disc in 1983 brought massive improvements in ruggedness and quality. The most recent developments have been in digital audio players.
  
  An album is a collection of related audio recordings, released together to the public, usually commercially.
  
  The term record album originated from the fact that 78 RPM phonograph disc records were kept together in a book resembling a photo album. The first collection of records to be called an "album" was Tchaikovsky 's Nutcracker Suite, release in April 1909 as a four-disc set by Odeon Records. It retailed for 16 shillings —about £ 15 in modern currency.
  
  A music video (also promo) is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music, most commonly a song. Modern music videos were primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. Although the origins of music videos go back much further, they came into their own in the 1980s, when Music Television 's format was based on them. In the 1980s, the term "rock video" was often used to describe this form of entertainment, although the term has fallen into disuse.
  
  Music videos can accommodate all styles of filmmaking, including animation, live-action films, documentaries, and non-narrative, abstract film.