Vinyl Records
Are What We Make
Welcome to J Tone Records!

We specialize in analog audio systems recording. Have you ever dreamed of making a record?  Remember the smell of cardboard and ink when you opened a record the first time?  How about the sound of the needle settling into the groove and the warmth of that sound? 

We make our own
It’s not as expensive as you think
We can help you do it, too!

J Tone Records specializes in the production of 33, 45 and 78 rpm records, presenting the finest in musical art and entertainment in a wide variety of genres to appeal to the tastes of a discriminating public.

Our Latest

Mr. Friendly’s Animal Tales
by
SUZY WILLIAMS and the J TONES

Four original jumpin' jive jazz tunes on a big ten inch 45 rpm EP!
                                                          

SAMPLES

                                      
Here Are Some Samples from Our Other Offerings

For complete Catalog click here
                                                   
Click here to find out more about making your own record with

J Tone Records

COMING THIS FALL ON J TONE RECORDS

THE RHUMBA BEATNIKS WITH ANDREW KELSEY

PUBLIC SERVICE SECTION
!!!EDUCATIONAL!!!

A History of Recorded Sound

The history of audio recording is a little over one hundred years old and can be broken down into different periods, somewhat like the dinosaurs.   Today, we live in the digital age where the commercial recording industry uses computers to record music or dialog.  This technology came to prominence during the 1980s and 1990s.  Prior to digital recording there was the analog age.  This period has two distinct phases. During more recent years, from roughly 1950 through the 1980s, the commercial recording industry used magnetic tape as the primary means of capturing sound.  This technology was developed in Nazi Germany in the late 1930s so it wasn’t available to the American entertainment industry until after the Allies won the Second World War.  In the tape period, the industry would use the tape-recorded master and transfer it to a vinyl disc (also known as a record) for commercial sale to the public.  Going far beyond the original work of Les Paul, a rock band named the Beatles experimented with multi-tracking, tape looping and reverse playbacks. When the Beatles recorded their first album in 1962 it was, for the most part, a live recording; but during their career they developed new ideas and applications in regards to tape recording.

This was quite a change from the state of things at the beginning of the recording industry.  People stood in front of giant horns through which the sound was captured on a revolving wax cylinder.  Then came Emil Berliner, who pioneered disc recording or “cutting a record” in the late 1890s.  It was a vast commercial improvement over Edison’s cylindrical recording method.   In the mid 1920s a further development was the advent of electrical recording, which revolutionized the quality of audio fidelity (not to mention the volume).  During the 1920s and 1930s microphone quality improved greatly and by the late 1940s, at the end of commercial disc recording, sophisticated multi-mic technology was fully capturing those great performances onto disc.

And let us now emphasize that fact.  During the period of disc recording, every commercial record and every recorded radio spot was a live performance; no overdubs, no tape slices or software applications.  Those musicians and singers got a perfect take, together at the same time, usually on very few takes.  During the first analog period of disc recording (1895-1948) a waxed master was used on a record lathe to capture the performance.  An impression was made of the wax master and metal parts were manufactured to stamp shellac records that were sold to the public.

It wasn’t until after World War two that vinyl replaced shellac as the material for making commercial records. Also noteworthy is the fact that lacquer covered aluminum disks have replaced wax masters in the recording process.

As we begin the 21st century audio artists have seemingly endless choices of technologies.  But how to capitalize on those technologies is still the prominent question.

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Made in the USA