Emil Berliner Studios

Emil Berliner Studios
The Reisz microphone was used from 1925 to 1928 for recordings
General information
Type	Recording studio
Address	Markgrafenstraße 76
Town or city	Berlin
Country	Germany
Opened	1900

The Emil Berliner Studios, named after the inventor of the grammophone and the record, is a sound studio in the heart of Berlin. The studio originated from the recording department of Deutsche Grammophon.

Deutsche Grammophon, founded by Emil Berliner in 1898, opened its Berlin headquarters (Markgrafenstraße 76) in 1900. It was primarily a recording studio with three recording rooms. Mobile recording technology, however, also allowed recordings to be made worldwide.

1925 saw the arrival of electronic recordings with the Reisz-Kohl microphone, which replaced the previous acoustic horn microphones. Three years later the first condenser microphone was introduced, from General Electric and Neumann. From 1939 the Zentral-Theaters in Alten Jakobstrasse was also used as a recording location. It was here that the first recordings from Herbert von Karajan took place. Other artists included Wilhelm Kempff, Elly Ney, Georg Kulenkampff, Erna Berger and Heinrich Schlusnus.

The sound studio in the Alten Jakobstrasse was destroyed in 1945 by an air raid. After the war, the recordings department of Deutsche Grammophon started operating their mobile recording services from Hannover, and set up cutting and mixing studios in the record factory in Podbielskistrasse. In 1946 the first recordings on magnetic tape were made, which then went on to replace the direct to disc recording technique. The first stereo recordings were made in 1950 for Deutsche Grammophon.

In 1969 the studios moved to Hannover-Langenhagen. One year later multitrack technology was introduced. The first quadraphonic recording (4 tracks) took place with mobile equipment in Boston with Michael Tilson Thomas, followed by the first 8 track opera production with Carlos Kleiber in 1973 (Weber: Der Freischütz). In 1976 the studio, together with Eugen Jochum, produced the first 16 track opera production (Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), at the same time the first digital stereo test recording took place with Maurizio Pollini. The first multitrack digital recording took place in 1979 with Herbert von Karajan (Wagner: Parsifal).