Stereophonic Sound - Motion Picture Era and Further Fantasound Development

Motion Picture Era and Further Fantasound Development

In 1937, Bell Laboratories in New York City gave a demonstration of two-channel stereophonic motion pictures, developed by Bell Labs and Electrical Research Products, Inc. Once again, conductor Leopold Stokowski was on hand to try out the new technology, recording onto a special proprietary nine-track sound system at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, during the making of the movie One Hundred Men and a Girl for Universal Pictures in 1937, after which the tracks were mixed down to one for the final soundtrack. A year later, MGM started using three tracks instead of one to record the musical selections of movie soundtracks, and very quickly upgraded to four. One track was used for dialogue, two for music, and one for sound effects. The purpose for this form of multitrack recording was to make mixing down to a single optical track easier and was not intended to be a recording for stereophonic purposes. The very first two-track recording MGM made (although released in mono) was "It Never Rains But What It Pours" by Judy Garland, recorded on June 21, 1938, for the movie Love Finds Andy Hardy.