The static-based dictaphone was an early recording device patented in 1867 by European inventor and exorcist Bartok Babkin.

In 1864, a Confederate wizard attempted to use magic to slaughter his slaves before the Union could free them. Due to what is now considered to be a comparative phenomena clash, the attempt backfired and created the Kirkwood Harrowing, turning his plantation into a horrowshow of illusions and flesh. After several of General Sherman’s soldiers died attempting to burn the place to the ground, the government established a quarantine zone around the whole area. Bartok was one of many specialists secretly hired by the US government to study the phenomenon in the hopes of reversing it or, at the very least, keeping it from spreading.

Babkin’s contributions to the eventual purification of the plantation were relatively minor. Government records only cite him on development teams for phantasm-resistant eye and ear protection. Where he shined was using the horrors that the specialists and soldiers experienced as a springboard for research in other fields. The groaning, undulating flesh of the fields led to a treatise on flesh regeneration that would be cited repeatedly in the following hundred years, until the stem-cell breakthrough of 1962. The impaling thorns that the crops grew when set on fire would be used as the basis for flame-retardant cotton. This font of inspiration kept Babkin in the country for fifteen years before his feud with the Comte de Saint Germain would bring him back to Europe

The dictaphone was based on the screams that would echo across the landscape, the agony of all those who died on that land. After realizing that no voices were heard screaming in the Choctaw tongue, he determined that it wasn’t channeling every person who had died horribly on that land but was specifically saving screams made during and after the Harrowing. By tracking the frequency and intensity and realizing that they spiked during thunderstorms, he determined a causal effect between static electricity in the air and horrific screeches bemoaning their terrible fate echoing over the fields. By combining static-accumulating wool with an aluminum disk, he was able to mimic the effect, and the design for the dictaphone progressed from there.

While Babkin was able to develop a device that could consistently record and playback sound, the initial model of the dictaphone proved difficult to market. The phenomenon naturally plays back sound without respect to time or order. Expensive brass valves and rubber tubing and glass were required for a receiver part that would selectively record the intended sound and ensure that playback happens in the right order. Additionally, storing the recordings proved to be difficult, as any static discharge could erase the data (similar to magnets and early 2000s hard drives). On top of all that, the device was about the size of a grandfather clock. Commercial use of the dictaphone was largely limited to academic institutions, who needed a way to preserve noises for educational and conservation purposes. Dartmouth’s dictaphone recordings of dying indigenous languages would become a key part of the Turtle Island Restoration Movement of the 70s and 80s.

With limited means to make money off of the device, Babkin would partner with the US government, the government financing further innovation on the design in exchange for exclusive use of the final product. With government funding, Babkin managed to compress the design for ease of use, the 1875 model being about the size of a small suitcase. He also designed a better storage medium for the recording, replacing the disk with a wire coil for better sound clarity and using a rubber coating to reduce the chance of information loss. The device would be tested in various capacities by the federal government to support existing note-taking methods. Court stenographers, detectives, Marshal assistants, and thaumatologists would make use of the device during this period, typically using playback to create transcripts after the fact. It also saw use as an espionage tool, with several gifts given to foreign ambassadors hiding dictaphones with multiple storage coils for long-term recording.

Babkin would eventually release a new commercial model during his time in Switzerland in 1896 (to finance one of his many plots against the Comte), using the knowledge gained from his time working in the US government. Lacking a solid production line, a solid business pitch and a reliable way to provide replacement coils, it sold poorly. An improved commercial model would be released in 1899, which saw some competition with the phonograph in Europe for music recording before soundly losing. Even with the improved design for the storage coil, there would be significant loss in sound quality after a decade without extremely meticulous storage, making vinyl records a superior storage format. A fourth commercial model was released in 1922 by Bartok’s daughter, Lydia Babkina, which focused on the ease of recording and instantaneous playback, improved on the coil design to reduce information loss over time, and established a convenient mailing service for new coils. With the post-war economic boom and the advent of the Jazz Age, dictaphones became a popular way for musicians and bandleaders to send demo recordings to promoters and producers, making her a steady profit. Variations on this model would see continuous usage for the next few decades until digital recording reduced it back to just a novelty.