The German engineer Fritz Pfleumer discovered a different method of magnetic recording. While relaxing in a Paris cafˇ on a business trip in 1927 for the Universelle Company that made cigarette machines, he thought of coating paper tape with iron oxide in the same way that he had been coating cigarette paper with bronze powder lacquer. His German patent for "sounding paper" was granted Jan. 1, 1928, but his tape recorder tore up the paper tape and was only used to demonstrate the potential of tape for editing and reuse. Hermann Bucher, Chairman of the Board of Directors of AEG took a personal interest in this potential and signed a contract with Pfleumer Nov. 28, 1932, to develop a recorder. Theo Volk led the AEG team that worked with Pfleumer and with another team led by chemist Friedrich Matthias of BASF, a subsidiary of the I. G. Farben chemical giant. AEG had expertise in producing high-frequency coils filled with carbonyl iron powder supplied by BASF, and I.G. Farben also produced films and plastics and a variety of coated materials. The partnership created by Bucher and Pfleumer because both were music lovers, would become one of the greatest corporate research and development triumphs of the century. Over the next three years, the teams perfected a tape and recorder that became the standard design for the industry for the next 30 years. Eduard Schuller patented in 1933 the ring-shaped magnetic head that was one of the team's most important inventions. Previous heads were shaped like phonograph needles or chisels and damaged the soft tape. Schuller's ring focused a strong magnetic field on a small area of tape without touching the surface. Matthias developed a two-layer magnetic tape, bonding a top layer of carbonyl iron powder with a base layer of cellulose acetate, similar to the kind of layered safety film made by Agfa for photography. Measuring and testing devices were invented to evaluate the performance of the recorders built by AEG. A tape drive system of capstans and motors and brakes had to be created, and everything had to work with the electronics of amplifiers and speakers. Finally, the Magnetophone K1 debuted at the Berlin Radio Fair in August 1935.
