 British EMI engineer Alan Blumlein patented systems for recording stereophonic sound and surround sound on disc and film in 1933.The history of modern multitrack audio recording using magnetic tape began in 1943 with the invention of stereo tape recording, which divided the recording head into two tracks.The next major development in multitrack recording came in the mid-1950s, when the Ampex corporation devised the concept of 8-track recording, utilizing its "Sel-Sync" (Selective Synchronous) recording system, and sold the first such machine to musician Les Paul.