DECCA 18139 Provol's Golden Birds ACTUAL canary birds w violin piano cello V++ / V++ needs cleaning
GREY GULL 1274 Original Dixie Rag Pickers V / V some rough spots that you will hear
WIKIPEDIA: A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), a vinyl record (for later varieties only), or simply a record or vinyl is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral
groove. The groove usually starts near the outside edge and ends near
the center of the disc. The stored sound information is made audible by
playing the record on a phonograph.
Until the 1940s, for about half a century, the discs were commonly made from shellac, with earlier records having a fine abrasive filler mixed in. The "vinyl" records of the late 20th century, made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC), then became commonplace.
Overview
The phonograph record was the primary medium used for music
reproduction throughout the 20th century. It had co-existed with the phonograph cylinder
from the late 1880s and had effectively superseded it by around 1912.
Records retained the largest market share even when new formats such as
the compact cassette were mass-marketed. By the 1980s, digital media, in the form of the compact disc, had gained a larger market share, and the record left the mainstream in 1991.[1]
Since the 1990s, records continue to be manufactured and sold on a
smaller scale, and during the 1990s and early 2000s were commonly used
by disc jockeys (DJs), especially in dance music genres. They were also listened to by a growing number of audiophiles.
The phonograph record has made a niche resurgence as a format for rock
music in the early 21st century—9.2 million records were sold in the US
in 2014, a 260% increase since 2009.[2] Likewise, sales in the UK increased five-fold from 2009 to 2014.[3]
Phonograph records are generally described by their diameter in inches (12-inch, 10-inch, 7-inch) (although they were designed in millimeters[4]), the rotational speed in revolutions per minute (rpm) at which they are played (8+1⁄3, 16+2⁄3, 33+1⁄3, 45, 78),[5] and their time capacity, determined by their diameter and speed (LP [long play], 12-inch disc, 33+1⁄3 rpm;
SP [short play or single play], 10-inch disc, 78 rpm, or 7-inch disc,
45 rpm; EP [extended play], 12-inch disc or 7-inch disc, 33+1⁄3 or 45 rpm); their reproductive quality, or level of fidelity (high-fidelity, orthophonic, full-range, etc.); and the number of audio channels (mono, stereo, quad, etc.).
The phrase broken record refers to a malfunction[6] when the needle skips/jumps back to the previous groove and plays the same section over and over again indefinitely.[7][8][9]
Continued production
As of 2017,
48 record pressing facilities exist worldwide, 18 in the US and 30 in
other countries. The increased popularity of the record has led to the
investment in new and modern record-pressing machines.[10] Only two producers of lacquers (acetate discs or master discs) remain: Apollo Masters in California, and MDC in Japan.[11]
On February 6, 2020, a fire destroyed the Apollo Masters plant.
According to the Apollo Masters website, their future is still
uncertain.[12]
History
Manufacture
of disc records began in the late 19th century, at first competing with
earlier cylinder records. Price, ease of use and storage made the disc
record dominant by the 1910s. The standard format of disc records
became known to later generations as "78s" after their playback speed in
revolutions per minute, although that speed only became standardized in
the late 1920s. In the late 1940s new formats pressed in vinyl, the 45
rpm single and 33 rpm long playing "LP", were introduced, gradually
overtaking the formerly standard "78s" over the next decade. The late
1950s saw the introduction of stereophonic sound on commercial discs.
Predecessors
Main article: History of sound recording
The phonautograph was invented by 1857 by Frenchman Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville.[13] It could not, however, play back recorded sound,[14] as Scott intended for people to read back the tracings,[15] which he called phonautograms.[16] Prior to this, tuning forks had been used in this way to create direct tracings of the vibrations of sound-producing objects, as by English physicist Thomas Young in 1807.[17]
In 1877, Thomas Edison invented the first phonograph,[18] which etched sound recordings onto phonograph cylinders.
Unlike the phonautograph, Edison's phonograph could both record and
reproduce sound, via two separate needles, one for each function.[19]
The first disc records
The first commercially sold disc records were created by Emile Berliner in the 1880s. Emile Berliner improved the quality of recordings while his manufacturing associate Eldridge R. Johnson, who owned a machine shop in Camden, New Jersey,
eventually improved the mechanism of the gramophone with a spring motor
and a speed regulating governor, resulting in a sound quality equal to
Edison's cylinders. Abandoning Berliner's "Gramophone" trademark for
legal reasons in the United States, Johnson's and Berliner's separate
companies reorganized in 1901 to form the Victor Talking Machine Company in Camden, New Jersey, whose products would come to dominate the market for several decades.[20]
Berliner's Montreal factory, which became the Canadian branch of RCA Victor, still exists. There is a dedicated museum in Montreal for Berliner (Musée des ondes Emile Berliner).[21]
78 rpm disc developments
Early speeds
Early
disc recordings were produced in a variety of speeds ranging from 60 to
130 rpm, and a variety of sizes. As early as 1894, Emile Berliner's United States Gramophone Company was selling single-sided 7-inch discs with an advertised standard speed of "about 70 rpm".[22]
One standard audio recording handbook describes speed regulators, or governors,
as being part of a wave of improvement introduced rapidly after 1897. A
picture of a hand-cranked 1898 Berliner Gramophone shows a governor,
and says that spring drives had replaced hand drives. It notes that:
The speed regulator was furnished with an indicator that
showed the speed when the machine was running so that the records, on
reproduction, could be revolved at exactly the same speed...The
literature does not disclose why 78 rpm was chosen for the phonograph
industry, apparently this just happened to be the speed created by one
of the early machines and, for no other reason continued to be used.[23]
In 1912, the Gramophone Company set 78 rpm as their recording
standard, based on the average of recordings they had been releasing at
the time, and started selling players whose governors had a nominal speed of 78 rpm.[24] By 1925, 78 rpm was becoming standardized across the industry. However, the exact speed differed between places with alternating current electricity supply at 60 hertz (cycles per second, Hz) and those at 50 Hz. Where the mains supply was 60 Hz, the actual speed was 78.26 rpm: that of a 60 Hz stroboscope
illuminating 92-bar calibration markings. Where it was 50 Hz, it was
77.92 rpm: that of a 50 Hz stroboscope illuminating 77-bar calibration
markings.[24]
Acoustic recording
Early recordings were made entirely acoustically, the sound was collected by a horn and piped to a diaphragm,
which vibrated the cutting stylus. Sensitivity and frequency range were
poor, and frequency response was very irregular, giving acoustic
recordings an instantly recognizable tonal quality. A singer almost had
to put their face in the recording horn. A way of reducing resonance was
to wrap the recording horn with tape.[25]
Even drums, if planned and placed properly, could be effectively
recorded and heard on even the earliest jazz and military band
recordings. The loudest instruments such as the drums and trumpets were
positioned the farthest away from the collecting horn. Lillian Hardin Armstrong, a member of King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, which recorded at Gennett Records in 1923, remembered that at first Oliver and his young second trumpet, Louis Armstrong,
stood next to each other and Oliver's horn could not be heard. "They
put Louis about fifteen feet over in the corner, looking all sad."[26][27]
Electrical recording
During the first half of the 1920s, engineers at Western Electric, as well as independent inventors such as Orlando Marsh, developed technology for capturing sound with a microphone, amplifying it with vacuum tubes[28] (known as valves in the UK[29]),
and then using the amplified signal to drive an electromechanical
recording head. Western Electric's innovations resulted in a broader and
smoother frequency response, which produced a dramatically fuller,
clearer and more natural-sounding recording. Soft or distant sounds that
were previously impossible to record could now be captured. Volume was
now limited only by the groove spacing on the record and the
amplification of the playback device. Victor and Columbia licensed the
new electrical
system from Western Electric and recorded the first electrical discs
during the spring of 1925. The first electrically recorded Victor Red Seal record was Chopin's "Impromptus" and Schubert's "Litanei" performed by pianist Alfred Cortot at Victor's studios in Camden, New Jersey.[28]
A 1926 Wanamaker's ad in The New York Times offers records "by the latest Victor process of electrical recording".[30] It was recognized as a breakthrough; in 1930, a Times music critic stated:
... the time has come for serious musical criticism to
take account of performances of great music reproduced by means of the
records. To claim that the records have succeeded in exact and complete
reproduction of all details of symphonic or operatic performances ...
would be extravagant ... [but] the article of today is so far in advance
of the old machines as hardly to admit classification under the same
name. Electrical recording and reproduction have combined to retain
vitality and color in recitals by proxy.[31]
The Orthophonic Victrola had an interior folded exponential horn, a sophisticated design informed by impedance-matching and transmission-line
theory, and designed to provide a relatively flat frequency response.
Victor's first public demonstration of the Orthophonic Victrola on
October 6, 1925, at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel was front-page news in The New York Times, which reported:
The audience broke into applause ... John Philip Sousa
[said]: '[Gentlemen], that is a band. This is the first time I have
ever heard music with any soul to it produced by a mechanical talking
machine' ... The new instrument is a feat of mathematics and physics. It
is not the result of innumerable experiments, but was worked out on
paper in advance of being built in the laboratory ... The new machine
has a range of from 100 to 5,000 [cycles per second], or five and a half
octaves ... The 'phonograph tone' is eliminated by the new recording
and reproducing process.[33]
Sales of records plummeted precipitously during the early years of the Great Depression
of the 1930s, and the entire record industry in America nearly
foundered. In 1932, RCA Victor introduced a basic, inexpensive
turntable called the Duo Jr., which was designed to be connected to
their radio receivers. According to Edward Wallerstein (the general
manager of the RCA Victor Division), this device was "instrumental in
revitalizing the industry".[34]
78 rpm materials
The production of shellac records continued throughout the 78 rpm era, which lasted until 1948 in industrialized nations.[35]
During the Second World War, the United States Armed Forces produced thousands of 12-inch vinyl 78 rpm V-Discs for use by the troops overseas.[36]
After the war, the use of vinyl became more practical as new record
players with lightweight crystal pickups and precision-ground styli made
of sapphire or an exotic osmium alloy proliferated. In late 1945, RCA Victor began offering "De Luxe" transparent red vinylite pressings of some Red Seal classical 78s, at a de luxe price. Later, Decca Records
introduced vinyl Deccalite 78s, while other record companies used
various vinyl formulations trademarked as Metrolite, Merco Plastic, and
Sav-o-flex, but these were mainly used to produce "unbreakable"
children's records and special thin vinyl DJ pressings for shipment to
radio stations.[37]
78 rpm recording time
The
playing time of a phonograph record is directly proportional to the
available groove length divided by the turntable speed. Total groove
length in turn depends on how closely the grooves are spaced, in
addition to the record diameter. At the beginning of the 20th century,
the early discs played for two minutes, the same as cylinder records.[38] The 12-inch disc, introduced by Victor in 1903, increased the playing time to three and a half minutes.[39]
Because the standard 10-inch 78 rpm record could hold about three
minutes of sound per side, most popular recordings were limited to that
duration.[40] For example, when King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, including Louis Armstrong on his first recordings, recorded 13 sides at Gennett Records in Richmond, Indiana, in 1923, one side was 2:09 and four sides were 2:52–2:59.[41]
In January 1938, Milt Gabler started recording for Commodore Records, and to allow for longer continuous performances, he recorded some 12-inch discs. Eddie Condon
explained: "Gabler realized that a jam session needs room for
development." The first two 12-inch recordings did not take advantage of
their capability: "Carnegie Drag" was 3m 15s; "Carnegie Jump", 2m 41s.
But at the second session, on April 30, the two 12-inch recordings were
longer: "Embraceable You" was 4m 05s; "Serenade to a Shylock", 4m 32s.[42][43]
Another way to overcome the time limitation was to issue a selection
extending to both sides of a single record. Vaudeville stars Gallagher and Shean
recorded "Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Shean", written by themselves or,
allegedly, by Bryan Foy, as two sides of a 10-inch 78 in 1922 for Victor.[44] Longer musical pieces were released as a set of records. In 1903 HMV in England made the first complete recording of an opera, Verdi's Ernani, on 40 single-sided discs.[45] In 1940, Commodore released Eddie Condon and his Band's recording of "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"
in four parts, issued on both sides of two 12-inch 78s. The limited
duration of recordings persisted from their advent until the
introduction of the LP record in 1948. In popular music, the time limit of 3+1⁄2 minutes on a 10-inch 78 rpm record meant that singers seldom recorded long pieces. One exception is Frank Sinatra's recording of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Soliloquy", from Carousel, made on May 28, 1946. Because it ran 7m 57s, longer than both sides of a standard 78 rpm 10-inch record, it was released on Columbia's Masterwork label (the classical division) as two sides of a 12-inch record.[46]
In the 78 era, classical-music and spoken-word items generally
were released on the longer 12-inch 78s, about 4–5 minutes per side. For
example, on June 10 1924, four months after the 12 February premier of Rhapsody in Blue, George Gershwin recorded an abridged version of the seventeen-minute work with Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra. It was released on two sides of Victor 55225 and ran for 8m 59s.[47]
Record albums
"Record
albums" were originally booklets containing collections of multiple
disc records of related material, the name being related to photograph
albums or scrap albums. [48] German record company Odeon pioneered the album in 1909 when it released the Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky on four double-sided discs in a specially designed package.[45] It was not until the LP era that an entire album of material could be included on a single record.
78 rpm releases in the microgroove era
In 1968, when the hit movie Thoroughly Modern Millie was inspiring revivals of Jazz Age music, Reprise
planned to release a series of 78-rpm singles from their artists on
their label at the time, called the Reprise Speed Series. Only one disc
actually saw release, Randy Newman's "I Think It's Going to Rain Today", a track from his self-titled debut album (with "The Beehive State" on the flipside).[49]
Reprise did not proceed further with the series due to a lack of sales
for the single, and a lack of general interest in the concept.[50]
In 1978, guitarist and vocalist Leon Redbone released a promotional 78-rpm single featuring two songs ("Alabama Jubilee" and "Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone") from his Champagne Charlie album.[51]
In the same vein of Tin Pan Alley revivals, R. Crumb & His Cheap Suit Serenaders issued a number of 78-rpm singles on their Blue Goose record label. The most familiar of these releases is probably R. Crumb & His Cheap Suit Serenaders' Party Record (1980, issued as a "Red Goose" record on a 12-inch single), with the double-entendre "My Girl's Pussy" on the "A" side and the X-rated "Christopher Columbus" on the "B" side.
In the 1990s Rhino Records issued a series of boxed sets of 78-rpm reissues of early rock and roll hits, intended for owners of vintage jukeboxes.
The records were made of vinyl, however, and some of the earlier
vintage 78-rpm jukeboxes and record players (the ones that were pre-war)
were designed with heavy tone arms to play the hard slate-impregnated
shellac records of their time. These vinyl Rhino 78s were softer and
would be destroyed by old juke boxes and old record players, but play
very well on newer 78-capable turntables with modern lightweight tone
arms and jewel needles.[52]
As a special release for Record Store Day 2011, Capitol re-released The Beach Boys single "Good Vibrations" in the form of a 10-inch 78-rpm record (b/w "Heroes and Villains"). More recently, The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band has released their tribute to blues guitarist Charley Patton Peyton on Patton on both 12-inch LP and 10-inch 78s.[53]
New sizes and materials after WWII: 45 rpm singles, LPs, and vinyl records
See also: LP record
CBS Laboratories had long been at work for Columbia Records to develop a phonograph record that would hold at least 20 minutes per side.[54][55]
Research began in 1939, was suspended during World War II, and then resumed in 1945.[56] Columbia Records unveiled the LP at a press conference in the Waldorf-Astoria on June 21, 1948, in two formats: 10 inches (25 centimetres) in diameter, matching that of 78 rpm singles, and 12 inches (30 centimetres) in diameter.[56][57][58]
Unwilling to accept and license Columbia's system, in February 1949,
RCA Victor released the first 45 rpm single, 7 inches in diameter with a
large center hole. The 45 rpm player included a changing mechanism that
allowed multiple disks to be stacked, much as a conventional changer
handled 78s. Also like 78s, the short playing time of a single 45 rpm
side meant that long works, such as symphonies and operas, had to be
released on multiple 45s instead of a single LP, but RCA Victor claimed
that the new high-speed changer rendered side breaks so brief as to be
inconsequential. Early 45 rpm records were made from either vinyl or polystyrene.[59] They had a playing time of eight minutes.[60]
At first the two systems were marketed in competition, in what was called "The War of the Speeds".[61]
Speeds
Shellac era
At least one attempt to lengthen playing time was made in the early 1920s. World Records produced records that played at a constant linear velocity, controlled by Noel Pemberton Billing's patented add-on speed governor.[62]
In the 1920s, 78.26 rpm was standardized when stroboscopic discs and turntable edge markings were introduced to standardize the speeds of recording lathes.
At that speed, a strobe disc with 92 lines would "stand still" in 60 Hz
light. In regions of the world that use 50 Hz current, the standard was
77.92 rpm (and a disk with 77 lines).[24]
The older 78 rpm format continued to be mass-produced alongside the
newer formats using new materials in decreasing numbers until the summer
of 1958 in the U.S., and in a few countries, such as the Philippines and India (both countries issued recordings by the Beatles on 78s), into the late 1960s. For example, Columbia Records' last reissue of Frank Sinatra songs on 78 rpm records was an album called Young at Heart, issued in November 1954.[64]
Microgroove and vinyl era
Columbia and RCA Victor each pursued their R&D secretly.[65]
The Seeburg Corporation introduced the Seeburg Background Music System in 1959, using a 16+2⁄3 rpm 9-inch record with 2-inch center hole. Each record held 40 minutes of music per side, recorded at 420 grooves per inch.[66]
The commercial rivalry between RCA Victor and Columbia Records
led to RCA Victor's introduction of what it had intended to be a
competing vinyl format, the 7-inch (175 mm) 45 rpm disc, with a much
larger center hole. For a two-year period from 1948 to 1950, record
companies and consumers faced uncertainty over which of these formats
would ultimately prevail in what was known as the "War of the Speeds"
(see also Format war).
In 1949 Capitol and Decca adopted the new LP format and RCA Victor gave
in and issued its first LP in January 1950. The 45 rpm size was gaining
in popularity, too, and Columbia issued its first 45s in February 1951.
By 1954, 200 million 45s had been sold.[67]
Eventually the 12-inch (300 mm) 33+1⁄3 rpm LP prevailed as the dominant format for musical albums, and 10-inch LPs were no longer issued. The last Columbia Records reissue of any Frank Sinatra songs on a 10-inch LP record was an album called Hall of Fame, CL 2600, issued on October 26, 1956, containing six songs, one each by Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney, Johnnie Ray, Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, and Frankie Laine.[64]
The 45 rpm discs also came in a variety known as extended play
(EP), which achieved up to 10–15 minutes play at the expense of
attenuating (and possibly compressing) the sound to reduce the width
required by the groove. EP discs were cheaper to produce and were used
in cases where unit sales were likely to be more limited or to reissue
LP albums on the smaller format for those people who had only 45 rpm
players. LP albums could be purchased one EP at a time, with four items
per EP, or in a boxed set with three EPs or twelve items. The large
center hole on 45s allows easier handling by jukebox
mechanisms. EPs were generally discontinued by the late 1950s in the
U.S. as three- and four-speed record players replaced the individual 45
players. One indication of the decline of the 45 rpm EP is that the last
Columbia Records reissue of Frank Sinatra songs on 45 rpm EP records, called Frank Sinatra (Columbia B-2641) was issued on 7 December 1959.[64]
From the mid-1950s through the 1960s, in the U.S. the common home
record player or "stereo" (after the introduction of stereo recording)
would typically have had these features: a three- or four-speed player
(78, 45, 33+1⁄3, and sometimes 16+2⁄3 rpm);
with changer, a tall spindle that would hold several records and
automatically drop a new record on top of the previous one when it had
finished playing, a combination cartridge with both 78 and microgroove
styli and a way to flip between the two; and some kind of adapter for
playing the 45s with their larger center hole. The adapter could be a
small solid circle that fit onto the bottom of the spindle (meaning only
one 45 could be played at a time) or a larger adapter that fit over the
entire spindle, permitting a stack of 45s to be played.[63]
RCA Victor 45s were also adapted to the smaller spindle of an LP player with a plastic snap-in insert known as a "spider".[63] These inserts, commissioned by RCA president David Sarnoff and were invented by Thomas Hutchison.[68]
Capacitance Electronic Discs were videodiscs invented by RCA, based on mechanically tracked ultra-microgrooves (9541 grooves/inch) on a 12-inch conductive vinyl disc.[69]
High fidelity
Further information: High fidelity
The term "high fidelity" was coined in the 1920s by some
manufacturers of radio receivers and phonographs to differentiate their
better-sounding products claimed as providing "perfect" sound
reproduction.[70]
The term began to be used by some audio engineers and consumers through
the 1930s and 1940s. After 1949 a variety of improvements in recording
and playback technologies, especially stereo recordings, which became
widely available in 1958, gave a boost to the "hi-fi" classification of
products, leading to sales of individual components for the home such as
amplifiers, loudspeakers, phonographs, and tape players.[71] High Fidelity and Audio were two magazines that hi-fi consumers and engineers could read for reviews of playback equipment and recordings.
Stereophonic sound
A stereophonic
phonograph provides two channels of audio, one left and one right. This
is achieved by adding another vertical dimension of movement to the
needle in addition to the horizontal one. As a result, the needle now
moves not only left and right, but also up and down. But since those two
dimensions do not have the same sensitivity to vibration, the
difference needs to be evened out by having each channel take half its
information from each direction by turning the channels 45 degrees from
horizontal.[72]
As a result of the 45-degree turn and some vector algebra,
it can be demonstrated that out of the new horizontal and vertical
directions, one would represent the sum of the two channels, and the
other representing the difference. Record makers decide to pick the
directions such that the traditional horizontal direction codes for the
sum. As a result, an ordinary mono disk will be decoded correctly as "no
difference between channels", and an ordinary mono player would simply
play the sum of a stereophonic record without too much loss of
information.[72]
In 1957 the first commercial stereo two-channel records were issued first by Audio Fidelity followed by a translucent blue vinyl on Bel Canto Records, the first of which was a multi-colored-vinyl sampler featuring A Stereo Tour of Los Angeles narrated by Jack Wagner on one side, and a collection of tracks from various Bel Canto albums on the back.[73]
Noise reduction systems
A similar scheme aiming at the high-end audiophile market, and achieving a noise reduction of about 20 to 25 dB(A), was the Telefunken/Nakamichi High-Com II noise reduction system being adapted to vinyl in 1979. A decoder was commercially available[74] but only one demo record[75] is known to have been produced in this format.
The availability of encoded disks in any of these formats stopped in the mid-1980s.[76]
Yet another noise reduction system for vinyl records was the UC compander system developed by Zentrum Wissenschaft und Technik (ZWT) of Kombinat Rundfunk und Fernsehen [de] (RFT).[77] The system deliberately reduced disk noise by 10 to 12 dB(A) only[78]
to remain virtually free of recognizable acoustical artifacts even when
records were played back without an UC expander. In fact, the system
was undocumentedly introduced into the market by several East-German
record labels since 1983.[79][78][80] Over 500 UC-encoded titles were produced[79] without an expander becoming available to the public. The only[80] UC expander was built into a turntable manufactured by Phonotechnik Pirna/Zittau.[81]
Formats
Types of records
The usual diameters of the holes on an EP record are 0.286 inches (7.26 mm).[82]
Sizes of records in the United States and the UK are generally
measured in inches, e.g. 7-inch records, which are generally 45 rpm
records. LPs were 10-inch records at first, but soon the 12-inch size
became by far the most common. Generally, 78s were 10-inch, but 12-inch
and 7-inch and even smaller were made—the so-called "little wonders".[83]
Standard formats
Diameter
|
Finished Diameter |
Name |
Revolutions per minute |
Approximate duration
|
16 in (41 cm)
|
15+15⁄16″ ±3⁄32″
|
Transcription disc
|
33+1⁄3 rpm
|
15 min/side
|
12 in (30 cm)
|
11+7⁄8″ ±1⁄32″ |
LP (Long Play) |
33+1⁄3 rpm |
22 min/side
|
Maxi Single, 12-inch single |
45 rpm |
15 min/side
|
Single |
78 rpm |
4–5 min/side.
|
10 in (25 cm)
|
9+7⁄8″ ±1⁄32″ |
LP (Long Play) |
33+1⁄3 rpm |
12–15 min/side
|
EP (Extended Play) |
45 rpm |
9–12 min/side
|
Single |
78 rpm |
3 min/side
|
7 in (18 cm)
|
6+7⁄8″ ±1⁄32″ |
EP (Extended Play) |
33+1⁄3 rpm |
7 min/side
|
EP (Extended Play)
|
45 rpm
|
8 min/side
|
Single |
45 rpm |
5+1⁄3 min/side
|
- Notes:
- Columbia pressed many 7-inch 33+1⁄3 rpm vinyl singles in 1949, but were dropped in early 1950 due to the popularity of the RCA Victor 45.[84][full citation needed]
- Original hole diameters were 0.286″ ±0.001″ for 33+1⁄3 and 78.26 rpm records, and 1.504″ ±0.002″ for 45 rpm records.[85]
Less common formats
Main article: Unusual types of gramophone records
Flexi discs were thin flexible records that were distributed with magazines and as promotional gifts from the 1960s to the 1980s.
In March 1949, as RCA Victor released the 45, Columbia released several hundred 7-inch, 33+1⁄3 rpm,
small-spindle-hole singles. This format was soon dropped as it became
clear that the RCA Victor 45 was the single of choice and the Columbia
12-inch LP would be the album of choice.[86]
The first release of the 45 came in seven colors: black 47-xxxx popular
series, yellow 47-xxxx juvenile series, green (teal) 48-xxxx country
series, deep red 49-xxxx classical series, bright red (cerise) 50-xxxx
blues/spiritual series, light blue 51-xxxx international series, dark
blue 52-xxxx light classics. Most colors were soon dropped in favor of
black because of production problems. However, yellow and deep red were
continued until about 1952.[87]
The first 45 rpm record