Usual types of gramophone record (phonograph record in U.S. English) are discussed in the main article. Additionally, various unusual types were occasionally produced, including unusual sizes, formats, and other gimmicks . A gramophone record, (also phonograph record - often simply record) is an analog sound recording medium: a flat disc rotating at a constant angular velocity, with inscribed spiral grooves in which a stylus or needle rides. ... A gimmick is a unique or quirky special feature that makes something stand out from its contemporaries. ...

Some unusual types of gramophone records

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Unusual size discs

• 16 and 20" discs — Although 12" was the largest disc diameter used in consumer products, broadcasting studios made use of 16" and 20"-diameter 78 rpm acetate "transcriptions," used for time-delaying programs and for prerecording broadcasts. These could provide up to 20 minutes of unbroken program material with very good fidelity (indistinguishable from live to casual, but not to critical listeners). Early classical LP recordings were in fact initially recorded on 20" 78-rpm acetates for later transfer to LP. 16" turntables are still seen in professional broadcast equipment, although it is probably very rare that any disk larger than 12" is ever played on them.

• 7" 78-rpm children's records — The 78 rpm records of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s were breakable shellac (and broken records were a very common accident). In the 1950s, unbreakable records of various plastic compositions were introduced and coexisted with breakable shellac records. Unbreakable records were, of course, favored for children's records. A common format for children's records was the 7" 78-rpm unbreakable record, easily handled by small hands, and during the 1950s, 7" Little Golden Records made of bright yellow plastic were a common sight in children's playrooms in the United States.

• 10" LPs — Both 10" and 12" 33-rpm LPs were common during the life of the LP format. The 10" format was common at the beginning and rare toward the end, but it never died out completely.

7" and 5" singles.

• 9" 45 rpm promotional. Popular industrial music group Nine Inch Nails released a limited edition series of 9" discs, to aid in promoting the single March of the Pigs from their full length 1994 album The Downward Spiral. The record featured 2 songs on the first side, and an etching of the album's promotional logo (a coiled centipede) on the second side.

• 8" EPs. Mostly seen as Japanese pressed records in the 1980s and 1990s, and after 1992 in the US (1 record plant started producing them after then).

• 5", 6", 11", 13" records. Underground hardcore punk bands in the 1990s started releasing EPs on all sizes of vinyl from 5" to 13" in size.

• 6", 7", 8", 9" flexi disks were much more popular in Japan where they were known as sound-sheets (sono shito) and were often in traditional round format, vs the square ones included in a magazine.

Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and video signals (programs) to a number of recipients (listeners or viewers) that belong to a large group. ... Art studio Adriaen van Ostade. ... fot. ... fot. ... Industrial music is a loose term for a number of different styles of electronic and experimental music. ... With Teeth album cover Nine Inch Nails (NIN) are a critically and commercially successful American band formed in Cleveland, Ohio in 1988 by Trent Reznor. ... March of the Pigs (also known as halo 7) is a single by Nine Inch Nails for the song of the same name. ... 1994 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International year of the Family. ... The Downward Spiral (also known as Halo 8) is an LP by Nine Inch Nails released in 1994. ... For the arcade game called Centipede see Centipede (video game). ... // Events and trends The 1990s are generally classified as having moved slightly away from the more conservative 1980s, but otherwise retaining the same mindset. ... Punk Rock is an anti-establishment music movement that began about 1976 (although precursors can be found several years earlier), exemplified by The Ramones,the Misfits, the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned. ... A vinyl is an organic molecule containing a vinyl group: H R / C = C / H H where R represents a functional group such as a hydrocarbon or halogen. ...

Unusual materials

7" 33⅓ "flexidisc" records were seen occasionally. One common use was as inserts in books which, for whatever reason, included audio supplements. LP recordings could be made on very thin, flexible sheets of vinyl, and this was sometimes done for a mixture of practical utility and novelty appeal. At least one "magazine" was published with a spiral binding, a hole punched through the entire magazine, and four or five of these flexible recordings bound into the magazine. The magazine could be opened to one of these recordings and turned back upon itself; then the entire magazine placed on a turntable and the record could be played. In the early days of personal computers, when programs were commonly stored on audio cassettes, at least one computer magazine published "floppy ROMs," which were bound-in thin-plastic 33⅓ rpm audio recordings of computer data.

Paper records were pioneered in the 1930s by Hit of the Week Records and Durium Records. Piece of paper Paper is a thin, flat material produced by the compression of fibres. ... // Events and trends The 1930s were spent struggling for a solution to the global depression. ... Hit of the Week Records was a record label based in the United States of America in the early 1930s. ... Durium Records was a United Kingdom-based record label of the 1930s. ...

Unusual grooving

Inside-to-outside recording — Almost all analog disc recordings were recorded at constant angular speed, resulting in a decreasing linear speed. The result was increased "end-groove distortion" toward the center of the disc, particularly on loud passages. Since classical music tends to start quietly and mount to a loud climax, it was frequently suggested that it would be better if recordings were made to play from the center of the disk outward. A very few such recordings were made. However, the domination of record changers, and the fact that symphony movements are not uniformly twenty minutes long, made these recordings no more than curiosities. A symphony is an extended piece of music usually for orchestra and comprising several movements. ...

Pathé Records for a time used inside start and other commercially distinctive grooving. Pathé Records was a France based international record label active from the 1890s through the 1930s. ...

Partially-grooved 33s — Traditionally, 33⅓ rpm LP's were recorded to within about half an inch of the label, using most of the recordable surface. Again, in an effort to increase fidelity, a number of companies limited the amount of recorded material to about fifteen minutes on each side. This really did avoid end-groove distortion, but the large shiny blank space at the end of the disc was visible evidence of waste.

An early binaural format — Before the development of the single-groove stereo system circa 1957, at least one company, Cook Laboratories, released a number of "binaural" recordings. Each side of one of these recordings consisted of two long, continuous tracks — one containing the left-ear signal, one containing the right-ear signal. It was intended that the buyer purchase an adapter from Cook Laboratories that allowed two cartridges to be mounted together, with the proper spacing, on a single tonearm. Only a very small number of recordings were ever released in this format. It would be interesting to know how many purchasers went to the effort and expense needed to play them binaurally. Binaural means involving both ears. Most evolved auditory systems feature two ears, one on either side of the head. ... 1957 was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Trick recordings with multiple grooves — the intended answer to the trick question, "how many grooves are there on a record," is "one on each side." It is, however, possible to make recordings with three or more separate, interlaced spiral grooves on a side. Such records have occasionally been made as novelties. Depending on where the needle is dropped in the lead-in area, it will catch more or less randomly in one of the grooves. Each groove can contain a different recording, so that you have a record which "magically" plays one of several different recordings. An example is Monty Python's Matching Tie and Handkerchief. Interlacing is a method of displaying images on a raster-scanned display device, such as a cathode ray tube (CRT). ... The Monty Python troupe in 1970. ... Categories: Album stubs | Monty Python albums ...

Locked grooves — while the typical record has a nearly silent end-groove (a circular loop at the end of the record that the needle travels around indefinitely, waiting to be picked up either manually or by an automatic device), it is possible to record sound in this groove. A notable example of this was an LP by The Who with an infinite-loop squeaky-wheel sound recorded in the end-groove; another was the UK release of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. This concept has been extended to the production of records consisting entirely of circular "locked grooves" to provide collections of infinite loop sound samples of duration limited to one revolution of the disc. Notable examples of this are the releases from RRRecords of the 7" RRR-100 (with 100 locked grooves) and the 12" RRR-500 (with 500 locked grooves). The Who in 1968. ... The Beatles (L-R, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, John Lennon), in 1964, performing on The Ed Sullivan Show promoting their first U.S. hit song, I Want To Hold Your Hand, and ushering in the British Invasion of American popular music. ... Sgt. ...

Special vibration resistant discs

7" 16⅔ rpm "Highway Hi-Fi" — Analogue disc reproducing equipment has always required a mechanically stable platform for the turntable and tonearm. In a wood-frame residence, dancing on the floor could be enough to cause the tonearm to skip grooves. Playing a disc in a moving car would seem impossible. Nevertheless, from 1956 to 1959, one auto manufacturer, Chrysler, surmounted the challenge with what was (optimistically) called "Highway Hi-Fi." It did not play ordinary discs, however, but only specially recorded 7" 16⅔ discs, offered only by Columbia Records and only in a limited number of titles.

Unusual appearance discs

A selection of coloured and picture disc singles

Unusual colors, and even multi-colored shellac first appeared in the 1910s on such labels as Vocalion Records Selection of picture and coloured discs, photo taken specifically to go with article on gramophone records File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Selection of picture and coloured discs, photo taken specifically to go with article on gramophone records File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... // Events and trends Technology Gideon Sundback patents the first modern zipper Harry Brearley invents stainless steel Charles P. Strite invents first pop-up bread toaster Science Einsteins theory of general relativity Max von Laue discovers the diffraction of x-rays by crystals Alfred Wegener puts forward his theory of... Vocalion Records was a record label historically active in the United States and in the United Kingdom. ...

In the late 1970s, such gimmicks started to reappear on records, especially on 7" and 12" singles. These included using coloured acetate instead of black vinyl. The whole spectrum was available, from clear transparent (including a witty transparent 12" of Queen's The Invisible Man), white, red, blue, yellow and even multi-hued. Some recordings were released in several different colours, in an effort to sell the same product to one person multiple times, if they were of the collecting bent. This appears to have been a successful marketing strategy to some extent. This article provides extensive lists of events and significant personalities of the 1970s. ... The Queen crest, designed by Freddie Mercury Queen is a British rock band which came to popularity during the mid-1970s, and have amassed an enormous worldwide fanbase that continues to exist to this day. ...

The 1977 release of the 45rpm single of Strawberry Letter 23 by The Brothers' Johnson was produced by A&M Records with a slightly pink center label (as opposed to the usual buff color that A&M uses), and had strawberry scent embedded into the plastic to make the record give off the odor of strawberries. 1977 was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1977 calendar). ... The Brothers Johnson is a band consisting of the musicians George Johnson (Lightnin Licks) and Louis Johnson (Thunder Thumbs). After touring with various artists like Bobby Womack and Billy Preston, Quincy Jones hired them for a tour in Japan and produced their debut LP Look out for Number 1, released... A&M Records is a record label formed in 1962 by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss. ...

Picture discs

Picture discs debuted in the 1940s. Vogue Records are still sought after by collectors. // Events and trends The 1940s were dominated by World War II, the most destructive armed conflict in history. ... This article is about the 1940s-era Vogue Records in the U.S. and Disques Vogue, a longer-lived label in France; there is also a Vogue Records International based in Ottawa. ...

Following the coloured vinyl fad, picture discs started to appear in the 1970s. These were made by including a very thin decal at the pressing stage, which then moulded into the record surface and became a permanent part of the disc. Often pictured discs and coloured substrate material were combined. Sometimes the images were meant to create an optical illusion while the record was rotating on the turntable; others used the visual effect to add to the music — for example the 1979 picture disc of Fischer Z's The Worker featured a train which endlessly commuted around the turntable, reinforcing the song's message. One notable aspect of many picture discs was that the decal material degraded the sound quality quite noticeably, as it introduced a higher level of surface noise. As Vogue Records proved decades earlier, this need not be the case, if a high grade transparent shellac or other material is laminated over the image. Duran Duran Reflex picture disk Picture taken by Catherine Munro September 2004, released under GFDL. File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... A decal or transfer is a plastic, cloth or paper substrate that has printed on it a pattern that can be moved to another surface upon contact, usually with the aid of heat or water. ... An optical illusion is any illusion that deceives the human visual system into perceiving something that is not present or incorrectly perceiving what is present. ... 1979 is a common year starting on Monday. ...

Picture discs as a gimmick fell out of favour in the early 1980s. // Events and trends The 1980s marked an abrupt shift towards more conservative lifestyles after the momentous cultural revolutions which took place in the 60s and 70s and the definition of the AIDS virus in 1981. ...

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Unusual types of gramophone record

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See also

• list of picture discs

This is the list of picture discs — phonograph or gramophone picture discs since the 1940s, listed in chronological order. ...

External link

• The Internet museum of records Site devoted entirely to "strange but true recorded anomaolies" such as a Chinese frozen-food package lid that was also a playable record.