Unusual Types of Gramophone Records - Unusual Speeds

Unusual Speeds

81⁄₃ RPM (normally 10-inch, however 12-inch and 7-inch discs were both produced). This recording format's development was sponsored by the American Foundation for the Blind. One 10-inch record holds four hours of speech with the 12-inch variety holding six hours and the 7-inch variety holding roughly 90 minutes. The format was later used to distribute magazines on nine-inch "flexible discs" recorded at the same 81⁄₃ RPM.

These discs were made of thin plastic and were literally flexible, similar to an overhead projector transparency sheet. The first magazine to be circulated widely in the flexible disc format to blind individuals was U.S. News & World Report. The National Library Service for the Blind ceased using analog discs as a format for audio book and magazine distribution in 2001.

162⁄₃ RPM — This speed was used almost exclusively for spoken word content, in particular for the "talking books" used by the visually impaired, though it was also employed in the Seeburg 1000 Background Music System. For this reason, the inclusion of a 162⁄₃ speed setting on turntables was compulsory in some countries for many years, despite the records themselves being a rarity. Cassette tapes proved to be a far more popular format for such spoken content. Chrysler's short-lived Highway Hi-Fi format also used 162⁄₃ 7-inch discs. Some manufacturers of very low-speed discs such as Highway Hi-Fi used shallow and narrow "ultra-microgrooves," requiring a 0.25 mil stylus - modern styluses of 0.7-1.0 mil will damage these fine grooves.

Prior to 1930 (particularly before 1925), a number of proprietary formats existed, with recordings made at speeds anywhere from 60 to 130 RPM (although most were between 72 and 82 RPM). Even 78 RPM was not initially a worldwide standard, as American records were often recorded at 78.26 RPM and European records were often recorded at 77.92 RPM. Edison Disc Records were different: always running at 80 RPM and being vertically cut, ¼-inch thick with a core of wood flour and, later, china clay.

A small number of 78 RPM microgroove vinyl recordings have been issued by smaller and underground performers, mainly as novelty items, from the 1970s to the present. Recently the Belfast singer Duke Special has released a number of ten inch EPs in 78 RPM.

In the early 1920s, the World Record Company in the U.K. introduced longer-playing records with speeds measured in inches per second (but specified on the label by a letter from A to D) rather than revolutions per minute. If the sound quality near the label of an ordinary record was considered acceptable, then playing time could be greatly increased by using that same groove-to-needle velocity throughout the recording. This is known as the CLV (constant linear velocity) format, as opposed to the usual CAV (constant angular velocity) format. The World Record Controller was an attachment for ordinary record players that slowed the turntable down when playing the outside of the record and allowed it to gradually speed up as the needle was carried inward by the groove. Of course, only special World records could be used. The World system was a commercial failure. The principle, first proposed in a fundamental U.S. sound recording patent in 1886, was briefly revived in 1939-1940 for the unusual "Cinematone Penny Phono" jukebox (price to play one selection: one cent), which used it to squeeze ten short recordings of current pop songs onto each side of one 12-inch record. Compact discs and DVDs use the CLV format to make efficient use of their surface areas.

The CLV format would reemerge in the 1940s and 1950s in office dictation machines known as the Gray Audograph and the CGS/Memovox, which combined it with the flexible-disc format and the inside-out recording format used by CDs today. Both machines recorded at a fixed pitch, but the Grey Audograph could only record at one linear speed allowing 15 minutes per side of a 7-inch disc. The CGS or Memovox, on the other hand, had a High Fidelity speed as well as a Speech speed, allowing over two hours of recording time per side on a 12-inch disc.

In the 1970s, Atlantic Records started producing a series of albums later designated on a label known as Syntonic Research. Each album consisted of one full side, usually at least half an hour long per side, of sounds recorded of various locations. One side would have ocean waves crashing against the shore, the other would have the sounds of birds chattering away in an aviary, another would have frogs, crickets and birds making their usual vocalizations that were heard in the early morning hours of a swamp or lake. There were a few dozen made. These were mostly used for soundscape or relaxation purposes. At least one such side, particularly the ocean side, listed the playing speed as anywhere from 8 RPM to 130 RPM, depending on the desired effect of the person playing the record.

On March 28, 2012, Jack White held a party to celebrate the third anniversary of his Nashville label/record store Third Man Records. The attendees were each given a copy of an LP entitled The First Three Years of Blue Series Singles On One LP at 3 RPM. It consists of 56 songs by 28 bands previously released on Third Man's Blue Series 7" single line compiled on one blue vinyl 12" record, mastered at 3 RPM (approximately 1/11th of standard LP speed) as a further expression of White's obsession with the number 3.