What were records made of before vinyl? How much do vinyl records cost? Add your price to the database Comment

When the idea initially came to my mind to dedicate the material to Her Majesty’s gramophone record, I had no idea that while unwinding the tangle of history I would come across such an abundance of fascinating information. After all, in this world everything is interconnected, one follows from the other, and more than a hundred years have passed since the appearance of the first prototypes of today’s DJ toys. The history of the existence of the magical keeper of sounds is closely intertwined with the devices for extracting it. It turned out that technological development continued almost all the time that the very concept of a record existed. And here, in terms of covering the topic, the field is simply unplowed (by us so far), so I will try to be as brief as possible, otherwise the size of the material threatens to be indecently large.

HOW IT WORKS

Let's start with the basics - in case someone else doesn't know how sound is stored on a rough round piece of paper. Before the plate becomes what we are used to seeing (and now, perhaps, there are already those who have never seen it), it is a blank with a knee-smooth surface, or, if you like, an unplowed field. And only after it is plowed on a special device, it acquires the ability to delight us with our favorite melodies.

The soundtrack is a tightly twisted spiral groove with jagged edges, so small that only a well-trained eye can see the details. By the way, the size of the groove is the main difference between old and new records, as well as the main factor that determined their playing time. In the process of cutting a spiral converging towards the center of the workpiece, the cutter vibrates in accordance with the sound that the plate should subsequently produce. During playback, the needle shakes along the potholes of the track flying past it and the result is sound. Moreover, no ingenious transformations other than banal signal amplification are required in this case.

To verify this, you can perform a rather barbaric, but very visual test. It is best not to do this with modern records; they are too delicate and it is possible that they will receive mortal wounds as a result. Once, as a child, I became curious whether such a folding sound really comes from banal shaking over many tiny potholes. Having started the record, I placed my finger on the track instead of the pickup stylus, catching it with my fingernail. In addition to “silence in the studio,” the operation, of course, requires composure and proper balancing of pressing force. In principle, if I had toothpicks nearby then, especially wooden ones, I would have used them. And imagine my surprise when I heard, albeit very quietly and in poor quality, the same melody that was heard from the player’s speaker a minute ago.

THE BIRTH OF A RECORD

It worked and it was exciting. You can imagine Edison's feelings when his experiment of recording his voice on tin foil through an ingenious megaphone was a success. But he was driven by naked curiosity. Simply, while working at the telegraph, he noticed that when reading information from a fast-moving punched tape, the contacts of the device, sliding along its holes, made sounds of different pitches. Here I am forced to plunge a little into the depths of history and not a large number of technical details. However, in any case, it would not have been possible to do without them, otherwise the evolution of the record would not be understood.

So, the device, called the phonograph, was born in 1877 and then instead of a record there was a roller. When the membrane located under the horn vibrated, the needle associated with it vibrated and wrote a groove of variable depth along the tin in accordance with the perceived sound. This is how the “deep recording” method was invented.

In the same year, on this side of the ocean, a certain Charles Cros submitted documents for an invention to the French Academy of Sciences, hoping to then receive money for further development and bring it to fruition. Unfortunately, the application lay undisclosed until the very moment when news of Edison's discovery arrived in December. Without going into details, it must be said that Kro’s method was technically more advanced by design. It is also worth adding that both researchers only developed the existing “silent” method of sound recording. The device, known 20 years before their discoveries, was called a “photoautograph” and in a similar way left a trace of sound on smoked paper. Pampering - nothing more. After all, it was impossible to reproduce such a sound autograph.

The disadvantage of Edison's method was its "verticality". During playback, the track was subjected to increased loads on “bumps” and, as a result, quickly deformed. In Cro's method, vibrations were recorded in a horizontal plane on a round plate, and it was in this way that the ideas of both pioneers were developed ten years later by Emil Berliner. As a result, on September 26, 1887, he received a patent for the “gramophone” device. It took another five years to develop the sound carrier. The very first samples were made of ebonite.

ASIA WILL HELP US, OR A BUG WILL SAVE THE RECORD

And here we come close to the appearance of the real record itself in the form in which it served humanity until the middle of the last century, outstripping even its long-playing brothers. As you understand, the main problem was the suitable material, and we tried different variants, until we eventually settled on a shellac-based composite. The solution was not the cheapest, since shellac was a wax-like substance produced by tropical insects from the family of lac bugs that live in southeast Asia. However, nothing more suitable in quality appeared on scientific horizons for a long time. In parallel with shellac discs, celluloid discs existed for some time, but they differed noticeably in noise levels - not for the better.

RELEASE OF SOUND FROM THE WORLD SWIMMING TEAM

In the first quarter of the last century, the speeds of produced gramophone records fluctuated in the range of 74-82 revolutions per minute, which was due to the imperfection of mechanical spring gramophones. Thus, when listening, the sound often “floated”, which did not add comfort. It was only in 1925, when the electric synchronous motor began to be used in the mechanism of turntables, that the first speed standard appeared. True, it was slightly different on different sides of the ocean. The connection was made to the frequency of the supplied power supply (60 or 50 Hertz) and the speed of the synchronous electric motor, which set the mechanism in motion, depending on it. In the States, the speed was 78.26 rpm (the engine made 3600 revolutions through a reduction gearbox with a 46:1 ratio), in Europe 77.92 (3000 with a reduction of 38.5:1).

STROBOSCOPE HELPS SOUND LEARN TO “SWIM”

With the emergence of standards, there was a need to fine-tune players to them. For this purpose, a strobe effect was used. Many of you have probably paid attention to the spinning wheels of a bicycle and a car passing by, or at worst the rotating blades of a helicopter. And you’ve probably at least once noticed a funny effect when the “spokes” flashing in front of you at one point seem to freeze. This happens when the rotation speed is in some proportion to the capabilities of your eye, which perceives a strictly defined number of frames per second.

It turned out that if 77 equally spaced lines are applied around the circle on the “apple” of the plate (the information sticker in its center), then when illuminated from the network with a frequency of 50 hertz, they will “freeze” when the “pancake” (the rotating base on which it is placed) reaches the correct speed. plate). For 60Hz illumination, 92 lines are applied to the apple. Subsequently, a similar mechanism for adjusting speeds increasingly began to appear on the side of the “pancake,” illuminated by a special light bulb.

SOMETIMES IT'S JUST ABOUT SIZE - WHO HAS MORE INCHES PLAYS LONGER

Now let's talk about duration audio track. The very first records had a diameter of 7 inches (actually 6.89) or 175 millimeters (we called them “minions”). This is the oldest of the standards of this kind, it appeared in the 90s of the last century. If you now see in some catalog of records, opposite the name you are interested in, the inscription 7" single or some other number before the sign ", then this is precisely the designation of the diameter in inches. If you add to the not so impressive size high speed rotation and a decent thickness of the then track, then we get about 2 minutes of sound on one side. At the same time, records became double-sided not from the very moment of their appearance, but only from 1903 thanks to the developments of the Odeon company. In the same year, the first 12" wheels appeared (actually 11.89", or 300 mm). It is the plates of this form factor that are now most familiar to our eyes (in some countries, variants two millimeters larger than required were occasionally produced). In ancient times, they were mainly used to release excerpts from operas and classical works, since up to five minutes of sound could fit on one side.

The third most popular form factor was the 10" (250 mm) size. These records began to actively gain popularity in 1910. Still, they could hold one and a half times more entertainment than a standard seven. However, in any case, the joy of owning records in that time was overshadowed by the fact that they quickly lost their consumer qualities. The mechanical sound pickup equipment treated the track quite harshly. The pickup weighed up to 130 grams, and the steel needles had to be changed after each play of the side. The struggle between the “tops” and the “bottoms” was going on not for life, but for death.In order to somehow extend the life of favorite melodies, on some records the same track was recorded on both sides.

ELECTRIFICATION OF ALL SOUND RECORDINGS

A qualitative leap occurred at the end of the 20s, when instead of the mechanoacoustic method of recording through a horn, they began to use the electroacoustic method - through a microphone. By reducing distortion, the sound quality has sharply increased and its frequency range has risen from 150-4000 Hertz to 50-10000. The weight of the pickup has also been reduced. Now he weighed no more than 80 grams. However, a crisis soon arose due to the beginning of the spread of tape recorders, for which records could not hold a candle in terms of playback time.

In 1931, the English physicist Blumlein proposed a method of stereo recording in one groove, but low technical level at that time did not allow us to carry out our plans. In the same 30s, the concept of “album” appeared in connection with gramophone records. Since almost each of them contained one single composition on the side, they were often sold not only in paper envelopes, but also in cardboard or leather boxes in which several of them were placed. Due to the external similarity of such boxes with photo albums, they began to be called record albums.

The next evolutionary stage came at the end of the Second World War. In 1948, the largest record company, Columbia, developed new system recording of “long-playing” records, for which a special polymer material, vinylite, was created (domestic discs were made of polyvinyl chloride). Long-playing records, due to the use of compacted recording with microgrooves that became three times narrower, and a reduction in the playing speed to 33 1/3 revolutions per minute, made it possible to record works whose duration reached 30 minutes for one side. At the same time, the noise level decreased and the frequency range expanded to 16,000 Hz. In addition, the record became unbreakable. That is, if you wanted, you could break it, but even if you threw such a plate at the wall, it did not crumble into pieces every time, but springing back, strove to take revenge on the careless thrower.

The following year, RCA developed its own alternative phonograph record standard with a diameter of 175 mm with a larger central hole and rotation speed 45 rpm. Most Applications they were found as media for playback on jukeboxes.

All three standards existed for some time in parallel. 78s died out in most countries in the 50s. In India they were released in the 60s and even in the 70s, some records for children were released in this format.

In 1950, the first samples of vinyl with variable recording pitch appeared, which made it possible to increase playback time by another 30%. As you can imagine, the 33 and one third standard was most attractive to the end consumer due to the duration of playback. Such records became known as Long Play or LP for short. Significantly less of the competitors could fit on the circles. Accordingly, depending on the contents of the forty-five (not to be confused with a light cannon from the times of the 2nd World War), the names Single, Maxi-Single or Extended Play (EP) were used. The maximum length of this format was 25 minutes. Do not think that there were no other variants of the disc. The history of vinyl also knows speeds that differ from those listed and a much wider selection of sizes, but more on that next time. The wild imagination of vinyl manufacturers is enough for another article about all sorts of non-standards in this area.

TWO CHANNELS IN ONE DITCH

The last revolutionary step in turning records into what we know today occurred in 1958. Two sound channels and two cutting principles were mixed in one groove. To put it simply, the needle caught vibrations both vertically (right channel) and horizontally (left channel). In fact, the edges of the groove were tilted by 45 degrees each. In the laboratories, even after this exhaustive achievement, they tried to figure out what else could be squeezed out of a piece of vinyl.

IMPROVEMENTS THAT HAVEN'T LIVEN

In 1971, the first quadraphonic systems appeared, in which four-channel sound was captured from vinyl. The effect was achieved due to the difference in phases of the signals superimposed on one “side” of the track. As usual, there was some competition here too. The systems were presented by CBS and Sansui and were called very interestingly - SQ and QS, respectively. However, commercial success turned its back on both. Apparently, cost became the main stumbling block, because in this case the reproducing device, in addition to mechanical sensitivity, required strong analog brains. Be that as it may, their efforts were not in vain, because these developments became the predecessors of the surround sound system and modern home theaters.

Since the late 70s, disc reading equipment has been actively developed to minimize any possible damage caused by the cartridge to the track. By this time, needles had long existed that made it possible to spin the same record under them up to two thousand times. The weight of the pickup has been reduced to two to five grams. The Japanese company ELPJ tried in the 1990s, when the CD was already crowding out vinyl on all fronts, to read sound with a laser. However, dust in this matter turned out to be an insurmountable obstacle - no matter how much you wipe the surface, you cannot completely get rid of it, but the laser reads the dusty track and produces a corresponding sound.

CD - HARD VINYL

History usually develops in a spiral, and in the case of the CD we can say that this is a qualitatively new solution to the idea of ​​the very first phonograph. There is also a spiral path and vertical depressions with tubercles. Only the mechanisms for interpreting information recorded in this way have undergone amazing metamorphoses, and their sizes have decreased. But, if you want, you can ruin it in the same way with your fingernail, although this time you won’t hear the sound of the melody.

The invention of vinyl was no less complex than the invention light bulbs which replaced gas and oil lamps. Not everyone was enthusiastic about this invention, even at the dawn of its appearance. But the peculiarity of vinyl discs is that they developed in parallel with the devices that play them.

History of appearance

The history of sound recording dates back to the 16th century, when the first attempts to record sound were made using mechanical instruments - musical toys and devices. At this time, these inventions also came to Russia. But the peak of popularity of musical toys came at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century.

The first device for recording and reproducing sound was designed by American inventor Thomas Alva Edison in 1877. Now we know this device as a phonograph.

The sound was recorded onto a wax roller with a thin metal needle. But, naturally, such a sound could not be durable and of high quality. Despite this, many types of phonographs were developed at that time. By the way, our grandfathers used improved phonographs until the thirties.

In 1888, the German inventor E. Berliner created the gramophone - a real “miracle of the century”! An era begins with the gramophone popular culture and the history of the gramophone record. The first such record was made of celluloid and is today kept in the US National Museum. Already in 1897, it was replaced by a disk made of shellac, soot and spar.

The emergence of the concept of “vinyl record”

The concept of a “vinyl record” appeared only after World War II. At this time, record manufacturer Columbia created new “long” records that were made from vinylite. It was thanks to this technology that it became possible to record entire albums on a record.

In 1934, the vinyl record gave popularity to commentator Martin Block, who inserted music from the records during breaks between news stories. For this new idea his colleague Walter Winchell gave him the name "disc jockey". It seemed that the radio broadcast was being broadcast from the dance hall. After this, the program began to enjoy enormous popularity.

Today vinyl records are a rarity. However, in the last decade, vinyl has become part of the youth subculture. It's a pity that they use it only for decoration and not for listening to music.

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Vinyl records, some won’t even remember what they are, for others they are a relic of past years. However, it is worth considering that many musical groups continue to release published albums not only on disks and on the Internet, but also on vinyl, explaining this by the fact that such a recording has its own, unique charm.

You can find out the current prices for rare vinyl records and get acquainted with the real RARE VINYL LPs on the respected website Vinyl-LPs.rf - there are rare and collectible editions of vinyl records released in England, the USA, Germany and other countries, in particular the 1960s-70s-80s years.

The first records appeared at the end of the 19th century and were made of shellac. As a result of the development of technology, materials for making records replaced each other. And only in the mid-20s they began to use polyvinyl chloride for their production. Such PVC records came to be called vinyl.

Key provisions affecting cost

Nowadays, the cost of vinyl records varies greatly due to many factors. The amount for which you can sell or buy plastic depends on the following factors:

• Production year. Records are divided by year of production, so there are modern and old vinyls.
• Manufacturer countries. Different countries have different quality, some have it better, some have it worse.
• Rarity. Rare records can reach enormous prices.
• General state. Even the rarest record in poor condition will not cost a penny.
• Playback speed. It is believed that the more revolutions a record makes per minute, the better the sound quality.

The last point is especially important; it is divided into several types; after inspection, 2 letters are placed on the packaging, which are used to track the condition of the records:

• N.M.- a completely new record. Can be packed in factory-made polyethylene.
• EX– excellent condition. But I used it several times.
• VG– despite the good condition, the box crackles when played. The vinyl of such a record may be slightly damaged, but all valuable information should be preserved.
• G- plays, but with a bang. Sometimes the needle jumps over scratches. The envelope has been preserved, but is in poor condition.
• F- the record is no longer good for anything, you can only hang it on the wall for beauty.

Condition tracking is usually done for old records.

Cost of old vinyl records

The process by which a record was made greatly influences its final value in this day and age.

First of all, music was recorded on magnetic tape. Then it was transferred from the tape to a wax cast using a needle, which left grooves in the soft material. Then, after going through many procedures, a motherboard appeared, on which records were subsequently made. And this is where the division begins. The fact is that often only one board was made, containing the original sound tracks. However, there were many factories and the rest made their records using copies of the original recordings, which spoiled the sound.

When re-releasing vinyls, magnetic tapes were also used, and from older releases, which again reduced the sound quality.

From all this we can draw a small conclusion. The best disc will be considered the one that was recorded in the first batch from the original motherboard and marked with the letters NM. This is exactly what will cost an enormous amount of money. And the worst one won't cost a penny. For example, now you can find Vysotsky’s records for 800 rubles, however, rare specimens can reach cost 120 thousand.

But this is not the highest price; the most expensive record is a recording by The Beatles. One of the first records they recorded, which then cost 17 shillings and 6 pence, was sold at auction for 200 thousand dollars. We don’t have such rarities and the record can be purchased starting from from 500 rubles (melody) to 6000 rubles/piece.

The difference between old and new vinyl

The history of vinyl is divided into 2 stages, between which there is a gap of 10 years. The fact is that starting from the mid-70s, the popularity of vinyl began to decline, as a result of which factories for its production began to close. By the beginning of the 90s, there were practically no vinyl producers left in the world. However, after one decade, vinyl returned to store shelves, delighting collectors and music lovers. Remake, despite being similar appearance, is still different from old vinyl, there are both advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages of the new model:

• The old vinyl was famous for its durability compared to shellac, however, the modern one still surpassed its predecessor.
• Despite its comeback, vinyl no longer enjoys the glory it did in previous years, which is why the circulation of such records is small. This is a plus, since recording on them is made from one motherboard, which means the sound will be of high quality on all records in the series.
• The quality of vinyl has been improved thanks to the use of high quality raw materials. Previously, records were made from recycled plastic waste.

The new records have only one drawback - the unknown origin of the master tape.

Remake. Mainly sold in disc stores and household appliances, their prices may vary from 600 to 11,000 rubles per piece.

What to lose on

The main thing in vinyl, after all, is the sound. Soft and tube-like compared to digital, the whole point is that the recording on the record is analog. Modern methods Music storage can only store traces of analog recordings, which limits and removes the life from the sound.

To extract high-quality music from black PVC circles, you need a player. If you want to buy a quality player, then prepare the amount from 15 to 30 thousand rubles.

Components of a quality vinyl player:

• Weight more than 10 kg. Oddly enough, it is the large mass that plays a role, because massive structures have more reliable, powerful and durable engines.
• Tonearm Adjustments. Precise settings will help you tune in and experience the fullness of the sound of each record you play.
• Cast drive. The disc on which the record to be played must be solid and cast to avoid damage reverse side records.
• World famous brand. Most often, a world name is a sign of quality, especially with many years of experience.

Vinyl is a very interesting thing, no matter how you look at it. However, it is still much more pleasant not to watch, but to listen to amazing, live music that only a record can convey.

Record(from gramophone record, more often just plate) - an analogue audio information carrier - a disk, on one or both sides of which there is a continuous spiral groove (track), the shape of which is modulated sound wave. For a long time (from about the end of the 19th to the end of the 20th century) it was the most popular medium for musical recordings, inexpensive, suitable for mass replication, providing high quality sound recordings and suitable for playback on relatively simple and cheap equipment.

To “play” (reproduce sound) gramophone records, devices specially designed for this purpose are used: gramophones, gramophones, and hereinafter referred to as electric players and electrophones.

The main advantage of the gramophone record was the convenience of mass reproduction by hot pressing; in addition, gramophone records are not subject to the action of electric and magnetic fields. The disadvantages of a gramophone record are susceptibility to temperature changes and humidity, mechanical damage (scratches), as well as inevitable wear and tear with constant use (decrease and loss of audio characteristics). In addition, phonograph records provide less dynamic range than more modern recording storage formats.

Types of records

Hard plates

The term “hard” in itself in relation to gramophone records is rarely used, because usually gramophone records, unless specified, mean just that. Early gramophone records are most often called “shellac” (based on the material they are made of), or “gramophone” (based on the common device for playing them). Shellac plates are thick (up to 3 mm), heavy (up to 220 g) and fragile. Before playing such records on relatively modern electrophones, you need to make sure that their tonearm is equipped with a replaceable head or a rotary stylus marked “78”, and that the player’s disk can rotate at the appropriate speed.

Gramophone records are not necessarily made of shellac - as technology developed, they began to be made of synthetic resins and plastics. In the USSR in 1950, 78 rpm records made of polyvinyl chloride appeared; they were marked “PVC” and “Shellac-free”. The last “breakable” shellac record was released at the Aprelevsky plant in 1971.

But usually vinyl records mean later ones, designed for playback on electric players, not mechanical gramophones, and at a rotation speed of 33⅓ rpm or (less often) 45 rpm.

Flexible plates

There are rare supplementary records that were included in computer magazines in the late 1970s and on which computer programs were recorded (later, before the mass distribution of floppy disks, compact cassettes were used for these purposes). This record standard was called Floppy-ROM; such a flexible record could hold up to 4 KB of data at a rotation speed of 33⅓ rpm.

Flexible records on which pop music was recorded were widespread in the USSR. They were small in size and usually held only 4 songs - 2 on each side.

Flexible records are also recorded on old x-rays (“music on the ribs”).

Flexible postcard records were also previously produced. Such souvenirs were sent by mail and contained, in addition to notes, handwritten congratulations. They came in two different types:

• Consisting of a flexible rectangular or round shape with a one-sided recording, attached to a printing base card with a hole in the center. Like flexible records, they had a limited operating frequency range and playing time;
• The tracks of the record were printed on a varnish layer covering a photograph or postcard. The sound quality was even lower than on flexible gramophone records (and postcards based on them); such records could not be stored for a long time due to warping and drying out of the varnish. But such records could be recorded by the sender himself: there were recorders, one of which can be seen in action in the film “Carnival Night”.

Souvenir and decorative plates

The usual color of gramophone records is black, but multi-colored ones are also produced. There are also gramophone records, where under transparent layer with the tracks there is a paint layer that repeats the design of the envelope or replaces the information on it (as a rule, these are expensive collector's editions). Decorative plates can be square, hexagonal, in the form of a circular saw blade, in the shape of animals, birds, etc.

Handicraft records. "Music on the ribs"

Stereo players can also play monophonic recordings, in which case they perceive them as two identical channels.

In early experiments in recording a stereo signal onto one track, they tried to combine more traditional transverse and depth recording: one channel was formed based on horizontal vibrations of the stylus, and the other based on vertical vibrations. But with this recording format, the quality of one channel was significantly inferior to the quality of the other, and it was quickly abandoned.

Most stereo records are recorded at 33⅓ rpm with a track width of 55 µm. Previously (especially in a number of countries outside the USSR), records with a rotation speed of 45 rpm were widely produced. In the USA, their compact versions, intended for use in jukeboxes with automatic change or the choice of record. They were also suitable for playback on home players. To record speech programs, records were produced with a rotation speed of 8⅓ rpm and a playing time of up to one and a half hours on one side. Such records were not found on the territory of the USSR, nor, indeed, were jukeboxes

Stereo records are available in three diameters: 175, 250 and 300 mm, which provides an average duration of sound on one side (at 33⅓ rpm) of 7-8, 13-15 and 20-24 minutes. The duration of the sound depends on the cutting density. A tightly cut record can hold up to 30 minutes of music on one side, but the stylus on such records can jump and be generally unstable. Also, records with compacted recording wear out faster due to narrower groove walls.

Quadrophonic records

Quadraphonic records record information on four (two front and two rear) audio channels, which allows you to convey the volume of a musical work. This format received some, rather limited, distribution in the 1970s. The number of albums released in this format was very small (for example, a quad version of the famous rock group Pink Floyd album “Dark Side of the Moon” from 1973 was released), and their circulation was limited - this was due to the need for use for their reproduction. rare and expensive special players and amplifiers for 4 channels. By the 1980s, this direction was curtailed.

Manufacturing

Using special equipment, sound is converted into mechanical vibrations of a cutter (most often sapphire), which cuts concentric sound tracks onto a layer of material. At the dawn of recording, tracks were cut on wax, later on phonographic foil coated with nitrocellulose, and later phonographic foil was replaced by copper foil. In the late 70s, Teldec developed DMM (Direct Metal Mastering) technology, according to which tracks are formed on a thin layer of amorphous copper covering a perfectly flat steel substrate. This made it possible to significantly increase the accuracy of reproduction of the recorded signal, which led to a noticeable improvement in the sound quality of phonographic recordings. This technology is still used today.

From the disk obtained in this way, using electroplating, the required number of nickel copies with both positive and negative display of the mechanical phonogram is obtained in several successive stages. The negative copies made at the last stage, which serve as the basis for the process of pressing vinyl records, are called matrices; All intermediate nickel copies are usually called originals.

The production of originals and matrices is carried out in the galvanic workshop. Electrochemical processes are carried out in multi-chamber galvanic installations with automatic stepwise regulation of electric current and nickel build-up time.

Mold parts are manufactured on CNC machines and undergo high-temperature soldering in vacuum ovens using special technology. The molds themselves ensure high uniformity of the temperature field on the forming surfaces and low inertia temperature regime, and therefore high productivity. A single mold can produce tens of thousands of records.

The material for making a modern gramophone record is a special mixture based on a copolymer of vinyl chloride and vinyl acetate (polyvinyl chloride) with various additives necessary to give the plastic the necessary mechanical and temperature properties. High quality mixing of powdery components is achieved using two-stage mixers with hot and cold mixing.

Story

The most primitive prototype of a gramophone record can be considered a music box, in which for pre-registration The melody uses a metal disc on which a deep spiral groove is applied. In certain places of the groove, pinpoint depressions are made - pits, the location of which corresponds to the melody. When the disk rotates, driven by a clock spring mechanism, a special metal needle slides along the groove and “reads” the sequence of applied dots. The needle is attached to a membrane, which makes a sound every time the needle hits a groove.

The oldest gramophone record in the world is now considered to be a sound recording that was made in 1860. Researchers from the recording history research group First Sounds discovered it on March 1, 2008 in a Paris archive and were able to play it sound recording folk song made by the French inventor Edouard Léon Scott de Martinville using a device he called a “phonautograph” in 1860. It is 10 seconds long and is an excerpt from a French folk song. The phonautograph scratched sound tracks onto a piece of paper blackened by smoke from an oil lamp.

In 1877, the French scientist Charles Cros was the first to scientifically substantiate the principles of recording sound on a drum (or disk) and its subsequent playback. In the same year, namely in the middle of 1877, the young American inventor Thomas Edison invented and patented a device called the phonograph, in which sound is recorded on a cylindrical roller wrapped in tin foil (or paper tape coated with a layer of wax) using a needle (cutter) , associated with the membrane; the needle draws a helical groove of variable depth on the surface of the foil. His wax roller phonograph was not widely used due to the difficulty of copying the recording, the rapid wear of the rollers and Bad quality playback

In 1892, a method was developed for galvanic replication of a zinc disk from a positive, as well as a technology for pressing ebonite records using a steel printing matrix. But ebonite was quite expensive and was soon replaced by a composite mass based on shellac, a wax-like substance produced by tropical insects from the family of lac bugs that live in southeast Asia. The plates became of better quality and cheaper, and therefore more accessible, but their main drawback was their low mechanical strength - they resembled glass in their fragility. Shellac records were produced until the middle of the 20th century, until they were supplanted by even cheaper ones - made from polyvinyl chloride (“vinyl”).

One of the first real gramophone records was a record released in 1897 by Victor in the USA.

First revolution

The first mass-produced records had a diameter of 6.89 inches (175 mm) and were called 7-inch records. This oldest standard dates back to the early 1890s. Such gramophone records are designated as “7″”, where “″” is the inch sign. At the beginning of their evolution, gramophone records had a high rotation speed and a large track width, which significantly reduced the duration of the sound - only 2 minutes on one side.

Double-sided gramophone records became available in 1903, thanks to the developments of the Odeon company. In the same year, the first 12-inch (12″) gramophone records with an actual diameter of 11.89″ (300 mm) appeared. Until the early 1910s, they released mainly excerpts from the works of musical classics, since they contained a total of up to five minutes of sound.

The third, most popular, size was 10 inches (10"), or 250 mm. Such records could hold one and a half times more material than a standard 7-inch record.

The three main record sizes - 12″, 10″ and 7″ - are traditionally called “giant”, “grand” and “minion”, respectively.

The “life” of the first records was short-lived - the pickup weighed more than 100 grams and quickly wore out the track. The steel needles had to be changed after each play of a side, which was sometimes neglected, and if already played needles were used, the record would deteriorate even faster. Sometimes, in order to extend the life of favorite works, the same track was recorded on both sides of some records.

In the 1930s, records were released with one track on one side, and often a single concert by one artist was sold as a set of multiple records, usually in cardboard or, less commonly, leather boxes. Due to the external similarity of such boxes with photo albums, they began to be called record albums (“albums with records”).

Second revolution

With the advent of long-playing gramophone records with a rotation speed of 45 and 33⅓ rpm, the circulation of conventional gramophone records (78 rpm) began to decrease, and at the end of the 1960s their production was finally curtailed (in the USSR, the last gramophone record was released in 1971).

In certain areas, vinyl long-playing stereophonic records with a diameter of 30 cm (eng. LP) are still used:

• for DJ work and sound experiments;
• fans of this type of sound recording (including audiophiles);
• antique lovers and collectors.

On modern records intended for DJs, about 12 minutes of music are “cut” on one side - in this case, the distance between the grooves is much larger, the record is more wear-resistant, and is not afraid of scratches and careless handling.

Growth of record production at the beginning of the 21st century

The development of the industry received an unexpected continuation at the beginning of the 21st century. According to the RIAA, vinyl sales are again showing fairly steady growth after declining in 2005.

Since 2006, sales of vinyl records have been growing every year: for example, in 2007, sales growth was 37%, and this is against the backdrop of a 20% decline in CD sales in the same year. One of the largest American research companies, Nielsen SoundScan, estimates that 2 million vinyl records were sold in the United States alone in 2009; in 2012, 4.6 million records were already sold there, which is 17.7% more than in 2011.

In 2013, US sales totaled 6.1 million records. In addition to the US, the effect was noticeable in the UK and Australia. Records still make up a small portion of the recorded music market (2% in the US in 2013 vs. 57% for CDs).

Both nostalgia plays a role in record sales (in 2010 the Beatles' album Abbey Road was the top seller) and obscure other factors: the first two places in 2013 were taken by the new albums Random Access Memories (Daft Punk) and Modern Vampires of the City (Vampire Weekend). Theories of the new popularity of records include both a desire to hear a richer and warmer sound, and a conscious denial digital world.

In addition, an important role in the “vinyl renaissance” is played by the urban legend that modern cheap CD players do not reproduce sound well. In fact, the 16-bit quantization used in CDs is vastly superior to LP quality (equivalent to about 11 bits for the highest quality pressing).

The gramophone record as an element of culture

Bartmansky and Woodward attribute the continuing appeal of phonograph records to non-technical reasons:

• variability of meaning, allowing different groups of listeners to put their own associations into records;
• sense of continuity, authenticity and “coolness” (English) Russian" Thus, since a large number of audiophile-relevant albums were originally released on LP, listening to them in this form creates a sense of ownership;
• imperfection and non-mass character arising from the processes of production and storage of gramophone records. The fragility of phonograph records becomes their advantage when interpreted as a purely human weakness, in contrast to impersonal digital recordings that can be copied or deleted with the press of a few keys;
• mechanical limitations of turntables that encourage group and ritualistic listening.

Record market

There are two main markets for gramophone records: primary and secondary.

At the beginning of the 21st century primary In the market, the main buyers are DJs and audiophiles who prefer music on analogue media. It is the pace of development of this segment that record companies are most interested in; its statistics are presented above.

Expensive collectible records are produced on so-called “heavy” vinyl, such a record is really heavy and weighs 180 grams, such records provide a greater dynamic range. The quality of stamping and the material itself of such records is higher than that of ordinary vinyl.

Secondary The market is a trade in used vinyl. This segment trades collectibles and private vinyl collections. Currently, the cost of particularly rare records can exceed several thousand dollars.

First press releases of records traditionally receive special attention from collectors (for their best sounding), as well as limited edition records and various collector's editions.
The main places of trade are online auctions, as well as local stores of used music goods.

Since now a significant part of trade is conducted via the Internet, and the buyer cannot directly evaluate the quality of the product offered (on which both the sound quality and its price greatly depend), sellers and buyers use several different systems for evaluating vinyl records.

Gramophone record(jarg: vinyl, or simply record) - an analog storage medium (most often audio) - a disc made of synthetic materials (originally shellac, then vinyl), on one or both sides of which a continuous winding groove is applied by one method or another (track) whose shape (depth and width) is modulated by a sound wave.

For "playing"(extracting sound from) gramophone records, devices specially designed for this purpose are used: gramophones, gramophones, and later electrophones and electric players.

When moving along a record track, the player's needle begins to vibrate (since the shape of the track is uneven in the plane of the record along its radius and perpendicular to the direction of movement of the needle, and depends on the recorded signal). When vibrated, the piezoelectric material of the stylus (or the electromagnetic coil of the pickup) produces an electrical signal, which is amplified by the amplifier and then played back by the speaker(s), reproducing the sound recorded in the recording studio.

The words "gramophone record" and "recording" are abbreviation for "gramophone record" and “gramophone recording,” although gramophones themselves have not been widely used for a long time. At the end of the 19th and throughout the 20th centuries, the gramophone record was (before it was replaced in the mid-80s by the compact disc) the most popular means of distributing audio recordings, inexpensive and accessible.

The main advantage of the gramophone record was the convenience of mass replication by hot pressing; in addition, gramophone records are not subject to the action of electric and magnetic fields. The disadvantages of gramophone records are their susceptibility to temperature changes and humidity, as well as the ability of records to wear out (lose their audio characteristics) with constant use.

Types of records

- Shellac(gramophone) records cannot be played on electric phones (except for those equipped with a rotating needle marked “78” on one side), otherwise the needle will immediately become unusable.
- Vinyl(long-playing and stereo) and flexible records are intended only for electrophones. Playing such a record on a gramophone will immediately and forever destroy the record.

Therefore, it is important to distinguish between types of records. Gramophones are thicker, heavier, and more fragile (like glass). Vinyl (or flexible) records produced in the USSR are marked with an inverted triangle (mono) or intersecting circles (stereo). Further in the text, only vinyl and flexible records are considered.

The color of gramophone records is mainly black, although multi-colored ones are often produced for children and DJs. Decorative plates can be square, hexagonal, in the form of a circular saw blade, as well as in the shape of animals and birds.

Formats

The plates were mainly produced with a diameter of 30, 25 and 17.5 cm (Soviet designations: “∅300”, “∅250” and “∅175”) (12″, 10″ and 7″). Other sizes are occasionally found - 12, 15, 23, 28, 33 cm (5″, 6″, 8″, 9″, 11″, 13″).

The rotation speed can be 78, 45, 33⅓ and 16⅔ rpm.

Most records are rigid, but there are also flexible ones, often pasted into magazines as sound supplements (for example, supplements to the Soviet magazine Krugozor).
There are rare supplementary records that were included in computer magazines of the 70s and on which computer programs were recorded (later, before the mass distribution of floppy disks, compact cassettes were used for these purposes). This standard of records was called Floppy-ROM and such a flexible record at a rotation speed of 33.3 revolutions per minute could hold up to 4 kB of data.
Flexible records are also recorded on old x-rays (see below).

Also previously released plates-postcards. Such souvenirs were sent by mail and contained, in addition to notes, handwritten congratulations. They came in two different types:
- Consisting of a flexible rectangular or round plate with one-sided recording, attached to a printing base card with a hole in the center. Like flexible records, they had a limited operating frequency range and playing time;
- The tracks of the record were printed on a varnish layer covering a photograph or postcard. The sound quality was even lower than on flexible gramophone records (and postcards based on them), and such records could not be stored for a long time due to warping and drying out of the varnish. But such records could have been recorded by the sender himself: there were recorders, one of which can be seen in action in the film “Carnival Night.”

The non-standard diameter of the sound track on the postcard could lead to false triggering of the player's auto-stop.

On modern records intended for DJs, about 12 minutes of music are cut onto one side. In this case, the distance between the grooves is much greater, the plate is more wear-resistant, makes less noise over time, and is not afraid of scratches and careless handling. The plate hole diameter is 7 or 24 mm, thickness varies from 1.5 to 3 mm, weight 120-220 g

Stereo records

Monaural records use only horizontal stylus vibrations, while stereo records use both horizontal and vertical stylus vibrations. Horizontally the sum of two is encoded audio channels, and vertically - their difference, which ensures full compatibility (monophonic players reproduce stereo records as the sum of channels, and stereo players reproduce monophonic recordings as two identical channels).

Most stereo records are recorded at 33 1/3 rpm with a 55 µm audio track width. Previously, records with a rotation speed of 45 rpm were widely produced. They were, in particular, used in jukeboxes with automatic change or selection of records. To record speech programs, records were produced with a rotation speed of 8 1/3 rpm and a playing time of up to one and a half hours on one side.

Stereo records are available in three diameters: 175, 250 and 300 mm, which provides an average duration of sound on one side (at 33 1/3 rpm) of 7-8, 13-15 and 20-24 minutes. The duration of the sound depends on the cutting density. A tightly cut record can hold up to 30 minutes of music on one side, but the stylus on such records can jump and be generally unstable. Such records wear out faster due to the narrower groove walls.

Quadrophonic records

Quadraphonic records contain information about four (two front and two rear) audio channels, which allows you to convey the volume of a musical work. This format gained some, rather limited, distribution in the 1970s. The number of albums released in this format was very small (for example, a quad version of the famous album of the rock group Pink Floyd “Dark Side of the Moon” of 1973 was released), and their circulation was limited - this was due to the need to use rarely used materials for their reproduction. and expensive special players and amplifiers for 4 channels. By the 1980s, this direction was curtailed.
In the USSR, the first and only experiment in mastering four-channel sound took place in 1980, when an album by the group “Yabloko” was recorded and released under the name “Country-folk-rock group “Yabloko”” (KA90-14435-6). The record cost more than the usual one - 6 rubles, and the total circulation was 18,000 copies.

Records "on the bones"

In the 50s and 60s of the 20th century in the USSR, underground recording studios recorded musical works, which for ideological reasons were forbidden to be distributed by the Melodiya company, on large-format X-ray films. This is where the expression comes from "Jazz on the Bones"(such “homemade” recordings were also popularly called “ribs” or “records on ribs”). In those years, recordings of many Western singers and musical groups (for example, The Beatles) could only be heard on such semi-legal underground records. Due to the drying of the film emulsion, when aging, such plates curled and were generally short-lived.

Such original way sound recording is reflected in art, for example, in Viktor Tsoi’s song “Once You Were a Beatnik” there are the words: “You were ready to give your soul for rock and roll, extracted from a photo of someone else’s diaphragm.” Also in the song “My old blues" by the leader of the Moscow acoustic group "Bedlam" (late 90s - 2002) Viktor Klyuev contains the words: "The record 'on the bones' is still intact, but you can’t understand individual phrases anymore." The process of recording “on bones” was demonstrated in the film “Hipsters” (original title “Boogie on Bones”) from 2008.

Manufacturing

The sound from a magnetic phonogram, using special equipment, is converted into mechanical vibrations of a sapphire cutter, which cuts concentric sound grooves on a layer of material. At the dawn of recording, phonographic records were cut on wax, later on phonographic foil coated with nitrocellulose, and later phonographic foil was replaced by copper foil. The application of tracks on the thinnest layer of amorphous copper covering a perfectly flat steel substrate made it possible to significantly increase the accuracy of reproduction of the recorded signal, which led to a noticeable improvement in the sound quality of phonographic recordings. This technology, developed by Teldec in the late 70s and known as DMM (Direct Metal Mastering), is still used today.

The resulting copper disk is intended to be obtained from it by electroplating in several successive stages of the required number of nickel copies with both positive and negative display of the mechanical phonogram. The negative copies made at the last stage are called matrices, which serve as the basis in the process of pressing gramophone records; all intermediate nickel copies are usually called originals.
The galvanic shop produces originals and matrices. Electrochemical processes are carried out in multi-chamber galvanic installations with automatic stepwise regulation of electric current and nickel build-up time with a special electrolyte composition.
Mold parts are manufactured on CNC machines and undergo high-temperature soldering in vacuum ovens using special technology. The molds themselves ensure high uniformity of the temperature field on the forming surfaces, low inertia of the temperature regime, and therefore high productivity. Tens of thousands of records can come out of one mold.

The material for making a gramophone record is a special mixture based on a copolymer of vinyl chloride with vinyl acetate (polyvinyl chloride) with various additives to give the plastic the necessary mechanical and temperature properties. High quality mixing of powdery components is achieved using two-stage mixers with hot and cold mixing. In the press shop, a heated dose of vinyl with labels already attached to the top and bottom is fed into the press, which, under pressure of up to 100 atm, spreads between the two halves of the mold, after cooling, forming a finished gramophone record. Next, the disc edges are trimmed, inspected, and packaged.

The first gramophone record produced after installing nickel dies on the press, and then each specially selected one from the circulation, are carefully checked for dimensional characteristics and listened to in specially equipped sound booths. To avoid warping, all pressed records undergo the required temperature exposure, and before packaging in an envelope, the appearance of each record is checked.