I never noticed this before...

And yes I know its actually 33 1/3.... but still....

Is there some science behind this or is it just an interesting
coincidence?

Mark

Mark wrote:

I never noticed this before...

And yes I know its actually 33 1/3.... but still....

Is there some science behind this or is it just an interesting
coincidence?

No coincidence. Common gear ratios at the time.

And you forgot about 16 2/3. Hard to find a 16 2/3 player these days.

See http://history.acusd.edu/gen/recording/speeds.html

//Walt

On Wed, 25 Jan 2006 13:08:13 -0500, Walt
wrote:

Mark wrote:

I never noticed this before...

And yes I know its actually 33 1/3.... but still....

Is there some science behind this or is it just an interesting
coincidence?

No coincidence. Common gear ratios at the time.

And you forgot about 16 2/3. Hard to find a 16 2/3 player these days.

See http://history.acusd.edu/gen/recording/speeds.html

//Walt

I have half a dozen or so discs that play at 80RPM.

d

Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

Mark wrote:
I never noticed this before...

And yes I know its actually 33 1/3.... but still....

Is there some science behind this or is it just an interesting
coincidence?

It's a coincidence. 33 1/3 was a very old format used for transcription
discs long before the LP came out.

The 45 was deliberately picked by RCA as being the most nonstandard speed
they could get, so they could sell more proprietary record players. It
didn't work.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Don Pearce wrote:

On Wed, 25 Jan 2006 13:08:13 -0500, Walt
wrote:

Mark wrote:

I never noticed this before...

And yes I know its actually 33 1/3.... but still....

Is there some science behind this or is it just an interesting
coincidence?

No coincidence. Common gear ratios at the time.

And you forgot about 16 2/3. Hard to find a 16 2/3 player these days.

See http://history.acusd.edu/gen/recording/speeds.html

//Walt

I have half a dozen or so discs that play at 80RPM.

At first there were all sorts of playing speeds, "78" was chosen as a
reasonable average of all the different variations nearly 100 years ago
but only became a standard speed in the UK in the early 1930s when
Columbia were merged with HMV (and Columbia's 80 rpm silent-surface
records were scrapped in favour of HMV's 78 rpm sandpaper) .

Pathé went out an a limb and produced 90 rpm and even higher speed
discs, with vertical modulation and centre-start.

Surprisingly, 33.3 has been around since the 1920s, but not on sale to
the public. Another speed, which was used for direct-cut discs in the
1940s, was 60 rpm; the MSS "Marguerite" lathe recorded at either 60 or
78.

45 rpm was billed as a scientifically calculated optimum speed for 7"
discs, but was more likely yet another attempt by RCA to force Columbia
out of business by re-writing the established standards. (See Microsoft
for other examples of this strategy)

--
~ Adrian Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk

lid (Adrian Tuddenham) writes:

At first there were all sorts of playing speeds, "78" was chosen as a
reasonable average of all the different variations nearly 100 years ago
but only became a standard speed in the UK in the early 1930s when
Columbia were merged with HMV (and Columbia's 80 rpm silent-surface
records were scrapped in favour of HMV's 78 rpm sandpaper) .

Pathé went out an a limb and produced 90 rpm and even higher speed
discs, with vertical modulation and centre-start.

Surprisingly, 33.3 has been around since the 1920s, but not on sale to
the public. Another speed, which was used for direct-cut discs in the
1940s, was 60 rpm; the MSS "Marguerite" lathe recorded at either 60 or
78.

45 rpm was billed as a scientifically calculated optimum speed for 7"
discs, but was more likely yet another attempt by RCA to force Columbia
out of business by re-writing the established standards. (See Microsoft
for other examples of this strategy)

Thanks for the history, Adrian.
--
% Randy Yates % "Watching all the days go by...
%% Fuquay-Varina, NC % Who are you and who am I?"
%%% 919-577-9882 % 'Mission (A World Record)',
%%%% % *A New World Record*, ELO
http://home.earthlink.net/~yatescr

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message...

It's a coincidence. 33 1/3 was a very old format used for transcription
discs long before the LP came out.

The 45 was deliberately picked by RCA as being the most nonstandard speed
they could get, so they could sell more proprietary record players. It
didn't work.
--scott



What do you mean 45 rpm didn't work? Isn't it still the longest running
distribution format of all time?

DM

"David Morgan (MAMS)" wrote in message
news:eUSBf.3799$AV.3387@trnddc07...

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message...

It's a coincidence. 33 1/3 was a very old format used for transcription
discs long before the LP came out.

The 45 was deliberately picked by RCA as being the most nonstandard speed
they could get, so they could sell more proprietary record players. It
didn't work.
--scott



What do you mean 45 rpm didn't work? Isn't it still the longest running
distribution format of all time?

DM

Exactly the point he's making...

"Roger Moss" wrote in message ...

"David Morgan (MAMS)" wrote in message
news:eUSBf.3799$AV.3387@trnddc07...

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message...

It's a coincidence. 33 1/3 was a very old format used for transcription
discs long before the LP came out.

The 45 was deliberately picked by RCA as being the most nonstandard speed
they could get, so they could sell more proprietary record players. It
didn't work.
--scott



What do you mean 45 rpm didn't work? Isn't it still the longest running
distribution format of all time?

DM

Exactly the point he's making...


Ah !! I guess the patent ran out a little quickly for RCA. ;-)


--
David Morgan (MAMS)
http://www.m-a-m-s DOT com
Morgan Audio Media Service
Dallas, Texas (214) 662-9901
_______________________________________
http://www.artisan-recordingstudio.com

David Morgan \(MAMS\) wrote:
"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message...

It's a coincidence. 33 1/3 was a very old format used for transcription
discs long before the LP came out.

The 45 was deliberately picked by RCA as being the most nonstandard speed
they could get, so they could sell more proprietary record players. It
didn't work.

What do you mean 45 rpm didn't work? Isn't it still the longest running
distribution format of all time?

Well, yes. That's what didn't work about it. You can go down to the
local audio store and buy a Thorens or AR turntable today that will
play the things. RCA is losing out every time you do, because you are
going around their proprietary system by purchasing unlicensed compatible
equipment!
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

"David Morgan (MAMS)" wrote ...
Ah !! I guess the patent ran out a little quickly for RCA. ;-)

If only they had Disney's legal staff!

What do you mean 45 rpm didn't work? Isn't it still the longest running
distribution format of all time?

Well, yes. That's what didn't work about it. You can go down to the
local audio store and buy a Thorens or AR turntable today that will
play the things. RCA is losing out every time you do, because you are
going around their proprietary system by purchasing unlicensed compatible
equipment!

The story of the IBM Personal Computer...

On 25 Jan 2006 18:55:43 -0500, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

David Morgan \(MAMS\) wrote:
"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message...

It's a coincidence. 33 1/3 was a very old format used for transcription
discs long before the LP came out.

The 45 was deliberately picked by RCA as being the most nonstandard speed
they could get, so they could sell more proprietary record players. It
didn't work.

What do you mean 45 rpm didn't work? Isn't it still the longest running
distribution format of all time?

Well, yes. That's what didn't work about it. You can go down to the
local audio store and buy a Thorens or AR turntable today that will
play the things. RCA is losing out every time you do, because you are
going around their proprietary system by purchasing unlicensed compatible
equipment!

There has to be more to the story but I don't see what it is.
Did RCA actually get a patent on the "new and innovative" turntable
speed of 45RPM (and 7" discs with bigger holes) at the time? Was it
not enforcable, or are you just saying the format outlived the patent?
I do know things are different with patents in more recent decades,
one can get a patent on anything (as even this evening's Marketplace
said), and if the patent holder has enough money, it could even hold
up in court.

--scott

Ben Bradley wrote:
There has to be more to the story but I don't see what it is.
Did RCA actually get a patent on the "new and innovative" turntable
speed of 45RPM (and 7" discs with bigger holes) at the time? Was it
not enforcable, or are you just saying the format outlived the patent?

There was no patent. They just built a deliberately incompatible system
and they enjoyed a very short period of time before competitors came out
with compatible turntables. The patent system wasn't as foolish back
then as to accept such a patent; they relied only on the weird speed and
oversized hole.

I do know things are different with patents in more recent decades,
one can get a patent on anything (as even this evening's Marketplace
said), and if the patent holder has enough money, it could even hold
up in court.

Microsoft's patent of the ring buffer, about thirty years after the
ring buffer was in common use, was the beginning of the end for the
patent system, I fear.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Scott Dorsey wrote:
... 33 1/3 was a very old format used for transcription
discs long before the LP came out.

33 1/3 originated as an integral part of Western Electric's Vitaphone
motion picture sound system of the late '20s. (The first synchronous
cutting lathes were subcontracted to the Scully Machine Tool Company.)
It was chosen for the ability to synchronize with the AC line and to
create a disk size which would fit in a can along side a reel of film.


The 45 was deliberately picked by RCA as being the most nonstandard speed
they could get, so they could sell more proprietary record players. It
didn't work.

To be fair, 33 1/3 did have a reputation for not being as high quality
as a 78 so speed really was seen as a legitimate issue. 45 was the
fastest speed that would allow a 7" microgroove record to play as long
as a 12" 78. RCA virtually gave away the first 45-only changers and the
first generation of TV sets had a phono input on the back right beside
the RCA jack to plug your player into.

RCA wanted to go back to the drawing board and fix the problems with the
78 single by reducing size, weight, fragility and the complexity of
record changers and juke boxes.

At that time juke boxes were the biggest market for records while
shipping and breakage were the largest expenses of making and selling
them. The 33 1/3 LP was a lot more of a wild card that would have to
open up a new market in order to succeed. As far as Wall Street was
concerned, records, radio and motion pictures were all obsolete
technology that would surely be replaced by television.

--
Bob Olhsson Audio Mastery, Nashville TN
Mastering, Audio for Picture, Mix Evaluation and Quality Control
Over 40 years making people sound better than they ever imagined!
615.385.8051 http://www.hyperback.com

Yes, the 45 really was an advance, and it was the first format to be
designed specifically for record changers. Some of the achievements:

- Not too much difference between outer and inner diameter of the recorded
portion; thus not as much of a change in frequency response as in a 78 or
33.

- The big hole is specifically to allow the record to be supported and
handled by a record changer.

- The record is thicker in the label area than elsewhere. This prevents
slipping when a stack of records is on a changer.

- First regular use of unbreakable, low-noise vinyl instead of shellac
(wax).

mc wrote:

Yes, the 45 really was an advance, and it was the first format to be
designed specifically for record changers. Some of the achievements:

- Not too much difference between outer and inner diameter of the recorded
portion; thus not as much of a change in frequency response as in a 78 or
33.

Most 33s had a large inner radius, so the ratio between outer and inner
surface speeds was not all that different from a 45. With microgroove
records, slow surface speed was much less of a problem than with coarse
grooved ones.

- The big hole is specifically to allow the record to be supported and
handled by a record changer.

Yes, that's what RCA tried to tell us - but autochangers had existed in
the 1930s - they handled the discs by the rim.

- The record is thicker in the label area than elsewhere. This prevents
slipping when a stack of records is on a changer.

No, it prevents contact between the playing surfaces. Thickening the
rim would be more likely to reduce slip than thickening the centre, so
that the driving friction occurred at a larger radius.

The thickened centres were provided with a band of radial ribbing to try
to overcome the slippage problem they created.


- First regular use of unbreakable, low-noise vinyl instead of shellac
(wax).

Vinyl was already in use from the 1930s onwards. In those days, it
often had to incorporate mineral filler because it was easily damaged by
heavy pickups. The advent of lightweight pickups was what allowed
increasing use of vinyl.

Wax, by the way, is nothing whatsoever like shellac and was never used
for commercial discs. It was used for cutting the 'masters', which
couldn't be played back and were the first step in the electroplating
process.

Even shellac isn't the major constituent of coarse-groove 78 rpm
pressings; they were mostly slate dust, with shellac as a thermoplastic
binder


--
~ Adrian Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk

Walt wrote:

And you forgot about 16 2/3. Hard to find a 16 2/3 player these days.

That's the old version of Amazing Slowdowner, and it helped me a lot
with Doc Watson. g

--
ha

"mc" wrote in message
...
Yes, the 45 really was an advance, and it was the first format to be
designed specifically for record changers. Some of the achievements:

[snip]

- First regular use of unbreakable, low-noise vinyl instead of shellac
(wax).

Uh-uh on a couple of counts. Vinyl had been used for some 78s for a couple
of years already, notably including DJ copies. It was already the standard
for LPs. And it *wasn't* used on 45s, which were polystyrene.

Oh, and shellac isn't wax.

Peace,
Paul

It was used for cutting the 'masters', which
couldn't be played back and were the first step in the electroplating
process.

Wax could be played back, just not more than a few times. In the days
of optical sound recording, musical playback to sync a dance or song
would require a day or two for processing or printing if done from
film, while a wax disk could be cut and played back immediately.
Technicians even had a term for a worn disk: "wax stew." I have an
early book about sound recording which describes the method for
preparing a wax disk for recording and for playback. Sound film would
be exposed for "quality" use later, while the wax disks, simultaneously
cut in multiple, were available for instant use on the stage.

videochas www.locoworks.com wrote:

Wax could be played back, just not more than a few times. In the days
of optical sound recording, musical playback to sync a dance or song
would require a day or two for processing or printing if done from
film, while a wax disk could be cut and played back immediately.
Technicians even had a term for a worn disk: "wax stew." I have an
early book about sound recording which describes the method for
preparing a wax disk for recording and for playback. Sound film would
be exposed for "quality" use later, while the wax disks, simultaneously
cut in multiple, were available for instant use on the stage.

No, that's acetate and not wax. It's confusing, because a lot of people
called acetates "wax" even when they weren't.... and kept doing it well
into the eighties too.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Scott Dorsey wrote:

videochas www.locoworks.com wrote:

Wax could be played back, just not more than a few times. In the days
of optical sound recording, musical playback to sync a dance or song
would require a day or two for processing or printing if done from
film, while a wax disk could be cut and played back immediately.
Technicians even had a term for a worn disk: "wax stew." I have an
early book about sound recording which describes the method for
preparing a wax disk for recording and for playback. Sound film would
be exposed for "quality" use later, while the wax disks, simultaneously
cut in multiple, were available for instant use on the stage.

No, that's acetate and not wax. It's confusing, because a lot of people
called acetates "wax" even when they weren't.... and kept doing it well
into the eighties too.

I have seen a harder-than-usual wax disc which was intended for replay,
it was recorded on a separate machine in parallel with the master. This
gave an immediate chack on the quality of the performance but the master
wax was *never* played, it was carefully dispatched for processing.

I am referring to commercial disc issue; film sound production might
have used completely different arrangements.

--
~ Adrian Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk

No, that's acetate and not wax.

Sorry, Scott. I quote: "The material employed for this purpose is a
soft wax whose composition is a trade secret, but which has a
consistency and appearance much like beeswax. It is cast in circular
blanks about 2 in. thick and of a diameter more than sufficient... A
reproducer sutiable for this purpose is illustrated in Fig. 8. In use,
it is carefully balanced in the saddle by which it is supported...so
that the needle will rest very lightly on the wax to avoid tearing.
....a single playing of a soft wax does not entirely destroy its
character and it may often be played back as many as a dozen times
before becoming unuseable for play-back purposes." --Recording Sound
for Motion Pictures, Cowan, McGraw-Hill, 1931

Paul Stamler wrote:
And it *wasn't* used on 45s, which were polystyrene.

I never saw an RCA 45 that was polystyrene!

Only Columbia and a few independent plants, the most notable being
Monarch in Los Angeles injection-molded polystyrene 45s.

--
Bob Olhsson Audio Mastery, Nashville TN
Mastering, Audio for Picture, Mix Evaluation and Quality Control
Over 40 years making people sound better than they ever imagined!
615.385.8051 http://www.hyperback.com

videochas www.locoworks.com wrote:
No, that's acetate and not wax.

Sorry, Scott. I quote: "The material employed for this purpose is a
soft wax whose composition is a trade secret, but which has a
consistency and appearance much like beeswax. It is cast in circular
blanks about 2 in. thick and of a diameter more than sufficient... A
reproducer sutiable for this purpose is illustrated in Fig. 8. In use,
it is carefully balanced in the saddle by which it is supported...so
that the needle will rest very lightly on the wax to avoid tearing.

This does indeed sound like the earlier "wax" blanks. (Which, strictly
speaking, aren't really wax but are a sort of metal-bearing soap).

...a single playing of a soft wax does not entirely destroy its
character and it may often be played back as many as a dozen times
before becoming unuseable for play-back purposes." --Recording Sound
for Motion Pictures, Cowan, McGraw-Hill, 1931

That is very optimistic, though. With the reproducers of the day, that's
kind of optimistic even for acetates.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

The book is about motion picture work. The playback they are citing is
to the stage, to synchronize a dance or a lip-synch take. So even
though distorted and noisy, if the talent could work to it, it was OK.