For everyone and about everything. Buy vinyl records

Sound recording is the process of storing sound vibrations in the range of 20-20,000 Hz on any medium using special devices.

Fortunately, many of us are not deaf and therefore can hear the sound of rain, and the grumbling of a neighbor's granny and thunder, and other voices and sounds of the world around us.

All sorts of mechanisms capable of playing music appeared in the Middle Ages. Bar-organs, music boxes and even a clock with a musical strike - chimes - all these are the first steps. But until the moment when it became possible to record human speech and listen to it, it took a very long time to walk and walk.

Until 1877, when Thomas Edison invented the sound recording apparatus - the phonograph, which for the first time made it possible to record the sound of the human voice.

How the phonograph works

For mechanical recording and reproduction of sound, Edison used rollers covered with tin foil. Such backing rolls were hollow cylinders about 5 cm in diameter and 12 cm long.

In the first phonograph, the rotation of the metal roller was carried out with the help of a handle. With each revolution, it moved in the axial direction due to the screw threads on the drive shaft. Tin foil (staniol) was applied to the roller. It was touched by a steel needle connected to a parchment membrane. A metal cone horn was attached to the membrane. When recording and playing sound, the roller had to be rotated manually, no faster than one revolution per minute.

When the roller rotated in the absence of sound, the needle extruded a spiral groove of constant depth on the foil. When the membrane vibrated, the needle was pressed into the tin in accordance with the perceived sound, creating a groove of variable depth. So the method of "deep recording" was invented.

As his first recording experience, Edison sang the first stanza of the children's song "Mary Had a Sheep". Everything went well. Edison himself was so amazed by the discovery that he said: Never have I been so stunned in my life. I've always been afraid of things that work the first time.".

In 1885, the American inventor Charles Tainter (1854-1940) developed the graphophone—a foot-operated phonograph (like a foot-operated sewing machine)—and replaced the tin roll sheets with wax. Edison bought Tainter's patent, and instead of foil rollers, removable wax rollers were used for recording.

In almost unchanged form, the phonograph existed for several decades. As a device for recording musical works, it ceased to be produced at the end of the first decade of the 20th century, but for almost 15 years it was used as a voice recorder. Rollers for it were produced until 1929.

The era of discs

In 1887, on September 26, Emile Berliner received a patent for the invention of the gramophone. The device differed from the Edison phonograph in that the wax rollers were replaced by records. and you can make copies of them.

The oldest gramophone record in the world is now considered a sound recording, which was made in 1860. It was discovered on March 1, 2008 in a Parisian archive and even managed to reproduce it. This is an audio recording. folk song made by the French inventor Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville using a device he called the "phonoautograph" in 1860.

The recording is only 10 seconds long and is an excerpt from a French folk song. A phonoautograph scratched soundtracks on a sheet of paper blackened with smoke from an oil lamp.

Records have gone through several stages in their history. Here are some interesting facts.

• The first records had a diameter of 6.89 inches and were called records 7 inches (7 ") or 175 mm. This is the oldest standard and it appeared at the dawn of the development of sound recording: in the early 1890s. In the first 20 years of its existence, records had high speed rotation and greater track thickness. This was reflected in the duration of the sound - only 2 minutes on one side.
• In 1903, thanks to the development of the Odeon company, gramophone records became double-sided. In the same year, records of a different diameter began to appear: the first 11.89 or 12 inch (12 ″) records with a diameter of 300 mm. Until the early 10s of the 20th century, they produced mainly excerpts from works musical classics: They fit a total of up to five minutes of sound.
• The third, most popular, was the size of 10 inches (10 ") or 250 mm. These records contained one and a half times more material than the standard seven-inch. But they did not differ in durability, and sometimes, in order to extend the life of your favorite works, for some records recorded on both sides of the same track.

The 20s of the last century - the first revolution in the world of recording. It was then that instead of recording through a horn, they began to use the electroacoustic method - to record through a microphone. By reducing distortion, the frequency range has expanded from 150-4000 to 50-10000 Hz.

The next breakthrough was the release of the so-called "long-playing" records. This was done in 1948 by the largest at that time and one of the oldest recording companies in the United States "Columbia". Long-playing records were intended for electro-acoustic playback using electric players, electrophones, and later more compact radio waves.

The recorded frequency band was once again expanded: from 50 to 16,000 Hz, the sound timbre was completely preserved, and in addition, the dynamic range of the recording increased to 50-57 dB, and the noise level decreased.

In the USSR, the first long-playing record was released in 1953. In the same year, long-playing records (33 rpm) with a variable recording pitch appeared in the world, which made it possible to increase the duration of the recording by another 30%. In the USSR, such records began to be produced only from 1956.

Today, electric players are no longer produced, and packs of records are taken out into the street, like unnecessary trash, or simply handed over to some museum. It remains to be hoped that at least in museums they will be preserved for as long as possible and future generations will be able to get acquainted with this stage in the development of sound recording not only from pictures.

Vinyl record

gramophone record (vinyl or simply plate) - an analog audio carrier, which is a double-sided (less often single-sided) diskmade of synthetic materials (originally shellac), on the surface or surfaces of which a continuous, winding groove or track is stamped, which is a reflection of sound waves. The words "gramophone record" and "gramophone record" are abbreviations for "gramophone record" and "gramophone record", but since no one has been using gramophones for a long time, these abbreviated terms began to exist independently of each other. In the late 19th century and throughout the 20th century, the phonograph record was the most important audio medium, often inexpensive and readily available. The main advantage of the record was the convenience of mass replication by hot stamping; in addition, gramophone records are not subject to the action of electric and magnetic fields. The disadvantages of the phonograph record will always remain exposure to temperature changes and humidity, as well as the ability of records to lose their audio characteristics with constant use.

Operating principle

Record history

The most primitive prototype of a gramophone record can be considered music box, which uses a metal disc with a deep spiral groove to pre-record the melody. In certain places of the groove, dotted recesses are made - pits, the location of which corresponds to the melody. When the disk, driven by a clock spring mechanism, rotates, a special metal needle slides along the groove and "reads" the sequence of applied dots. The needle is bonded to a membrane, which makes a sound each time the needle enters the groove. The oldest gramophone record in the world is now considered a sound recording, which was made in 1860. Researchers from the recording history group First Sounds discovered it on March 1, 2008 in a Paris archive and were able to play a sound recording of a folk song made by the French inventor Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville using a device he called the "phonoautograph" in 1860. Its length is 10 seconds and is an excerpt from a French folk song. The phono-autographer scratched sound tracks on a piece of paper blackened with oil lamp smoke.

Phonograph by Thomas Edison, 1899

In 1877, the French scientist Sh. Kro for the first time scientifically substantiated the principles of recording sound on a drum (or disk) and its subsequent playback. In a cylindrical roller wrapped in tin foil (or paper tape coated with a layer of wax), using a needle (cutter) connected to 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 record, the rapid wear of the rollers, and poor playback quality. In 1887, the German engineer Emil Berliner proposed the use of disc-shaped media for recording. Working on his idea, Berliner first built and tested the device of Charles Cros, proposed 20 years ago, using a zinc plate instead of chromium. Emil Berliner replaced the rollers with discs - metal matrices from which copies could be replicated. With their help, gramophone records were pressed. One matrix made it possible to print a whole run - at least 500 records, which significantly reduced the cost of production, and, accordingly, the cost of production. This was the main advantage of Emil Berliner's records over Edison's wax rollers, which could not be mass-produced. Unlike Edison's phonograph, Berliner developed a special apparatus for recording sound - a recorder, and another for reproducing sound - a gramophone, for which a patent was received on September 26, 1887. Instead of Edison's depth notation, Belinger used a transverse one, that is, the needle left a tortuous trace of constant depth. In the 20th century, the membrane was replaced by microphones that convert sound vibrations into electrical vibrations and electronic amplifiers. In 1892, a method was developed for galvanic replication from the positive of a zinc disk, as well as a technology for pressing phonograph records from ebonite 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 living in Southeast Asia. The plates became better and cheaper, and therefore more affordable, 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 replaced by even cheaper ones from polyvinyl chloride or "vinyl".

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

Peculiarities

The very first records were 6.89 inches in diameter, called 7 inches or 175 mm for ease of presentation. This oldest standard appeared in the early 1890s. Such gramophone records are designated 7", where "is the designation of the diameter in inches. At the beginning of their evolution, phonograph records had a high rotation speed and a large track thickness, which significantly reduced the duration of the sound - only 2 minutes on one side. Double-sided gramophone records began in 1903, thanks to the development of the Odeon company. In the same year, the first 11.89" or 12" (12") gramophone records with a diameter of 300 mm appeared. Until the beginning of the 10s of the 20th century, they released mainly excerpts from the works of musical classics, since they only contained up to five minutes of sound in total.

The third, most popular was the size of 10 inches (10 ") or 250 mm, on which one and a half times more material was placed than on a standard 7 inch. The "life" of such records was short-lived - the pickup weighed more than 100 grams, and steel needles had change sides after each play.Sometimes, in order to prolong the life of favorite works, on some records the same track was recorded on both sides.

How to distinguish

Shellac (gramophone) Records may not be played on electrophones, except for those fitted with a reversible stylus marked "78" on one side. Otherwise, the needle will immediately become worthless.

Vinyl (long-playing and stereo) and flexible records are intended only for electrophones. Playing such a record on a gramophone would immediately and permanently destroy the record.

Therefore, it is important to distinguish between types of plates. Gramophones are thicker, heavier, and brittle (like glass). Vinyl (or flexible) records made in the USSR are marked with an inverted triangle (mono) or intersecting circles (stereo). Hereinafter, only vinyl and flexible recordings are considered.

Recordings on the bones

X-ray film copy

While many users have already thrown their records in the dustbin, and their turntables were shoved into the closet, they are still alive and developing. Although the number of shops selling phonograph records has noticeably decreased even here in Russia (whereas CDs can be found in almost every store selling manufactured goods), the leading companies in the world continue to produce and improve turntables for vinyl discs - phonograph records.

To obtain records with stereo information, two channels of it are recorded on two sides of the V-shaped groove. The highest chic is considered direct recording at the beginning of the creation of the original, without the use of auxiliary studio tape recorders. Alas, such records are a rarity.

To play records, a double pickup with one needle is used - the vibrations that make up its vibrations from two inclined walls of the groove are mechanically transmitted to two systems for converting mechanical vibrations into electrical ones. The needle has a U-shaped end with a small radius of curvature and is located inside the V-shaped groove of the plate without touching its bottom. Therefore, only changes in the groove profile are transmitted to the needle. The needle is made of a hard, low-wear material, usually corundum or diamond. In more or less high-quality players, only diamond needles with a service life of up to 500-1000 hours are used.

The reasons for the long life of records are not only that many music lovers and just music lovers have accumulated entire collections of these products, but many find that the sound of the played record is softer, more natural and warmer than digital systems. And one cannot but agree with this. Even the own noises of records have become so familiar that CD player designers are forced to create slight noise in the pauses.

A gramophone record (more often just a record) is an analog carrier of sound information - a disk, on one or both sides of which a continuous spiral groove (track) is applied by one method or another, the shape of which is modulated by a sound wave.
For "playing" (reproducing sound) of gramophone records, devices specially designed for this purpose are used: gramophones, gramophones, in the future - electric players and electrophones.
When moving along the record track, the needle of the player 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 or electromagnetic coil of the pickup generates an electrical signal that is amplified by the amplifier and then reproduced by the speaker/speakers, reproducing the sound recorded in the recording studio.
The words "phonograph record" and "gramophone record" are shorthand for "gramophone record" and "gramophone record", although gramophones themselves have not been widely used for a long time. At the end of the 19th and throughout the 20th century, the phonograph record was (until it was replaced by the CD in the mid-1990s) the most popular means of distributing audio recordings, inexpensive and accessible.
The main advantage of the record was the convenience of mass replication by hot pressing, in addition, the records are not subject to the action of electric and magnetic fields. The disadvantages of a phonograph record are susceptibility to temperature changes and humidity, mechanical damage (scratches), as well as the inevitable wear and tear with constant use (decrease and loss of audio characteristics). In addition, phonograph records provide less dynamic range than more recent sound recording storage formats.
hard records Various types of records: 30 cm (45 rpm), 25 cm (78 rpm) and 17.5 cm (45 rpm). In the latter, you can break out the central “apple” to get a hole with a diameter of 38.24 mm for automatic turntables. The term “hard” itself is rarely used in relation to phonograph records, because usually phonograph records, if there are no clarifications, mean just such. Early gramophone records are most often called "shellac" (according to the material of manufacture), or "gramophone" (according to 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, it is necessary to make sure that their tonearm is equipped with a replaceable cartridge or stylus marked "78", and the player's platter can rotate at the appropriate speed. Gramophone records are not necessarily made of shellac - as technology has developed, they have been made from synthetic resins and plastics. In the USSR in 1950, 78 rpm records made of polyvinyl chloride appeared, they were marked “PVC” and “Shell-free”. The last "beating" shellac record was released at the Aprelevka plant in 1971.
But usually vinyl records are meant later, designed to be played on electric players, not mechanical gramophones, and for a rotation speed of no higher than 45 rpm.
flexible plates There are rare supplementary records that were invested in computer magazines in the late 1970s and on which computer programs were recorded (later, until mass distribution floppy disks, compact cassettes were used for these purposes). This standard of records was called Floppy-ROM, on such a flexible record at a rotation speed of 33⅓ rpm fit up to 4 KB of data. Flexible plates are also records on old x-rays.
Also, flexible postcards were previously produced. Such souvenirs were sent by mail and contained, in addition to writing, handwritten congratulations. They met two different types:
Consisting of a flexible plate of a rectangular or round shape with a one-sided record, fastened to a polygraphic 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 plate were printed on a varnish layer covering a photograph or a postcard. The sound quality was even lower than on flexible records (and postcards based on them), such records were not stored for a long time due to warping and drying of the varnish. But such records could be recorded by the sender himself: there were recorders, one of which can be seen in operation in the film Carnival Night.
Souvenir and decorative plates"Sound souvenir" - a photo card with a recording. They were made in the presence of the customer by small semi-handicraft recording studios in resort towns USSR. The usual color of gramophone records is black, but multi-colored ones are also produced. There are also records, where under the transparent layer with tracks there is a colorful layer that repeats the pattern 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 form of animals, birds, etc.
Artisanal plates. "Music on the Ribs" Recording on x-ray film
In the 1950s and 1960s in the USSR, underground recording studios recorded musical works that, for ideological reasons, were forbidden to distribute by the Melodiya company, on large-format x-ray films. This is where the expression "Jazz on the bones" came from (also such "home-made" recordings were commonly called "ribs" or "records on the ribs"). In those years, the recordings of many Western singers and musical groups(e.g. groups The Beatles)" could only be heard on such underground records. Due to the drying of the emulsion of the film, such plates twisted over time, and in general were short-lived.
Such an original way of recording is reflected in art, for example, in Viktor Tsoi's song "Once upon a time you were a beatnik" there are words: "You were ready to give your soul for rock and roll, extracted from a picture of someone else's diaphragm." Also in the song "My Old Blues" by the leader of the Moscow acoustic group "Bedlam" (late 1990s - 2002) Viktor Klyuev there are words: "The record" on the bones "is still intact, but you can’t understand individual phrases." The very process of recording "on the bones" is demonstrated in the film "Hipsters" (originally titled "Bone Boogie") in 2008. As soon as affordable tape recorders appeared on sale, handicraft recording practically disappeared.
Recording formats
monophonic records Historically, records with monophonic recording (one sound channel) were the first to appear. The vast majority of these records had a transverse, or Berliner recording, in which the pickup needle oscillates left and right. However, at the dawn of the recording era, records were also produced with deep ("Edison") recording, where the needle went up and down. Some gramophones had the ability to turn the head with a membrane 90 °, which allowed them to play both types of records. The first mass-produced monophonic records had a rotation speed of 78 rpm, then there were records designed for speeds of 45 and 33⅓ rpm (for music) and 16⅔ and 8½ rpm (for speech). Monophonic records produced in the USSR were marked with a triangle or square sign. On early records and turntables, the value of the rotation speed was written inside geometric figure. Sometimes only the rotation speed was indicated, without marking.
stereo records In monophonic records, the profiles of the left and right walls of the V-shaped sound track do not differ, but in stereophonic records (two sound channels, for the right and left ears), the right wall of the track is modulated by the signal of the first channel, and the left wall is modulated by the signal of the second channel. The stereophonic pickup head has two sensitive elements (piezocrystal or electromagnetic coils) located at an angle of 45° to the surface of the plate (and at 90° to each other) and connected to the stylus by so-called pushers. Mechanical vibrations, which the needle perceives from the left or right wall of the sound track, excite an electrical signal in the corresponding sound channel of the player. Such a scheme was theoretically substantiated by the English engineer Alan Blumlein back in 1931, but it was only put into practice in 1958. It was then that the first stereo records modern style were first demonstrated at the London Exhibition of Sound Recording Equipment.
Stereo players can also play mono recordings, in which case they perceive them as two identical channels.
In early experiments on recording a stereo signal on one track, they tried to combine more traditional transverse and depth recordings: one channel was formed on the basis of horizontal vibrations of the needle, and the other on the basis of 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 microns. Previously (especially in a number of countries outside the USSR), records with a rotation speed of 45 rpm were widely produced. In the United States, their compact versions were especially popular, designed for use in jukeboxes with automatic record change or choice. They were also suitable for playback on home players. To record speech programs, gramophone records were produced with a rotation speed of 8⅓ rpm and a sound duration of one side up to one and a half hours. Stereo records exist in three diameters: 175, 250 and 300 mm, which provides an average duration of one side (at 33⅓ rpm) of 7-8, 13-15 and 20-24 minutes. The duration of the sound depends on the density of the cut. On one side of a tightly cut record, you can fit up to 30 minutes of music, but the needle on such records can jump and generally be unstable. Also, compacted records wear out faster due to the narrower groove walls.
quadraphonic records Quadrophonic records contain information about four (two front and two rear) audio channels, which allows you to convey the volume of a piece of music. This format received some, rather limited, distribution in the 1970s. The number of albums released in this format was very small (for example, a quadruple version of the famous album of the rock band Pink Floyd"Dark Side of the Moon" 1973), and their circulation is limited - this was due to the need to use rare and expensive special players and amplifiers for 4 channels to play them. By the 1980s this direction was rolled up. In the USSR, the first and only experiment in the development of four-channel sound took place in 1980, when the album of the Yabloko group 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 (the gigantic stereo record with pop music cost then 2 rubles 15 kopecks, released under a foreign license - somewhat more expensive), and total circulation amounted to 18,000 copies.
Manufacturing With the help of special equipment, sound is converted into mechanical vibrations of a cutter (most often sapphire), which cuts concentric sound tracks on a layer of material. In the early days of recording, tracks were cut on wax, later on phonographic foil coated with nitrocellulose, 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 the thinnest layer of amorphous copper covering a perfectly flat steel substrate. This made it possible to significantly increase the accuracy of the reproduction of the recorded signal, which led to a noticeable improvement in the sound quality of phonographic recordings. This technology is still in use today. From the disk obtained in this way, by means of electroforming, in several successive stages, the required number of nickel copies is obtained, both with positive and negative display of the mechanical soundtrack. Made on last step negative copies, which serve as the basis in the pressing process of vinyl records, are called matrices; all intermediate nickel copies are called originals.
The production of originals and matrices is carried out in the electroplating shop. Electrochemical processes are carried out in multi-chamber galvanic installations with automatic stepwise regulation of the electric current and nickel buildup time.
Mold parts are manufactured on CNC machines and undergo high-temperature soldering in vacuum furnaces using a special technology. The molds themselves provide a high uniformity of the temperature field on the molding surfaces, a small inertia of the temperature regime, and hence high productivity. Tens of thousands of records can be made with a single mold. The material for the manufacture of 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 powdered components is achieved using two-stage mixers with hot and cold mixing.
In the press shop, a heated portion of vinyl with labels already glued on top and bottom is fed into the press, which, under pressure up to 100 atm, spreads between the two halves of the mold and, after cooling, forms a finished gramophone record. Next is cutting the edges of the disk, control and packaging. The first gramophone record, made after nickel matrices have been placed on the press, and then each specially selected from the circulation, are carefully checked for dimensional characteristics and listened to in specially equipped sound booths. To avoid warping, all pressed gramophone records undergo the necessary temperature exposure, and before being packed into an envelope appearance each record is checked additionally.
Playback The reproduction of vinyl records has a number of features related both to the physical nature of this medium, and to the technical features of the reproduction of vinyl sound and its amplification. So, for example, a mandatory element for electrophones with a magnetic pickup head is a phono stage.
Story The most primitive prototype of a gramophone record can be considered a music box, in which a metal disc with a deep spiral groove is used to pre-record a melody. In certain places of the groove, dotted recesses are made - pits, the location of which corresponds to the melody. When the disc, driven by a clock spring mechanism, rotates, a special metal needle slides along the groove and “reads” the sequence of applied dots. The needle is attached to a membrane that makes a sound every time the needle enters the groove.
The oldest gramophone record in the world is now considered a sound recording, which was made in 1860. Researchers from the recording history group First Sounds discovered it on March 1, 2008 in a Paris archive and were able to play a sound recording of a folk song made by the French inventor Edouard Léon Scott de Martinville using a device he called in 1860 a "phonoautograph". Its length is 10 seconds and is an excerpt from a French folk song. The phonautograph scratched sound tracks on a piece of paper blackened with oil lamp smoke.
In 1877, the French scientist Charles Cros for the first time scientifically substantiated 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 the phonograph device, 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 record, the rapid wear of the rollers, and poor playback quality.
In 1887 an American engineer Jewish origin Emil Berliner suggested using disc-shaped media for recording. Working on his idea, Berliner first built and tested the Charles Cros device, proposed 20 years ago, using a zinc plate instead of chromium. Emil Berliner replaced the rollers with discs - metal matrices from which copies could be replicated. With their help, gramophone records were pressed. One matrix made it possible to print a whole run - at least 500 records, which significantly reduced the cost of production, and, accordingly, the cost of production. This was the main advantage of Emil Berliner's records over Edison's wax rollers, which could not be mass-produced. Unlike Edison's phonograph, Berliner developed a special device for sound recording - a recorder, and created another one for sound reproduction - a gramophone, for which a patent was received on September 26, 1887. Instead of Edison's depth recording, Berliner used a transverse one, in which the needle left a winding trace of constant depth. In the 20th century, the membrane was replaced by microphones that convert sound vibrations into electrical vibrations and electronic amplifiers.
In 1892, a method was developed for galvanic replication from the positive of a zinc disk, 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 waxy substance produced by tropical insects from the family of lac bugs living in southeast Asia. The plates became better and cheaper, and therefore more affordable, 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 replaced by even cheaper ones - from polyvinyl chloride ("vinyl") One of the first real records was a record released in 1897 by Victor in the USA.

The "grandfather" of the vinyl player was the phonograph, invented by Thomas Edison back in 1877. Instead of plates, rollers covered with foil or paper soaked in wax were used. The principle of operation of the phonograph was very similar to the principle of operation of modern players: the needle played sounds, moving along the grooves on the roller.

gramophone record(from gramophone record, often just plate) - an analog carrier of sound information - a disk, on one or both sides of which a continuous spiral groove (track) is applied, the shape of which is modulated by a sound wave. For a long time (approx. late XIX until the end of the 20th century) was the most popular medium for musical recordings, inexpensive, suitable for mass replication, providing high quality sound recording and suitable for playback on relatively simple and cheap equipment.

For "playing" (reproducing sound) of records, devices specially designed for this purpose are used: gramophones, gramophones, in the future - electric players and electrophones.

When moving along the record track, the needle of the player 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). The vibrations of the needle are transmitted either, which directly reproduces the sound, or to the converter of mechanical vibrations into electrical vibrations (sound pickup), the signal of which is fed to the amplifier.

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

History reference[ | ]

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

The oldest sound recording in the world is considered to be a recording that was made in 1860. Researchers from the First Sounds recording history group discovered it on March 1, 2008 in a Paris archive and were able to play a sound recording of a folk song made by the French inventor Edouard Léon Scott de Martenville using a device he called in 1860 "phonoautograph". Its length is 10 seconds and is an excerpt from a French folk song. The phonautograph scratched sound tracks on a piece of paper blackened with oil lamp smoke.

Phonograph by Thomas Edison, 1899

In 1877, the French scientist Charles Cros for the first time scientifically substantiated 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 the phonograph device, 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 record, the rapid wear of the rollers, and poor playback quality.

In 1892, a method was developed for galvanic replication from the positive of a zinc disk, 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 living in Southeast Asia. The plates became better and cheaper, and therefore more affordable, 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 replaced by cheaper and more unbreakable ones - from vinylite (a copolymer of vinyl chloride and vinyl acetate), the so-called. vinyl records . The name of the polymer gave rise to a widespread misconception that records were made from pure polyvinyl chloride. This is not so - pure polyvinyl chloride in terms of mechanical properties (hardness and wear resistance) is not suitable for this.

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

First revolution[ | ]

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

Records became double-sided in 1903, thanks to the developments of the Odeon company. In the same year, the first 12-inch (12″) records appeared with a real diameter of 11.89″ (300 mm). 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, was the size of 10 inches (10″), or 250 mm. On such records, one and a half times more material was placed than on a standard 7-inch.

The fourth format (used in the USSR until the mid-1960s for the production of conventional and long-playing discs) is 8 inches (8″), or 185 mm.

The three main sizes of records - 12″, 10″ and 7″ - are traditionally called "giant", "grand" and "minion", respectively.

The "life" of the first records was short - the pickup weighed more than 100 grams and quickly wore out the track. The steel stylus had to be changed after each side was played, which was sometimes neglected, and using already played stylus would ruin the record even faster. Sometimes, in order to prolong the life of favorite works, the same track was recorded on both sides of some records.

In the 1930s, records were issued with one song on one side, and often one concert by one performer was sold as a set of several records, usually in cardboard or, less often, leather boxes. Due to the resemblance of such boxes to photo albums, they began to be called record albums (“albums with records”).

Second revolution[ | ]

Single recorded on a 45 rpm record

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

In the USSR, from the early 1950s to the mid-1970s, the grand was the most common LP format. Matrix numbers of long-playing discs, unlike ordinary ones, acquired the letter index "D" ("long-playing") - used for monophonic discs) with the designation of the playback speed (33D, 45D). After 1956, previously released records were reissued from new matrices and marked with the “ND” index, while retaining the old number. With the advent of stereophonic discs, they were assigned the index "C" (33C, 45C). According to the numbering adopted before 1975 of the "vinyl" catalog of the VSG "Melody" (and its predecessors since 1951), the grand was assigned a number in the form XXD (C) -XXXXX, the giant disk - XXD (C) -0XXXXXX, the 8 ″ plate - XXD (С)00ХХХХХ, to the minion - XXД(C)-000ХХХХХ. Until the early 1970s, the practice was to release the same records in parallel in two versions - mono and stereo. Then they stopped making separate monodiscs, and until 1975 stereophonic records, produced with improved compatibility with mono players, were designated by the index "CM" (stereo-mono).
For discs produced since the second quarter of 1975, the indexing principle has been changed. By new system the first three characters of the plate number carried the following semantic function:

• index "C" or "M" - stereo or mono;
• the second index (numbers from 0 to 9) symbolized genre affiliation records;
• the third index (numbers from 0 to 2) served to indicate the format of the record: 0 - giant, 1 - grand, 2 - minion (production of long-playing 8″ discs was discontinued in the mid-1960s).

However, by this time the "grand" format had almost been supplanted by the more capacious "giant" and was used only for children's recordings.

present tense [ | ]

Modern record player

Player 2 class "Accord-201" 1974 release

By the end of the 20th century, the production of phonograph records and turntables began to decline, not least due to the development of the music CD market. In the USSR, the use of gramophone records continued until its collapse; Until the mid-1990s, the records were produced by the former branches of the state-owned Melodiya company in the former Soviet republics, which completely switched to commercial structures, although in much smaller circulations.

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

On modern discs designed for DJs, about 12 minutes of music is “cut” on one side - in this case, the distance between the grooves is much larger, the disc is more wear-resistant, not afraid of scratches and careless handling. In addition, special records are produced for scratch, on which not sound is recorded, but a special sync signal that is fed to the computer, which allows you to expand the possibilities of a DJ - for example, use sound fragments recorded directly during performance.

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

In 2013, US sales were 6.1 million records. In addition to the US, the effect was noticeable in the UK and Australia. Over 3.2 million records were sold in the UK in 2016 (in 2007, with vinyl being the least popular, just over 200,000 records were sold in the country). Records still make up a small portion of the music recording market (2% in the US in 2013 versus 57% for CDs).

Both nostalgia plays a role in record sales (in 2010, the Beatles' album Abbey Road was the top seller) as well as other obscure 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 for the new popularity of phonograph records include both a desire to hear a "richer" and "warmer" sound, and a conscious rejection of the 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 phonograph record quality (equivalent to about 11 bits for the most quality pressing).

Gramophone record as an element of culture[ | ]

Usually, vinyl records are meant later, designed for playback on electric players, not mechanical gramophones, and at a speed of rotation of 33⅓ rpm or (less commonly) 45 rpm.

flexible plates[ | ]

There are rare supplementary records that were invested 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 standard of records was called Floppy-ROM, on such a flexible record at a rotation speed of 33⅓ rpm, up to 4 KB of data fit.

Flexible records on which recorded pop music, were widespread in the USSR. They were notable for their small size and usually contained only 4 songs - 2 on each side. Such plates are musical recordings were also often issued as an appendix to youth magazines and inserted between the pages. Most famous example such a publication is the magazine "Krugozor", in each issue of which until 1991 a flexible gramophone record was published.

Flexible records are also records on old x-rays ("music on the ribs").

Postcard flexi-records were also previously produced. Such souvenirs were sent by mail and contained, in addition to writing, handwritten congratulations. They were of two different types:

Souvenir and decorative plates[ | ]

"Sound souvenir" - a photo card with a recording. They were made in the presence of the customer by small semi-handicraft recording studios in the resort cities of the USSR.

The usual color of gramophone records is black, but multi-colored ones are also produced. There are also records, where under the transparent layer with tracks there is a colorful layer that repeats the pattern 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 form of animals, birds, etc.

Artisanal plates. "Music on the Ribs"[ | ]

Recording on x-ray film

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

In early experiments on recording a stereo signal on one track, they tried to combine more traditional transverse and depth recordings: one channel was formed on the basis of horizontal vibrations of the needle, and the other - on the basis of 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 microns. Previously (especially in a number of countries outside the USSR), records with a rotation speed of 45 rpm were widely produced. In the United States, their compact versions were especially popular, designed for use in jukeboxes with automatic record change or choice. They were also suitable for playback on home players. To record speech programs, gramophone records were produced with a rotation speed of 8⅓ rpm and a sound duration of one side up to one and a half hours. On the territory of the USSR, such records, as well as jukeboxes, were rare.

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

quadraphonic records[ | ]

On quadraphonic records, information is recorded on four (two front and two rear) audio channels, which makes it possible 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 quadruple version of the famous Pink Floyd album "Dark Side of the Moon" in 1973 was released), and their circulation is limited - this was due to the need to use rare and expensive special players and amplifiers for 4 channels. By the 1980s, this direction was curtailed.

Manufacturing [ | ]

Press mold for punching a phonograph record

Tracks of the plate under the microscope

Tracks with the recording of one composition are separated from another by transitional sections without recording and a larger track pitch (they look like dark stripes)

With the help of special equipment, sound is converted into mechanical vibrations of a cutter (most often sapphire), which cuts a spiral sound track on a layer of material. At the dawn of recording, tracks were cut on wax, later on phonographic foil coated with nitrocellulose, later phonographic foil was replaced by copper foil. In the late 1970s, the firm technology was developed Direct Metal Mastering), according to which the tracks are formed on the thinnest layer of amorphous copper, covering a perfectly flat steel substrate. This made it possible to significantly increase the accuracy of the reproduction of the recorded signal, which led to a noticeable improvement in the sound quality of phonographic recordings. This technology is still in use today.

From the disc obtained in this way, using electroforming, in several successive stages, the required number of nickel copies is obtained with both positive and negative (when the grooves with the sound track look like protrusions above the surface of the disc) display of the mechanical soundtrack. The negative copies made at the last stage, which serve as the basis for the pressing of vinyl records, are called; all intermediate nickel copies are called originals.

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

Mold parts are manufactured on CNC machines and undergo high-temperature soldering in vacuum furnaces using a special technology. The molds themselves provide a high uniformity of the temperature field on the molding surfaces, a small inertia of the temperature regime, and hence high productivity. Tens of thousands of records can be made with a single mold.

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

In the press shop, a heated portion of vinyl with labels already glued on top and bottom is fed into the press, which, under pressure up to 200 atm, spreads between the two halves of the mold and, after cooling, forms a finished gramophone record. Next is cutting the edges of the disk, control and packaging.