Roots Archives Forum

I have 2 albums that aren't the standard black vinyl;

This is clear vinyl - Various Artists - "Rockers Vibration" -http://www.roots-archives.com/release/1860

This is blue - King Tubby Meets The Roots Radics - "Dangerous Dub" - http://www.roots-archives.com/release/1698

I have had them both for over 20 years and didn't buy them because they were coloured vinyl. I only found out this was the case when I got them home.

Both are really poor quality even when compared with other vinyl I bought at approximately the same time. Particularly the former, which is appalling.

Incidentally, have you ever tried to cue up a track on clear vinyl???!!!

Hi Guys,

My Father gave me some old reggae vinyls as presents a couple of years ago. The most noticeable among to me was the "Milton Henry - Who do you think i am?" for is was a nice light blue colored one.
Yet when i play it compared to the standard black ones the sound is quite inferior.

I cannot say that colored vinyls are inferior quality when i have only tested one, but it makes me wonder for a lot of you guys have noticed the same result as me.

Raw D

Well you all say that the black vinyls should be tuffer... But they are far more flexible than the colored ones that would break if you try to fold them... So that Ive always thought that the colored (of poorer quality) will at least last longer...

Going back to Leggo's black ones that are really dark red, back in the 70s I noticed that any albums released by the British "Pye" label or its subsidiaries were all like that if you held them up to the light (eg off the top of my head the "Experience" album by Jimi Hendrix and "The Clones of Dr Funkenstein" by Parliament)...

Anyway, back to work!!

There were two periods for coloured vynil in the reggae industry.

The first one was the 60's in Jam. These are realy rare items from Studio One and some other (ie some P Buster material). The reason here is simply to cut the price as black virgin vynil was expensive and coloured vynil less expensive.

The second was in UK mostly in the late 70's early 80's. It was to attract the punks cause they were interested in reggae and the coloured vynil stuff was an indy / punk trend.

wareika

@ James

It isn't a lazer turntable - that's a whole different and very expensive thing. lazer turntables don't have stylii at all, they use light to 'read' the record. And they don't play coloured vinyl at all! They play worn records very well, but at around seven thousand UK pounds last time I looked they are out of my league!!

But my old (but still very good) Sony simply shines two light beams at the record, aimed at two sensors in the platter. One sensor set is at 6 inches, another at 11.

If the beam gets through the first sensor only, on the outside of the platter, then it knows it is a 7 inch and drops the head down accordingly. If it can't see either beam, it reads this as a 12. If it gets through both, it realises that the halfwitted human has forgotton to put a record on the turntable at all!

With ANYTHING but jet black vinyl, it acts like there's no record on the platter so you have to switch to manual.



If it can't get through to either sensor

actually coloured vinyl goes way way back to the very start of vinyl records, as discussed in the other coloured vinyl thread as linked to earlier in this one. If you get my drift!

I also have a great 'deep purple' coloured 12 inch 45 somewhere. Can't remember who by, but it is reggae, not Deep Purple...

The coolest Reggae coloured vinyl I ever owned was the Ghetto-ology Dubwise album by Sugar Minnott - in yellow vinyl - wish I still had it - worth a fortune no doubt!

I used to be a punk in the late 70's as a teen, so I have a few coloured vinyls from that era (Squeeze Cool for Cats in Pink Vinyl and an early Stranglers EP in pink vinyl with red streaky bits!

But...
The coolest coloured vinyl I ever saw was a 12" import of 'The Model' by Kraftwerk - this was in Luminous vinyl!!! You held it up to the light for a few seconds, turned the light out and it actually glowed in the dark!
Unfortunately, it belonged to a friend - who didn't even like Kraftwerk!

MightyZ

I get it now. Thanks Leggo. I've had a "manual" turntable for so long I forgot how they used to do it.

Long ago I had an automatic turntable that actually used a rounded, spring loaded peg that stuck up and touched the bottom of the record to determine if it was a 12 inch or not. Problem was it had no equivalent of the second sensor on your turntable, so the assumption was that if it didn't detect a 12 inch you must be playing a 7 inch. Real funny if you were actually playing a 10 inch.

If there was no record present at all, it just ripped the stylus off when it hit the rubberised platter. Now you know why I try not to remember it.

I've got a bunch of colored vinyls. Mostly are from either Greensleeves or Burning Sounds/Vibrations/Rockers though. They seemed to be fond of red or blue vinyls.