Roots Archives Forum

Does anyone can explain me the diference between 7¨, 10¨, and 12¨, i am not very use to the vinyl.

As a starter:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramophone_record

so what is the difference between a 7" 45 rpm and a 7" 33 rpm ?

7" usually used for singles, 1 track on each side. There is less information in the grooves of a 45 which is why it plays at a faster speed. There are 7" 33's but they are fairly uncommon, not sure why. 12" can either be an LP 33 (long play, or album) or a 12" 45 single which has 1 or 2 tracks on each side.

nugs wrote:There is less information in the grooves of a 45 which is why it plays at a faster speed.

there is less information if you play it at the same speed, but it would be stupid to play a 45 at 33... so there is more information on a 45 than a 33 if you compare them at their normal speed. That makes the sound of 45's richer,with heavier extreme frequencies (like a heavy bass!! absolute need in reggae!) with more dynamic.
Thats surely why there are few 7" 33... it lose its dynamic. And the price people are ready to pay for a 7" is very low, so the wax used for is usually weaker than a 12" LP making it sounding quite bad...

Basically 7" means 7 inches and refer to the size of the record. 12" are larger, 10" in between.
So a 7" 33 or a 7" 45 have no difference in size, just a difference in round per minutes...

7" is just a regular "single". It plays at 45 rpm. In reggae, the 7" consists of usually a vocal and a dub side.

12" is a "maxi single". It has the same size as an LP, but only contains one tune on each side and is played at 45 rpm. The sound quality is better and in reggae, the 12" consist usually of an extended tune (vocal + dub) on one side and on the other side either another extended tune or a further dub. Or even an extended dub.
The 12" came into fashion at about 1977-1978 I think, it was mostly a UK thing though.

10" is also extended tune, but on a 10" sized record. 10" is a format used a lot for modern digital UK productions.

10" recordings became fairly popular for a while in the early 80's. Channel One and Studio One released quite a few during this time period (mainly 1982 and 1983).

They really were a bit of a gimmick, as they didn't hold the same amount of music (in highest fidelity) as a 12", but cost the same, if not more. They were created to give the impression of them being dubplates, which are also 10" in diameter, but usually didn't feature separate dubplate mixes. One popular expection to this was The Mighty Diamond's "Pass The Kouchie", which did indeed have a heavier dubplate mix than what was found on the 7", and LP version.

OK....is clear now thanks for the information people.

Peace.