What’s up with that? There was a switch on the side to regulate the RPM’s; I think that was how we figured out that Alvin and the Chipmunks was recorded by a barbershop quartet at 33RPM and played back at89RPM.
So, the hole in the middle didn’t determine the rotational speed, why the difference?
Bonus 'cause it’s late and I’m headed for the shower, what did a 78RPM record even look like?
Cecil wrote a column on the reason for the different sizes way back in 1976. Short version: different companies developed the 33 and the 45, and hence, different sized spindle holes.
My family’s old 78s were double-sided. Also, made of something like baked clay: extremely fragile. I still have some…and broke one last year. Damn.
BTW, computer turntables are the berries! Get one soonest and convert your records to digital files. There are even scratch-and-pop removal filters. Greatest thing in the world!
Yep, 78’s were like fine China as in fragile as hell. You wouldn’t think something that thick would crack just spinning on a turn table but some of ours did. Even putting them in the sleeve too quickly would break one.
You may be thinking of Bakelite, although this wasn’t actually used. Shellac and filler was the usual concoction, where the filler could include fine rock dust or wood fibres.
I believe the large hole in 7 inch singles was a design feature to accommodate automatic handling and mounting of the discs in jukeboxes and on record players where a number of discs could be stacked to be automatically played in sequence.
Not all 7 inch singles had the larger hole - some had a knockout (like this) so they could be converted. Some just had the smaller hole, the same as 12 inch albums - for these, companies stocking jukeboxes had to cut a larger hole with a heated tool.
In my unruly ( barely ) youth we disliked finding 78’s while dumpster diving because when flung out in the middle of the road they didn’t shatter satisfyingly into a hundred pieces like 33s. Instead they disappointingly hung together with their wood-fiber filler and had to be laboriously hand-destroyed to sate our lust for random destruction. It was like trying to break old-fashioned car safety glass with that plastic layer, another annoyingly shatter-resistant material when you are 11 or 12.
I sometimes look back on those days and shudder as I wonder if we ever destroyed valuable rarities. Probably not, since they were plundered from dumpsters. But you never know.
Forgot to mention - the process is called ‘dinking’ - and was done with a variety of different tools such as this (a manual holesaw) or this (a screw-based shear die)
I had thought that heated press was sometimes used, as I have seen examples of singles where there was evidence of melting around the hole, but that might just have been caused by friction from a circular holesaw or some such.
On a tour round the EMI record factory in North London, I discovered that LPs were always made from virgin plastic, while 45s were mostly made from recycled 78s that hadn’t sold. I also found that the sleeves cost more to produce than the records, so while they kept a large stock of records, sleeves were only printed in relatively short runs.
In the warehouse, the records were stood on edge with no protection, the pickers would put them in a plain inner sleeve and then the outer before they were sent to the shops. All in all it was an impressive operation.
I may add that the big hole on 45s was much more common in America. I think all my american 45s from the sixties have the big hole, and all European have the punch-out hole or more rarely just the small hole.
Another option was the extended play 45 (designated EP), which had up to seven and a half minutes of music on a side and a small hole in the middle. It was a 7" disc, but had finer grooves along with better sound compression.
Those my parents or me bought in Spain have the big hole; the handful I got in Ireland have small holes (several with the knockout Mangetout describes).
Note that not all 33 1/3 records were LPs. There were 33 1/3 singles/EPs and such. I remember several kiddie records when I was little. (And then regular 7" EPs when I got older.)
As mentioned, there were also longer versions of 45s.
So it wasn’t all clearcut- one for albums, the other for singles.
