Why Were 7"'s at 45rpms?

[TV Forces]

This may be a dumb question..  but why was 45rpm's the standard for 7"'s back in the day?  I have some indie singles from the 90s where a side may be at 33.3 and the other at 45, but it seemed like labels were bent on using 45rpm's.  There were singles like "Hey Jude," that was very long for a single at that time, yet the 7" had it at 45rpms.

Wouldn't a longer song sound better at 33.3 then scrunched to play at 45rpm's?  Does the size of the record (7", 12") matter?

[Chris D.]

This may be a dumb question..  but why was 45rpm's the standard for 7"'s back in the day?  I have some indie singles from the 90s where a side may be at 33.3 and the other at 45, but it seemed like labels were bent on using 45rpm's.  There were singles like "Hey Jude," that was very long for a single at that time, yet the 7" had it at 45rpms.

Wouldn't a longer song sound better at 33.3 then scrunched to play at 45rpm's?  Does the size of the record (7", 12") matter?

45 is supposed to sound better.  You can find certain LPs and 12" singles at 45 for this reason (PiL albums being one).  I wish I could tell you more, but that's always what I've heard.

[Jeff Mason]

Could it be the same as VHS at 2 hour vs 6 hour?  At 6 hour you get more time but you don't get as much tape to physically map the image.  The more tape available to the head, the sharper the image, which is why faster tape speed looks better.  Faster tape speed gives more tape to the head to write on.  It would make sense that a faster run through the groove would capture more of the sound spectrum.

[TV Forces]

So 45rpm singles would always sound better then a standard 33.3 album?

What I'm saying is..  wouldn't a 7" of "Hey Jude" at 33.3
sound better then one at 45 that has to be compressed
to fit the available space?

[Jeff Mason]

Compression definitely overrides the sound gain of speed.  I can testify from experience -- the 45 of HJ sounds like crap compared the the LP version.  But most 45 songs aren't 7 minutes long.

[Chris D.]

So 45rpm singles would always sound better then a standard 33.3 album?

What I'm saying is..  wouldn't a 7" of "Hey Jude" at 33.3
sound better then one at 45 that has to be compressed
to fit the available space?

"Hey Jude" would probably sound best as a 45 12".  Jeff is probably onto something, but I can't give you technical information.  I've always heard that 45 rpm offers better sound, but of course that doesn't mean you can cram anything onto a 45.  You have to remember that it's not just the rpm, but the size of the disc you are using too.  "Hey Jude" was squeezed on there okay, I guess, while other people have had less success, like The Residents with their Duck Stab 7".  If I had 33.3 and 45 versions of the same thing I'd gladly compare for you, but I don't think I do.  Comparing different recordings with those speeds would really involve too many variables for an accurate judgment.

[TV Forces]

Compression definitely overrides the sound gain of speed.  I can testify from experience -- the 45 of HJ sounds like crap compared the the LP version.  But most 45 songs aren't 7 minutes long.

Yes, that's kind of my point.  I was just wondering why the record industry
was bent on 45.  "Hey Jude" was a rare case..  and if it would sound better
as a 33.3, I don't see why it wasn't issued as one.

[Chris D.]

Compression definitely overrides the sound gain of speed.  I can testify from experience -- the 45 of HJ sounds like crap compared the the LP version.  But most 45 songs aren't 7 minutes long.

Yes, that's kind of my point.  I was just wondering why the record industry
was bent on 45.  "Hey Jude" was a rare case..  and if it would sound better
as a 33.3, I don't see why it wasn't issued as one.

Well, it's a business too -- they're not really interested in pursuing the best product, only in putting out what they can get away with without too many complaints.  And who said it would sound better as a 33.3?  It sounds like you're confusing a 33.3 for a 12".  A 12" record does not have to have any specific rpm.  All Jeff was saying was that on a 33.3 LP, "Hey Jude" sounded better than a 7" 45...that doesn't account for a 12" 45.

[Jeff Mason]

Yeah, Chris has it right.  And in 1968, there was no standard for 12" 45rpms.  Remember that a 45 was made for jukeboxes, which is why it has the wide hole (for the jukebox machine arm).  You wouldn't be able to make anything other than a 7" 45 for a jukebox which in those days was a big deal.  The HJ 45 is missing a lot of its power, and a quick comparison makes this clear.  And I am speaking from the days when I had a Sears turntable when I was 13 -- this is how obvious it is.

[Beckner]

I remember reading somewhere that it was a major tech breakthrough to be able to fit "Hey Jude" onto a 45.

[al]

The lack of holes was a US thing. UK singles had a tiny wee hole in the middle for the spindle.

Why did they go at 45 rpm? Well, the fact that if you had an EP - ie 4 tracks - they usually played at 33 and a third probably tells you something. There were any number of long singles though - Like A Rolling Stone and Bohemian Rhapsdoy come to mind so it was obviously possible.

[monkee knutz]

I forgot how long Hey Jude is... 5:30-ish? That was long for a 45 at that time. I think that steaming pile, American Pie clocks in at over 7 minutes. Imagine how terrible that sounds on 45! The song itself sounds terrible, to me.

The faster the speed of a record (up to a point) the better it sounds. As Jeff sez, SP mode vs EP on a VCR.
If the record plays slower, there's more information a record has to contain within a certain space. For optimum sound, an album shouldn't contain more than 20 to 22 mintues of music per side. Anything more, the information has to be jammed closer together, thusly sounds worse. A 45 RPM should contain no more than 5 minutes per side or quality is compromised. The more information that is packed onto a record, the tighter and more shallow the grooves become and in the process informnation will be lost. Deeper grooves provide for a more broad sound. Speed + space available + time = sound quality. Don't ask me to explain it in terms of KHZ & HTZ, I'm not that bright! 
Found out all this technical jive when I researched pressing info of vinyl for my band's 45s, LPs, & EPs.
Interesting, really.

[al]

American Pie was split over the A and B side, (much as Heroes and Villains was rumoured to appear). Thats one of those singles that was played so much in my youth that I think I could still quote verbatim most of the lyrics (of the A side anyway) even now.

While the jester sang for the King and Queen
In a coat he borrowed from James dean....

no I won't go on- but i could!

[Evenreven]

I forgot how long Hey Jude is... 5:30-ish? That was long for a 45 at that time.

7:11. Which makes it strange how they split up American Pie, since that's just a minute longer. They probably realised that it would sound horrid.

[monkee knutz]

This topic might be an interesting question for Mr. Desper- see what kind of insight he can bring to this since that's a format he'd master for. Completely curious, now.

[Ron]

Yeah, Chris has it right.  And in 1968, there was no standard for 12" 45rpms.  Remember that a 45 was made for jukeboxes, which is why it has the wide hole (for the jukebox machine arm). 

Actually, the jukebox grabs the edge of the record to pick it up... if you ever buy a record that's been in a juke, you'll see the edge is worn out from the arm constantly squeezing it!

[guitarfool2002]

I thought this question was originally about the history, or the reasons why 45rpm was the chosen speed...but it turns out it's more related to Hey Jude, and similar long songs from that era. Oh well.

First, the 45rpm format was specifically designed and introduced by RCA for the targeted market of popular music listeners whose songs rarely went over 3 minutes (which was near the max length for 78rpm sides), and never went over 5 without a pause in the music. So RCA puts out the new record format, and a new player to play that format, which allowed the listener to stack the records in certain orders and "program" the order of songs - something the long-play record format at 331/3rpm couldn't do. And the 45rpm became, really, the first and only record format designed with the popular music consumer in mind, above the other considerations from the motion picture and mechanical worlds that influenced the design of the 331/3, 16, and 78 rpm discs.

I have a few of those early 45rpm "albums", from folks like Stan Kenton, where it's just a box holding three 45 records...but that gave me, as the listener, the ability to play them in any order on my RCA player that I chose. Oh the joy.

And the 45rpm was chosen by formula - apparently the diameter of the center label relating to the diameter of the record was how they found the best speed for the best sound quality.

But getting back to Hey Jude - I posted before on the history of the cutting process involved with that record, and how it was a technical feat to squeeze that much music and that many grooves onto a standard 45. But they *had* to do it that way, as 45 was the jukebox standard, and the standard for singles in general, and Hey Jude was a single, not an album cut. So they had to bend technology to allow the song to go out in that format, and part of the technical feat is that the degradation of sound quality wasn't near what it *should* have been based on the process they had to go through - more an art than a process actually in cutting records - to get that sucker to fit.

What's cool about some old radio broadcasts is you can hear how they were cueing up 45rpm records that were just fried from being cued up and played so often, and they're all poppin' and scratchin' and no one at that time probably even noticed on their AM radios.

[Jeff Mason]

Yeah, Chris has it right.  And in 1968, there was no standard for 12" 45rpms.  Remember that a 45 was made for jukeboxes, which is why it has the wide hole (for the jukebox machine arm). 

Actually, the jukebox grabs the edge of the record to pick it up... if you ever buy a record that's been in a juke, you'll see the edge is worn out from the arm constantly squeezing it!

Huh.  I read somewhere that it was for the jukebox that we had the larger hole in the 45 which as pointed out elsewhere was a US phenom.  WHY DID we get larger hole...?

[absinthe_boy]

The larger hole in the US was probably something to do with the original RCA standard. But its true also that juke boxes had/have a large "spindle" onto which the larger holes fit.

UK 45's always had the small hole for the regular LP spindle...but often there was a perforated cutout allowing the hole to be widened to the juke box standard.

Remember we're dealing with a needle-in-groove system here...the variations in the groove are the recorded sound wave. If you allow more movement, ie move the stylus from outer towards inner edge faster you get better sound quality (because a greater amplitude can be recorded) but less playing time.

If you want to compress the sound by removing the highest energy (ie the deep bass) you can more than double the amount of recording time - but at a price.

There is a Genesis 45 of "I Know What I Like" from January 1974 which has the 7+ minute "Twilight Alehouse" as the B-side...this has been compressed considerably to squeeze it onto the record. You lose dynamic range and some of the bass.

Prior to the mid 70's there really weren't many 12" 45rpm singles, the de facto standard for a single was a 7" 45.

Some of the best sounding LPs have been double albums cut from modern albums intended for a single CD release. Take Peter Gabriel's "Up" or "Us" albums...run at about 65 mins on  a single CD or 16 minutes a side for a 2LP.

Same withe SMiLE..giving it roughly 15 mins per side instead of the usual 20-25 means a better quality signal can be recorded...and in the case of SMiLE the result is truly astounding - far better than the CD.

[GP1138]

Same withe SMiLE..giving it roughly 15 mins per side instead of the usual 20-25 means a better quality signal can be recorded...and in the case of SMiLE the result is truly astounding - far better than the CD.

I can attest to this. The dynamic range, the width of the soundfield is far better than the CD.

[donald]

Apparently the 45 was the only disc format that was calculated for optimal sound;


The 45 rpm speed was the only one to be decided by a precise optimization procedure (by RCA Victor in 1948). Calculus was used to show that the optimum use of a disc record of constant rotational speed occurs when the innermost recorded diameter is half the outermost recorded diameter. That's why a 7-inch single has a label 3 1/2 inches in diameter. Given assumptions about the bandwidth and tolerable distortion, a speed of 45 rpm comes out of the formula.