Vinyl have been making a comeback in the music industry, and it surely is a sight to see. Because of this, there has been a surge in interest in vinyl and people are surprised to know that there are different types of vinyl per use, one of which is the 12” LP records.
12” records are also called LP records or LP for short which stands for Long Playing. LPs are larger in size which offer more duration and audio quality compared to 7” singles. 12” LP Records are certainly a step up from 7” Singles.
When stretched, LPs can hold 40 minutes of audio a side but the quality drops drastically, so it’s typically kept at 15-23 minutes per side which would hold approximately 10 or more songs each side. This is enough to fit in an album or two in one record.
Vinyl first started out when a French inventor named Edouard-Leon Scott first developed a device called the Phonautograph which gave us a better understanding for sound. The phonautograph represented sound in smaller discs by attaching a pen to a cone-like structure that would vibrate the pen when exposed to sound. The pen would draw on the smaller discs and would visualize sound in a physical medium.
In 1878, Thomas Edison showed interest in the device and used the concept and turned it into a device that replayed the sounds it recorded. The device uses a stylus that etched lines onto cylinders and disks made of tinfoil. The etches would then be read by the stylus and it would recreate sound like that of the recorded sound.
After a decade, the gramophone was invented by a US inventor born in Germany, Emile Berliner. The gramophone was the first ever vinyl player. It was manually cranked at 70 rpm and used a rubber vulcanite disk, with a diameter of 7 inches. The rest was history.
For quite a while, 12-inch records served a great purpose in the music industry. Because of its longer duration and better audio quality, LPs were used in recording albums.
12-inch records were also used for classical music and popular dance music, the ones that DJs use in parties. DJs used vinyl to keep the quality of the audio at its finest. Vinyl are forgiving when it comes to clipping audio because without them, the slightest errors in clips would affect the quality of the sound.
However, after quite some time, the fate of DJs and LPs were separated as newer equipment were released, specifically the CDJ1000 in 2001 which enabled DJs to mix their music without using LPs.
Recently, vinyl in general have been popular lately. The most probable reason for this was because the younger generation have taken a liking to older music mediums. The beauty of vintage items has captivated them and it can be seen everywhere. People have been using polaroid’s lately, as well as cassettes and other items. Vintage items have eccentric qualities in the eyes of the younger generation and thus are a unique way for them to express themselves.
