| 07 Inner Groove Distortion Just a big name for a fact of physics.
Records rotate at a constant speed. So if you think about a stylus playing the start of a 12", it's quite a long way round the edge and back to where you started. Nearer the centre, it's a much smaller circle so the amount of vinyl that runs past the stylus with each turn of the record is much less.
The practical effect of this is that there's a big drop off in the quality of the sound of vinyl as you play through the disk. This is called inner groove distortion and it affects high frequency sounds most - things like hi-hats.
So although you can cram around 12 minutes of music onto a 45 RPM 12", by about 5 minutes in, the sound quality is audibly worse. For best quality, you should try and keep your tunes shorter than about 6 or 7 minutes.
"Where you really notice is with things like high pitched snares, the ones that really ping that people use on techno records. By the time you get right to the middle of the lacquer - 11 or 12 minutes in - they've completely disappeared."
Sean Magee - Mastering Engineer, Abbey Road Studios
"I think if you're pressing a 12" record, you should only put on one track a side, because the quality, the volume you get, the power of it, is so much better. If you try and cram two on there, or three, you lose a quality of sound. As a rule, with all the releases we do, we'll always put one a side - it gives a nice, chunky loud thing."
Justin Rushmore - Head Honcho, Fingerlickin' Records
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