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Featured Phonograph № 52 - Multi-Groove / Puzzle Record

Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2010 8:44 pm
by phonophan79
How 'bout this?

Featured Phonograph <record / accessory / other / misc > to spice things up? These things deserve to be 'showcased' and discussed, no?

If you don't like it, change the name of this thread to a non-Featured Phonograph.

Re: Featured Phonograph № 52 - Multi-Groove / Puzzle Record

This mutiple-groove record is a type of record which has more than one groove per side. This technique allows hidden tracks or "alternate endings" to be encoded on LPs, 45 rpms and 78 rpms. On a record that has a "multi-groove," what is played depends on where one cues the stylus.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85q2Vk0Qons[/youtube]

This principle was used to make a horse race game in which the winner would vary each game.

In this video, I play four of the different endings. Listen for:
1) Man of War wins
2) Twenty Grand wins
3) Gallant Fox wins
4) Omaha wins

From Wikipedia:

Parallel grooves

Also known as concentric grooves, it is possible to master recordings with two or more separate, interlaced spiral grooves on a side. Such records have occasionally been made as novelties. Victor made one as early as 1901 [2]. Depending on where the needle is dropped in the lead-in area, it will catch more or less randomly in one of the grooves. Each groove can contain a different recording, so that you have a record which "magically" plays one of several different recordings. Victor marketed a couple of 10" 78's with two concentric grooves (called 'Puzzle Record'). Columbia also issued a few 10" 78's in 1931 with concentric grooves for their cheap Harmony, Clarion and Velvet Tone labels. In the blank edge of the record, there was a stamp 'A' and 'B', which indicated where each of the concentric grooves started.

A more recent example is Monty Python's Matching Tie and Handkerchief. Also Tool's 1992 EP release, Opiate featured on the second side a double groove that would either play the first track of side two or the hidden song that was found at the end of the CD version. In 2005 a 7" single titled "The Road leads where it's led" by The Secret Machines was released in UK, that contained both tracks on one side on parallel grooves. The Summer 1980 issue of Mad Magazine Super Special included a one-sided sound sheet (see "flexidisc" above), playable on a standard turntable. It had eight interlaced grooves, each track having the same introduction song but a different ending. In the 1980's, Rhino Records re-released the Henny Youngman comedy album as a series of concentric grooves. Each side of the album has at least 6 grooves. In the 1980's, the band, Pink Slip Daddy released a 10-inch single called, "LSD", on clear pink vinyl with pink glitter inside the vinyl. One side of the single had one song that played from inside out and, on the other side, there were two songs that were pressed as concentric grooves. Many of The Shins' 7" records have Parallel grooves. (Such as their 2007 single "Phantom Limb", which has "Nothing at All" and "Split Needles (Alt. Version)" on the b-side.) The band None of Your [effing] Business released a one-sided 7" called "Escapes from Hell" (side 2 has a groove, but there is no audio encoded in the groove), with 2 grooves that started from the center and ended on the outside of the disc. One groove ran at 45rpm, while the other ran at 33rpm. UK punk rocker, Johnny Moped's debut album Cycledelic has a lead track with a parallel groove listed on the label as "0. Mystery Track", which runs parallel to the track. The 12" single for rap group De La Soul's 1989 song Me Myself and I has 2 different tracks in a parallel groove on the B-side. One groove has two remixes of the "Me Myself and I" song from the A-side, while the other has "Brain Washed Follower". [4]

In 1975 Ronco UK released a parallel groove game called "They're Off", which featured three 12" discs each containing eight possible outcomes on a horse race. It featured Noel Whitcomb, a well-known horse-racing commentator of the day and the game revolved around betting which "horse" would win the race on that occasion. This appears to have been based on a Canadian product called "They're at the Post" by Maas Marketing, which is more or less the same game with different recordings on the discs to reflect the target market.

Re: Featured Phonograph № 52 - Multi-Groove / Puzzle Record

Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2010 12:47 pm
by Energ15
Very, very interesting!

Re: Featured Phonograph № 52 - Multi-Groove / Puzzle Record

Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2010 5:22 pm
by ColoradoPhonograf
This HMV Victor record has six different possible endings. The announcer calls out a number of which horse wins.

Re: Featured Phonograph № 52 - Multi-Groove / Puzzle Record

Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 10:42 am
by bbphonoguy
Makes me realize how much I don't know about this hobby (of course, since joining this site I've realized how absolutely casual my interest in phonographs and related items is, compared to some of you fellas out there). In spite of collecting for about 40 years, I've never even seen one of these.

Re: Featured Phonograph № 52 - Multi-Groove / Puzzle Record

Posted: Sun Apr 04, 2010 6:51 pm
by phonophan79
Made a new HD video for this thread today, enjoy!

[youtubehd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jXtUne3PY8[/youtubehd]

Victor Orthophonic Puzzle Record #22745 - a demonstration of the three separate tunes hidden on one side of the record.

- Two (2) tunes by the Victor Novelty Orchestra
- One (1) tune Al Bowlly sings a chorus of "You're Driving Me Crazy"

Re: Featured Phonograph № 52 - Multi-Groove / Puzzle Record

Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2017 6:31 pm
by CDBPDX
My all time favorite Magic Record, a 2 record set featuring THE EVER-SO-MANY AMAZING ADVENTURES OF JOHNNY by Uncle Burt c.1949. Each disc has 4 grooves on each side, each about 1 minute. There are 256 different possible combinations of this story.

The final 15 seconds or so of side 4 reverts to a single groove providing the same ending to each possible story. Very cool!

Each story totals about 4 minutes. With 256 possible story combinations, you end up with 1032 minutes (over 17 hours) of story telling on 2 10" 78 rpm records.

https://youtu.be/B9O3AsvJGzI

Re: Featured Phonograph № 52 - Multi-Groove / Puzzle Record

Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2017 11:42 pm
by Curt A
Puzzle records have interested me since finding my first one - a Victor 12" titled "What Will I Play Next". That sent me on an all out search to find as many as I could, eventually ending up with 40+ different records. My favorite is an HMV Limerick puzzle record with 36 variations on each side created by having two bands of concentric grooves - you play the first band to find the beginning of a limerick and then move the needle to the second band to find an ending... My oldest is a 1910 Zonophone Coronation record commemorating the crowning of King George the 5th. If anyone has an interest in seeing some pics, I would be glad to post them.

Re: Featured Phonograph № 52 - Multi-Groove / Puzzle Record

Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2017 9:08 am
by Victor A
Very, very cool!

A while ago, I posted an idea for a featured record series in the tech support section, perhaps we could use that as a template for these?

Re: Featured Phonograph № 52 - Multi-Groove / Puzzle Record

Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2017 9:09 am
by alang
Curt A wrote:Puzzle records have interested me since finding my first one - a Victor 12" titled "What Will I Play Next". That sent me on an all out search to find as many as I could, eventually ending up with 40+ different records. My favorite is an HMV Limerick puzzle record with 36 variations on each side created by having two bands of concentric grooves - you play the first band to find the beginning of a limerick and then move the needle to the second band to find an ending... My oldest is a 1910 Zonophone Coronation record commemorating the crowning of King George the 5th. If anyone has an interest in seeing some pics, I would be glad to post them.
Since I have never even seen a puzzle record I would be very interested in seeing pictures of a few. Is it obvious from looking at the grooves that they are puzzle records? Very interesting.

Thanks
Andreas

Re: Featured Phonograph № 52 - Multi-Groove / Puzzle Record

Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2017 9:28 am
by epigramophone
Here is the Zonophone puzzle record :