Have you ever noticed these novelty CD-Rs?
That are supposed to look like Vinyl records
It's quite probable you haven't, because not many people buy CD-Rs nowadays
I only picked these up to demonstrate them here in this video
But I do think they look quite neat
Of course, this is the record side
You flip it over, normal CD-R on the other side
But they even go as far as having a raised ridge on the record side that you can feel as you rub your thumb over it
But of course, there's nothing recorded on there
However, somebody had a similar idea ten years ago, that actually worked
On one side was a compact disc, the other side was a vinyl record
and they called it Vinyl-Disc
and, lets have a look at one
The format was introduced in 2007 and was only used for a handful of releases
The disc that I've got is the first one that came out
by the group Fightstar
It's been signed by the group on this sleeve as well
and it's still in it's cellophane
It's a CD single
We've got three tracks on the CD side and then a separate track on the vinyl side
Now of course, because it's a standard CD size
that means the vinyl side of the record is smaller than your traditional 7 inch, 45rpm record
and therefore it's played at 33rpm
to be able to have enough space on it to fit up to approximately three minutes worth of music
Now in the centre of the disc there is a foam disc
which is blocking up that hole
we'll need to push that out to be able to play it in a CD player
but we do need to keep that because it's important
I'll show you why in a second
Now you can see here that the centre of the disc has nothing recorded on it on the vinyl side
it's only around the outside edge that there's any music
Of course the CD side just looks the same as any old normal Compact Disc
Although it does feel a little bit thicker
Now the size of the hole in the centre of a compact disc is of course different to that of a Vinyl record
and that is where the little foam disc comes in
because the centre of that can be punched out
which leaves a hole in that and effectively it gives you a little foam washer that you can put in the centre of the disc
to make it the right size for going over the spindle on a standard vinyl record player
Now whilst I've got an automatic turntable
I'll have to operate it manually because of course the disc is smaller than a standard record
So it wouldn't put the arm down in the correct place
So I'll need to manually place it down very carefully
at the outside edge of the disc
Unfortunately the automatic return mechanism on my turntable was activated before the track finished playing
and that's down to the size of the disc
You see on a standard 45 rpm
there is a bit of run-out groove before the end of the record
where the arm moves in to and then returns
On this tiny little disc
Even though the track is recorded on the outside edge some of that still goes into the area
that on my standard record would have been in the run-out groove
So, when the arm gets to that position it says
'Hold on, record's finished' and goes back to the beginning
So really, this tiny little disc would only work on a fully manual turntable
Now as far as the compact disc side goes
Well there's nothing unusual at all there
It's just a traditional compact disc, put it in a normal CD player
Press play, and it works the same as any other Although, I've got to say this isn't really my favourite genre of music
Vinly-Disc was introduced in 2007 as a sales gimmick
They weren't even sure anyone would have a record player to play it on
I was wondering would it be more successful of it came back nowadays
given the resurgence in sales for vinyl
I'm not too sure
I still think it feels very much like a gimmick
The vinly side didn't sound very good
I think those grooves are very closely packed together
But the main issue I had was trying to get the stylus down
at the start on the lead in on the record
Because it's such a small lead in
It took me a lot of goes to get it just right
So I still think this is something that's perhaps best left in 2007
But it was a little bit of fun
and I hope you enjoyed watching a video about it
and as always
Thanks for watching