Vinyls with 2 grooves in parallel

henge just released a new record that has 2 groves on the B side of the record. this gives the record 2 endigs that will be selected by default.

i was wondering houw to enter this in musicbrainz and if there are other records like this already in musicbrainz.

on discogs they work with a&b so the b-side has 2 tracks:
B1a The Powert Of The Atom (Winter Version)
B2a Nuclear Winter
B1b The Powert Of The Atom (Fusion Version)
B2b Nuclear Fusion

https://www.discogs.com/release/32957085-Henge-Journey-To-Voltus-B

i’m going to see them next week on saturday (the 8th) and i will definitly buy this album

4 Likes

That is cool. I only wonder why this wasn’t done 50 years ago. At least I’ve never heard of it before.

Actually, it was done 50 years ago:

Side 2 has two parallel tracks, so depending on where you drop the needle, you get either one or the other.

5 Likes

oke, but to make data consitant my question was how do we enter this?

the example that you give uses
B1#1 and B1#2

while the henge album (on discogs) uses
B1a and B1b

I’d probably go with B1#1, B1#2 only because B1a & B1b make it look like it does when you have a vinyl that has 2 recordings (titles) on 1 track or subparts on an indexed CD, etc.

4 Likes

Great point @tigerman325, it would be good to make these obviously different.

P.S. A friend has one of these, where the needle “randomly” picks a groove. Unfortunately the groove has worn over time so the same horse always wins :stuck_out_tongue: (f horse racing though)

https://www.discogs.com/release/3217359-Unknown-Artist-The-Great-Racing-Game-Record

2 Likes

ah, a three-sided record. I’d heard of some old ones too, but I can’t put my finger on them (probably the Monty Python album, honestly). they’ve been around for quite some time, apparently over 120 years, according to Wikipedia

for clarity, each of the two grooves have a version of Power of the Atom followed by either Nuclear Winter or Nuclear Fusion? because how it’s listed on Discogs doesn’t really make sense to me… lol

numbering the sides A, B, and C could make sense too, as long as the annotation explains the multi-grooved nature of the release. it’d at least look a lot cleaner than B1#1

2 Likes

A, B, C feels more like if there are 2 vinyls where one side isn’t used

4 Likes

Quite a list of such records there https://www.discogs.com/lists/574401

4 Likes

it can, tho in combination with an annotation and all three sides on one medium, it’s probably clear enough (at least in my opinion)

1 Like

i don’t know
the A and B indicate that is on different sides of the medium, since a vinyl only have 2 sides there can’t be a 3th side.

A, B, C don’t show you that B & C is on the same side.

so i think i prefer
B1#1
B2#1
B1#2
B2#2

and in my opinion the annotation is just a workaround for not having the correct fields for the data

1 Like