[Viewpoint] Tiny Vinyl: new 4" vinyl records, because size doesn't matter!

Just when we thought we'd seen it all in terms of new, old, and bizarre audio formats, we have to think again, for the umpteenth time. Tiny Vinyl discs are coming onto the market: tiny vinyl records, just 10 cm wide, capable of holding a 4-minute song per side. In practice, they're just 1 cm (0.5") larger than an old floppy disk! You might think these are the old 45s...but no, these spin at 33 rpm, just like LPs do. In fact, they're smaller than the 45s of the past, which held only one track per side, but had a diameter of 17.5 cm (7 inches).

In a world where enormous amounts of information, including music, can fit inside a computer, a notebook, a USB stick, or even a smartphone, or in unlimited quantities via streaming, comes a tiny format that holds just two songs and, of course, requires a turntable to play.

I know, you're wondering why. Me too. The reasons, according to Tiny Vinyl, could be many. First of all, the product is designed to be collectible. As such, its authenticity must be verifiable. Each pressing series for a given vinyl record has a TV code (where TV stands for Tiny Vinyl, I assume) printed on the packaging and on the record itself to easily verify its authenticity.

Plus, it's green. Every Tiny Vinyl uses 100% bio-attributed vinyl...whatever that means, but it's green, so it must be fine. And with just 15g of material per record (compared to 140g for a standard LP), the environmental costs required to produce, ship, and store each record are significantly lower. It's a shame that a 140-gram LP can store about ten songs, but...that's just a Tiny detail.

According to Tiny Vinyl, these microscopic discs are perfect for merchandise, as a gift idea, or for direct sales without intermediaries. Each Tiny Vinyl has its own cover and inner sleeve, and the artist can even choose the colour of the disc.

Let me just remark a couple of technical problems: since the label is so small, the last grooves end up very close to the platter spindle. This obviously makes them impossible to play on turntables that have an end-of-record stop (or automatic return) that you can not de-activate. Not only that, but all of us analogue enthusiasts (or ex-enthusiasts, often for this very reason) know that the inner grooves are the most difficult to track properly, due to their sharp curvature and the almost inevitable geometric tracking errors of the tonearm. Of course, these devices aren't designed with maximum sound quality in mind, but...the problem exists.

Moreover, I can only imagine how legible the lyrics on the cover and inner sleeve are. Reading glasses won't be enough; you'll need an electron microscope!

You're thinking it'll be yet another prank from a crazy market...but instead, several artists have signed up, and numerous publications (Rolling Stone, Forbes, Billboard, etc.) have written positively about it, despite the $15 (fifteen!) price tag. Here you can find a list of titles already available.

After the revival of compact cassettes and the failed attempt to sell a USB stick inside an LP sleeve for the modest sum of €40 (who could forget the almost legendary QUARdisc?), it's time for a vinyl record that costs the same as an LP but contains only two songs. Need I say more?

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November 2025 Editorial

Size doesn't really matter! Tiny Vinyl are here, 10cm analogue records with 4 minutes of music per side