Cool History: Extended Edits, The Break, & The 12" Single
The Early Years
In the early 70's a man by the name of Thomas Jerome Moulton, or simply Tom Moulton visited a disco club by the name of Fire Island in New York. Shocked at the amount of white people dancing to black music, he immediately fell in love with the whole scene, but was disappointed because most of the records being played in the club lasted 2 to 3 minutes. He noticed that a song would reach a certain intensity only to be mixed to the next song by the dj which brought the energy down in the crowd and people would walk off the dance floor. Tom soon set out to work for 80 hours on a 45 minute tape full of extended songs that he believed would keep the crowd dancing without sacrificing the energy of the crowd. After submitting the tape to the Fire Island club, Tom Moulton was called back only to be ridiculed and rejected the tape where they told him not to quit his day job. Depressed and down in the dumps, Moulton's friend, who had connections with another club called the Sandpiper, offered to submit the tape over to that club. A couple weeks later Tom got a call back saying that crowd went wild over that tape and they requested another one.
Tom Moulton: Extended Edits, The Break, & The 12" Single
Aside from making disco records longer and more danceable, he sharpened the sound for high-volume nightclub play and also restructured records, setting up hooks and repeating the best parts, greatly amplifying the original song scheme's tension and release. He'd tweak levels obsessively all through the record--effectively rephrasing a track or vocal by hitting the volume control--when he felt it would increase intensity.
Often, he added drum breaks, not to help djs transitions between songs, but rather to set up an emotional rush with the return of the rest of the music, or when key changes made a break necessary to create dramatic structure. The break, not to be confused with the breakdown, was invented by Tom Moulton as a new way of remixing a record and subsequently extending it in the process. His method of extended remixes can still be heard today on most EDM during snare rolls, drum rolls, swooshing strings, bass solos, claps, and so forth.
As far as the 12" single goes...Tom Moulton is the man responsible for popularizing (NOT inventing) the use of the 12" single and extended edits. Let Tom tell you:
"So, the thing is - one day I went in there to José Rodriguez - the mastering guy - and I had "I'll be holding on" by Al Downing and I said; "José, I could really need some acetates." And he said; "Just Tom, I don't have any more 7" blanks. All I have is like the 10"." And I said; "Well, if that's the only thing - we're gonna do it, what difference does it make?". So he cut one, I said; "It looks so ridiculous, this little tiny band on this huge thing. What happens if we just like... can we just like, you know, make it bigger?". Jose goes; "You mean, like spread the grooves?" and I said; "Yeah!". He goes; "Then I've got to rise the level." I said; "Well, Go ahead - rise the level." And so he cut it like at +6. Oh, when I heard it I almost died. I said; "Oh my God, It's so much louder and listen to it. Oh! I like that - why don't we cut a few more?". So it was by accident, that's how it was created.
But for the next song we cut, we went for the 12" format instead of the 10" and the song was "So much for love" by Moment of Truth. That was the birth of the 12" single. To this day Tom Moulton has remixed over 4000 songs (not counting the different versions of the same song he did) and was finally given full recognition for his successful career when he was the first Remixer voted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame, along with the Tom Moulton remixed track "Love Is the Message" by MFSB.
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