  The electromagnetic field of optical vortices is in most cases derived from
vector and scalar potentials using either a procedure based on the Lorenz or
the Coulomb gauge. The former procedure has been typically used to derive
paraxial solutions with Laguerre-Gauss radial profiles, while the latter
procedure has been used to derive full solutions of the wave equation with
Bessel radial profiles. We investigate the differences in the derivation
procedures applying each one to both Bessel and Laguerre-Gauss profiles. We
show that the electromagnetic fields thus derived differ in the relative
strength of electric and magnetic contributions. The new solution that arises
from the Lorenz procedure in the case of Bessel beams restores a field symmetry
that previous work failed to resolve. Our procedure is further generalized and
we find a spectrum of fields beyond the Lorenz and Coulomb gauge types.
Finally, we describe a possible experiment to test our findings.
