Ha, we actually take the time to do this on EVERY cut we make. Call us old fashioned or perfectionists but we take pride in our work and try our hardest to save our asses.cd4cutter wrote:So we adopted the attitude that test pressings of ALL releases pressed in our plants be "skip tested" on a typical junky consumer record player that used a ceramic cartridge tracking at about 5 grams.
Here HerePALOMINO wrote:Ha, we actually take the time to do this on EVERY cut we make. Call us old fashioned or perfectionists but we take pride in our work and try our hardest to save our asses.cd4cutter wrote:So we adopted the attitude that test pressings of ALL releases pressed in our plants be "skip tested" on a typical junky consumer record player that used a ceramic cartridge tracking at about 5 grams.
Every job we press is also test pressed We do about 30 copies, this is so as to settle the press down to a steady cycle, we throw about 10 to the crasher the others 10 we keep We do not preform our stampers, we do it on the press by starting out with about 30% of the vinyl required increasing to 100% after about 5 odd shots this way we get a gradual settling in of the stampers We do use a mylar film between the plates and the die as done on CD production which also needs to settle so it works well
We send out 5 to the client after we have played them on a couple of turnatables
If you are cutting and making plates you have a pretty good idea of what the result would be anyway so it is reall a precautionary step we take just to make sure
After a while you know which turtable is the worst so you go there first the "junkie" crystal pick up you don't look for audio quality there just the "anti skip" test
Audio we check on the cutting lathe comparing it to the submitted master
CD4cutter is 100% in his comments
A point of course which has not being raised which is crucial is the fact that the average production run nowdays is about 200 pressings (around here) for about 2 bucks a pressing with colour printed labels cutting plating test pressing production inner sleeves and a simple foldover cover for the 7"s as well as packing And No royalties flowing back to the plant So who is going to prop all these perfectlly correct procedures quaility control and such like practiced in the days when 10 odd companies controlled the music scene globally with oodles of money flowing back to them on a daily basis? As I have said before we do it because we love it In the whole scheme of things all of us out there do quite a good job with our limited resources by comparison with what was done in the past with money flowing in as fast a taximeter in an Italian taxi counting in Lira's (before euro's) Faster than the speedo on the autobahn or whatever they call Mussolinis equivalent
Cheers
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blacknwhite
- Posts: 483
- Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2008 2:57 am
- Location: US
Thanks all for the great posts. This is the kind of stuff you can't find in books. (Until someone here writes The Book!...)
I assumed that people making a product would Always do that: For example, car manufacturers would always test-drive a car on BOTH major highways AND back-roads, to make sure it doesn't veer off into ditches due to mis-tracking on back roads. I guess that's a stage of vinyl processing which hasn't been well documented enough for the newer younger breed of mastering engineers to all be aware of.
If someone writes "the book", that'd be a major point to include! Wouldn't apply to DJ / rap / techno / club, but, for all the other genres, like rock, jazz, pop, & oldies, it would.
Maybe those artists wouldn't be so quick to insist that engineers cut with hot levels, if they were acutally told that all the kids buying their records to try and play on their parents' 1970's GE portable stereo players would just get continuous skipping... "But if that's what you want, I'll cut it hot..."
Mossboss, GREAT points on the economics of it all, and GLAD to hear you're still doing that testing. Yeah, all that testing Must have cost money. Still, it would be cool if someone wrote a how-to mastering book and pointed out, that mastering engineers might want to make their non-DJ clients aware, that these musicians may be turning away kids from buying vinyl, if they keep insisting on Hot records. Just compromise with a Slight bit lower levels / peak control / etc.
And the purchase of just one of those Chinese-made ceramic-cartridge suitcase Crosley reproduction players on eBay for $80 would give a mastering engineer atleast *one* skip-test machine. I somehow doubt indie rock bands would still say "we don't care if those kids buying our albums can't play them, cut it To The Limit".
Palomino, glad to hear you're testing the same!
It's good to hear so many experienced folks on this forum really ARE aware of this - all we need is for someone to publish it in The Book, so everyone else "gets it", before the kids (and other folks) get frustrated with skipping, decide "new vinyl sucks", and just go back to their MP3 players...
- Bob
WOW. See, I think that's Awesome.cd4cutter wrote:...Back in the pre-CD days when vinyl RULED the music business, record manufacturers had a much bigger control over the quality of the product. We at RCA Records were leaders in the industry in being "pains in the butt" among mastering engineers. The reason is that we demanded that records be cut at rational levels that could actually be played back by consumer record players. What a novel idea! ...
"skip tested" on a typical junky consumer record player that used a ceramic cartridge tracking at about 5 grams. In fact, we actually made calibration test records that we used to adjust the official factory "skip test players" so that they all behaved in a similar fashion.
I assumed that people making a product would Always do that: For example, car manufacturers would always test-drive a car on BOTH major highways AND back-roads, to make sure it doesn't veer off into ditches due to mis-tracking on back roads. I guess that's a stage of vinyl processing which hasn't been well documented enough for the newer younger breed of mastering engineers to all be aware of.
If someone writes "the book", that'd be a major point to include! Wouldn't apply to DJ / rap / techno / club, but, for all the other genres, like rock, jazz, pop, & oldies, it would.
Maybe those artists wouldn't be so quick to insist that engineers cut with hot levels, if they were acutally told that all the kids buying their records to try and play on their parents' 1970's GE portable stereo players would just get continuous skipping... "But if that's what you want, I'll cut it hot..."
Mossboss, GREAT points on the economics of it all, and GLAD to hear you're still doing that testing. Yeah, all that testing Must have cost money. Still, it would be cool if someone wrote a how-to mastering book and pointed out, that mastering engineers might want to make their non-DJ clients aware, that these musicians may be turning away kids from buying vinyl, if they keep insisting on Hot records. Just compromise with a Slight bit lower levels / peak control / etc.
And the purchase of just one of those Chinese-made ceramic-cartridge suitcase Crosley reproduction players on eBay for $80 would give a mastering engineer atleast *one* skip-test machine. I somehow doubt indie rock bands would still say "we don't care if those kids buying our albums can't play them, cut it To The Limit".
Palomino, glad to hear you're testing the same!
It's good to hear so many experienced folks on this forum really ARE aware of this - all we need is for someone to publish it in The Book, so everyone else "gets it", before the kids (and other folks) get frustrated with skipping, decide "new vinyl sucks", and just go back to their MP3 players...
- Bob
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blacknwhite
- Posts: 483
- Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2008 2:57 am
- Location: US
YES! Awesome, Emorritt. Thank You.emorritt wrote:Since the issue I had with a 45 being played on an old AMI jukebox from the 50's skipping I do testing with one of those Crosley's and an old Technics from the 80's. If it's something going to press I include my old BSR from the 60's and (believe it or not) an old Webster Chicago 'Fonograf'...
Those kinds of players are my restoration specialty. *LOVE* the build quality of those old Webor/Webster-Chicago "Fonograf"s, especially the 1950s ones, Solid Steel, made in Chicago, USA; their changer turntables easily weigh TWICE as much as other brands, and almost ALWAYS still work without servicing other than re-lube... got a whole shelf of a bookcase full of old service booklets for all brands & models of those old changers & tube amps...
Did a cartridge conversion job on this old Voice of Music turntable in a mid-50s large burled cherry wood tube console, a real chunk of eye candy, POWERFUL sound: the flipover handle on the tip of the tone arm is glued in, to maintain appearance; I replaced the old chrystal cartridge with a newer 1970s ceramic stereo cart wired to mono, & modified tube amp to compensate for response curve change; playing new 10-inch re-issue LPs...
- Bob
Mastering Vinyl Pressing and all that
Hey Bob
Have no fear, the old hands know the game man They will not be pursuaded otherwise, we don't and wont, any way, I am sure they will not be either
There is absolutely no wrong to be done by sticking to the published standards It was after all set down by cosultation of the industry Keep in mind that it was not a start up There was already 50 or more odd years of record manufacturing behind these standards
A big issue allways has been as noted in another post emmoritt I think is out of phase stuff Easy to fix sum it up mono it split it and feed it back at the desired levels so as to be in line with the rest of the mix
This of course was and it is still done on lathes such as an unmodified Scully as well as others Neumann of course has their "Elliptical Eq" which does the trick as well giving you a broad choice of where to "cut" more sophisticated, charge you a small fortune for them as well They still sell for about $3-4 K each if they ever come up on ebay, end result the same
This is the most likely cause of a "dissapearing" groove therefore skipping or jumping out of the groove
Other than that an experience cutter will tell you in a jiffy if that would be a troublesome cut or Not just by listening to the track(s)
It is the people that buy a Wilcox Gay (Wilcox, was he?) or a Recordete and hang they "shingle" up that do some of the damage, as well as newcomers to cutting who think that is the only part of the process, without regard of the steps required or the final and most important one "The buyer"
Keep in mind that the pressing plants in your part of the world apart from a couple and Palomino is one of them, have no control of what they press It is what's on the plates which is in effect what has been cut by a cutting guy out there
I can assure you the old hands where part and partial of a Vinyl plant They know what can or should not be done Some cutters experience of vinyl pressing extends to a visit or two to the pressing plant every now and than, the old hands were and are, some at least, there every day
I'll give you an example
We had some plates arriving from some "famous cutter" in Europe, they had the lead in groove cut on them from way out, Oh Oh, It is not something you see from an old hand It is not done as it introduces a weak spot on the plates where they seal on the die at which very point they will split I knew straight away we were going to have problems with this job and we did We could not play the plates as we only had stampers, so we pressed a few out and they sounded crap and they skipped even on the cutting lathe table We certainly send them out for approval and the artist of course declined them We than got into a lot of to and fro for absolutely zit We wore the cost's of labels setting up pressing and all that we simply said It is not us They said but he is "famous" go figure. No more outside plates for us.
Bob, Be assured that the only reason we are still around is due to people still wanting Vinyl The last thing we old so and so's want is to drive them away Keep in mind that we in our little plant do have control so we just don't do silly things Some people who just do pressing do not have a choice, so your post addressed to some "cutters", gets full support However it is not a general issue and it should not be seen as such This internet thing has a long memory We do not want to scare people away from vinyl as you are pointing out Let me tell you that a few returns to the store and a demand for refund for a dud record does wonders The lesson gets home real quick when it hurts the back pocket
Cheers
Have no fear, the old hands know the game man They will not be pursuaded otherwise, we don't and wont, any way, I am sure they will not be either
There is absolutely no wrong to be done by sticking to the published standards It was after all set down by cosultation of the industry Keep in mind that it was not a start up There was already 50 or more odd years of record manufacturing behind these standards
A big issue allways has been as noted in another post emmoritt I think is out of phase stuff Easy to fix sum it up mono it split it and feed it back at the desired levels so as to be in line with the rest of the mix
This of course was and it is still done on lathes such as an unmodified Scully as well as others Neumann of course has their "Elliptical Eq" which does the trick as well giving you a broad choice of where to "cut" more sophisticated, charge you a small fortune for them as well They still sell for about $3-4 K each if they ever come up on ebay, end result the same
This is the most likely cause of a "dissapearing" groove therefore skipping or jumping out of the groove
Other than that an experience cutter will tell you in a jiffy if that would be a troublesome cut or Not just by listening to the track(s)
It is the people that buy a Wilcox Gay (Wilcox, was he?) or a Recordete and hang they "shingle" up that do some of the damage, as well as newcomers to cutting who think that is the only part of the process, without regard of the steps required or the final and most important one "The buyer"
Keep in mind that the pressing plants in your part of the world apart from a couple and Palomino is one of them, have no control of what they press It is what's on the plates which is in effect what has been cut by a cutting guy out there
I can assure you the old hands where part and partial of a Vinyl plant They know what can or should not be done Some cutters experience of vinyl pressing extends to a visit or two to the pressing plant every now and than, the old hands were and are, some at least, there every day
I'll give you an example
We had some plates arriving from some "famous cutter" in Europe, they had the lead in groove cut on them from way out, Oh Oh, It is not something you see from an old hand It is not done as it introduces a weak spot on the plates where they seal on the die at which very point they will split I knew straight away we were going to have problems with this job and we did We could not play the plates as we only had stampers, so we pressed a few out and they sounded crap and they skipped even on the cutting lathe table We certainly send them out for approval and the artist of course declined them We than got into a lot of to and fro for absolutely zit We wore the cost's of labels setting up pressing and all that we simply said It is not us They said but he is "famous" go figure. No more outside plates for us.
Bob, Be assured that the only reason we are still around is due to people still wanting Vinyl The last thing we old so and so's want is to drive them away Keep in mind that we in our little plant do have control so we just don't do silly things Some people who just do pressing do not have a choice, so your post addressed to some "cutters", gets full support However it is not a general issue and it should not be seen as such This internet thing has a long memory We do not want to scare people away from vinyl as you are pointing out Let me tell you that a few returns to the store and a demand for refund for a dud record does wonders The lesson gets home real quick when it hurts the back pocket
Cheers