Lazaretto?

[EmAtChapterV]

I'm not sure whether to post this here or in the Experimenters' subforum, it seems to be a cutting experiment gone horribly right and successful. I finally got my hands on a copy of Jack White's Lazaretto "Ultra LP", and I'm left scratching my head just as much as I was before: how on earth did they do this? I had assumed it was cut on an old Scully that could do inside-out cuts for Side A, but I'm not so sure now. Upon examination of the grooves, something is weird: there's groove "twinning" on sectors of the record, like the leadscrew was running behind for one revolution and catches up the next.

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In another sector of the record (say eight o'clock versus four o'clock like a clock face in relation to the label), the grooves are evenly spaced. I've seen this happen on my Rek-O-Kut when the drive flange for the overhead wasn't perfectly flat in relation to the record surface; I'm stumped as to why it would happen on a professional lathe with the leadscrew driven by other more reliable means. Compare with the two other LPs I picked up, both live-to-acetate takes cut by George Ingram on Third Man's Scully/Westrex system, which have perfectly evenly spaced grooves as a healthy, well-maintained Scully should make.

There's also "twinning" on parts of the double-grooved intro for Side B. This case is more obvious, and excusable by the likelihood that the lacquer shifted slightly between cuts. Compare and contrast - these portions of the outermost recording grooves were only an inch or so apart. Also notice the bass note (probably some form of synchronizing tone?) wobbling both sets of grooves just before the music starts, and the "track marker" where the two grooves join, visible in one picture but not the other. As others have noted elsewhere, the first song on Side B has two separate introductions, one acoustic and one electric, and they join into one groove almost seamlessly mid-song - mid-word, in fact. The volume dips a little but the tempo of the song never wavers. I'm assuming the bass tone helped with synchronizing both takes, but the logistics of doing this still boggles my mind.

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Side B also wins some kind of award for being the "fullest" side I've seen on a pressed record. "Under-Label Groove" aside, the regular music grooves start off the outer edge and then go right up to within a millimeter of the label before stopping in a locked groove. Neither side has a lead-in or lead-out, nor matrix markings. If a regular LP can be considered 100% full for having the outermost and innermost grooves at 11.4 and 4.6 inches diameter respectively, this one is 120% full. I can see why people have complained their turntables do strange things when playing this.

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Does anyone know anyone involved in the cutting of Lazaretto, besides Jack White himself, who've said anything about what kind of an undertaking this project was? I'd love to hear more about this, or any other bizarre cuts any of you may have done.

[rsimms3]

[tragwag]

just want to chime in here and say that I really appreciate this record, and am happy to own it.
Besides the fact that they claim most of this stuff was never done before, it is all great to have on one LP.
The 3 speeds thing I'm sure was done before, the inside out and locked groove stuff I can do on a 6N.
The "under label" press thing is totally foreign to me, did they press flexi material over the paper label or something?
And I love the satin finish on the B side, totally classy.

The thing that kills me is they must have used so many lacquers to finally get it right.

[Snakeheadfishlab]

I agree,fascinating album.


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[Aussie0zborn]

That's a great review of this record - thanks for posting. Steve has previously posted a link to a topic called "Lazaretto Broke My Turntable" which makes for some interesting reading.

Tyler suggests there might be a flexi-disc type material over the label so let me ask... is this a regular label or is it ultra shiny?

Cutting all the way to the label is interesting... I would like to think that the last track is acoustic.

I'm not sure what you mean by "twinning". In respect of this "twinning" is there any irregular noise at these points??

[rsimms3]

Their description of "under label" grooves is a bit misleading. The master laquer has grooves cut into the label area which then are on the stampers. The label track is pressed into the paper label which when fused with the vinyl retains enough groove information for playback. URP posted pics of the pressing of this one on Facebook, you could see the label track ridges on the stamper and plain paper labels.

[EmAtChapterV]

What rsimms3 said about the "under-label grooves" - the label is pressed right into the grooves. The sound quality, while audible, is understandably poor, like an old Wilcox-Gay Recordio with a bad cutting stylus.

Does anyone with a camera hooked up to their lathe scope want to throw this album on the turntable, rotate the innermost grooves of Side A and outermost grooves of Side B under the scope once or twice and post the resulting video? Watch the grooves as the record is rotating and you'll see what I mean about the "twinning". There's no odd noises I could hear, but it's probably cut a couple of decibels quieter than it otherwise could have been, to be on the safe side.

[tragwag]

Ah I see now about the inner label grooves, and thinking about it makes more sense.
When you look at a stamper and see the label area, it's slightly raised and polished flat.
When they put grooves in that section, it really clamps down on the label area and fuses it much more forcefully to the disc, hence why I thought it might have been another material.

If I had a better scope, I'd do some digging.

[EmAtChapterV]

Having transferred, timed and measured it, here are the stats I have:

Side A - 18:46 in 2.48 inches of space, which accounting for banding between songs equals about -260 lines per inch. The recording level peaks at about -5 dB below standard reference.

Side B - The double groove section is about 1:20 per groove (starting as close to the edge as I could track; the first 45 to 50 seconds or the outermost 0.25 inches of the record is silence) in 0.433 inches of space, for 2x 103 lines per inch. The rest of the side to till the locked groove is 20:00 exactly, in 3.445 inches of space, which accounting for banding between songs equals about 200 lines per inch. The recording level peaks at -3 dB below standard reference briefly, most of it stays around -5 dB like the other side.

The under-label groove on Side B is 0.2 inches for 0:56 at 45 rpm, or around 215 lines per inch.

I was wrong about the test tone at the beginning of Side B - it's only on the "electric intro" groove, not the "acoustic", and is 2.8 seconds of 30 Hz at 0 dB standard level, 15 seconds before the music starts.

[EmAtChapterV]

For comparison's sake, Mudhoney Live To Disk At Third Man Records (TMR-246), cut on a Scully by George Ingram, is 19:47 in 2.913 inches on Side A, 20:24 in 3.031 inches on Side B. Add banding and both sides work out to 234 lines per inch, with volume peaking at -2.5 dB. Grooves are just barely kissing all over both sides, but the sound is amazingly clean and live. Mister Ingram has nerves of steel, I salute him.

[rsimms3]

Some of the Live to Acetate series have recuts if things go sideways at the show. I only have the Melvins LP (attended the show) and one side includes RE1 in the dead wax with the catalog number indicating that side was recut from the tapes. Pretty sure the sides George cuts live that get pressed say something like "Live @ TMR" or something very close in the dead wax.

[EmAtChapterV]

Pretty sure the sides George cuts live that get pressed say something like "Live @ TMR" or something very close in the dead wax.

Yup.

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There's also a fragment of cheering in the locked groove at the end of side two, despite the sound being faded out before the leadout begins.

Incidentally, when did Scully lathes stop using catch grooves? Both this one and the Seasick Steve live-to-acetate go straight from 4-pitch leadout to lock, without backlash or any of the weird speed-ups or slow-downs that WB has noted on old Columbia releases cut with gearbox straight-pitch Scullys; I'm assuming the one George Ingram is using has a pitch knob but I'd need to re-watch the Third Man video to be sure.

[ejemmons]

Maybe because the 32 lpi after lead-out is only invoked in the 2 pitch lead out? The 4 pitch does go right to locking groove in mine, it's hardwired that way. Backlash on feed out is controlled by a friction brake on the carriage shaft nearest the head. I got the record for Christmas, haven't played it yet, but it was certainly a mastering tour-de-force, I hope the musicality justifies the effort.... the record will go under the microscope first, of course!

[rsimms3]

I wonder if that was just Vance Powell fading out the music but not the crowd mics.

The TMR Scully has a pitch knob, you can see it in the first video at 1:04 of their first live sessions that show the lathe. I have very little knowledge of the Scully/Neumann lathes so it could be bypassed or something They also have a second lathe, Neumann, that appeared to be in the restoration phase in their World's Fasted Record video from April. In the second video at 4:54.

Live to Acetate video:

RSD 2014 - World's Fastest Record

[EmAtChapterV]

Okay, I just finished transferring, timing and measuring the Seasick Steve direct-to-disc, the one that's shown in the first video. It's 20 seconds shorter per side than Mudhoney, but is cut at an even finer pitch, 247 lines per inch! Which brings up something odd - all through the video, during cutting and afterwards, the pitch knob is shown in the nine o'clock position, which would be 105 lpi with the 70-400 dial, or 155 lpi with the 105-600 dial. (Even if they managed to find a 140-800 dial, that's still only 210 lpi in theory, and I didn't know Jack White was planning on cutting direct-to-disc masters of people whispering quietly for an hour per side.) So something isn't quite right or has been modified.

I ask about the catch grooves because all the Scully setup and maintenance literature I have shows it happening with a 4-pitch lead-out, as do many recorded examples, including a couple cut by Alan Graves' ex-Capitol Scully. It could be his was an earlier or later model than ejemmons'? (Who, by the way, I dig their new video posted a few days ago, showing it's possible to go coarser than 70 lpi. All the way off the left-hand side of the dial with an audible clack. Those must have been some loud, deep grooves. )

[W.B.]

I don't think the later LS-76 had the "catch groove" option, if you were asking about when Scullys stopped making lathes that cut same. That was on models made between 1950 and 1972.

[cassdetroit]

having worked with George pretty intensely on the cutting of this record, the best insight i have is in regards to the two different intros for the first song on side B (Just One Drink). as george said, getting this right was almost entirely up to chance. in his words "like taking a flying fuck at a donut." i think the total time spent trying to get it perfect was something like 24 hours. not just, you know, one day, but 24 hours of cutting.

also, in regards to the Seasick Steve direct-to-acetate video, there's a little bit of movie magic going on there. some of the footage was recreated after recording the show, thus why the pitch knob in the nine o'clock position doesn't result in the expected LPI.

i lost lots of sleep getting this record done (and pressing 150,000 copies in just about six months) but am happier for it.