Dmm metal disks?

[GeorgeZ]

He was here. Try to search posts/topics created by "danteellis". Everything was about DMM VMS lathes.

Also interesting posts and replies by CA guys Dante Ellis and Ben Richards regarding DMM plating technology on another forum:

2009:
http://www.finishing.com/527/86.shtml

2010:
http://www.finishing.com/540/61.shtml
http://www.finishing.com/557/23.shtml

2011/2012:
http://www.finishing.com/258/59.shtml

2012:
http://www.finishing.com/495/47.shtml

It is very easy to find them by Google

[mossboss]

Well we may just as well put it on public record
The patent held by Teldec was infringed upon by all and sundry as there was no interest by any one there in protecting it
The dmm revolution to be never come to pass with about 20 odd lathes made and about " a guess" 70 odd. Cutting heads.
As the patent was quite open however with broad Parameters as to it's formulation it took a while for people interested in the making of blanks to figure out the finer points as this Dante guy has found out as well as others
So there was no such thing as new method just the application of a published patent with a lot of failures in the process of getting the process right in its finer points
Let me say that it is still a lot of "black art" in there with each plant keeping it close to its chest as George already knows plates made by x are different than ones made by Y however still usable
Some plants do not bother stripping the stainless steel blanks for re- use others do
It seems that the plating of blanks attempted by the guys in the USA has come to nought
Further it appears that the project is certainly pursued by these people which in my view is a fantastic effort
Also if these people alert the world of this project it can only be good for our industry as well as broad based interest in vinyl as well as the recording of sound for long term preservation
So I am al for it and any help in getting these guys up and running if they are still at it I will be happy to provide
So for the reasons outlined above I would also ask any one here to extent them as much help as possible
There is no reason to be secretive with these people as they are no competition to any one in the game
They are rather pursuing a very noble way of preserving sound for "eternity" with equipment that originates in the vinyl record industry.
Cheers

[Aussie0zborn]

So do we know for sure who Dante is? This sounds like a professional set up and I suppose Steve could be right.

[fraggle]

MMP in Germany does dmm cuts by the way......

[Steve E.]

The Scientologists are the only ones set up for DMM in all of the Americas to the best of knowledge and I don't personally know of anyone here plating coppers.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

I don't want to derail this thread, but of course I'm fascinated by this statement. Is there a specific reason Direct Metal Mastering and Scientology are connected? Is it some project involving audio preservation for the ages? (If I am understanding MossBoss correctly, that's a yes.) If there's a way to answer this without getting into contentious religious banter, I'd love an explanation.

[opcode66]

Scientology has almost always had money. A lot of money. Incredible sums of money. You just wouldn't believe how much money.

Anyway, Lafayate Ron Hubbard lectured frequently. The lectures were recorded to tape. The Scientologists have quite a lot of tape. These lectures have become part of the standard study material for their degree structure. At first students of Scientoligy studied from cassette tapes, then cd's, now i'm sure mp3 and streaming. All with Ron's commically "lost in time" voice, pronunciation, and figures of speech. He is a real trip to.

So, L. Ron (Elron of the Hubbard) has all this material. It is cannon for them. Can't be changed or altered. And, unless Elron is reincarnated there is no more new material. In order to preserve all these lectures forever (literally forever) they are cutting all this material to metal discs. It was my understanding that the discs were actauuly platinum. They must electroplate the copper discs after cutting them on one of tge two Nuemann VMS 80 DMM lathes that they own and operate. They keep the cut discs at a private location, in what I can obly assume is some sort of vault.

You may be adking yourself, ok, so they have these discs that can stand up to the test of time. And they have them stowed away. And, maybe mankind is long dead and gone, and aliens of couse make it to this planet, we would certainly need to be able to convey the "truths" of Scientology to them. I mean right??? So, why not have solar powered record players made specifically to play the platinum plated record left behind by the pan-ultimate religion. Right? Yes. I think. Hmmmm.

I digress. Since Ron is in fact dead, there is therefore a finite amount of recorded spoken word to transcribe to disc. This project will have an end. And, by my measure pretty soon. That means there will be two State side DMM lathes up for sale. That also means these folks have been consuming copper blanks. Amd have recent relavent knowledge on how to cut them.

[fraggle]

so that means we know where we can cat two vms82 and a lot metal discs which they are gonna pay a lot of cash for:) mhh bad thoughts bad thoughts

[Steve E.]

And, of course, these people might be posting here. So be respectful and nice to them.

[mossboss]

Hey all
Look to me is simple These people are recording sound on DMM blanks for the purposes of preserving them for ever
Why do we need to discuss the reason why?
Does it matter? Some of the crap we cut which finish up as records are so bad that one wonders what the hell is going on
But!
Do we tell them that this is Crap I will not cut it or make records for you
NO NO NO
So why we just don't leave the reasons alone?
And by the way what has money got to do with it?
Further
In my view It is unlikely that any DMM lathes will ever leave the place secret or otherwise, so any of you out there can dream on
I have put my hand up to help and I will do so if asked
Fraggles: Wolfgang has been making blanks for his cuts on a DMM for years
Reason? Why does one want to give Apollo $40 odd for a lacquer when the copper blank costs you less than $10 for the first run with new SS blanks than strip the copper off them and use them ad-infinatum!
Cheers

[Angus McCarthy]

"...For myself, I can only say that I am astonished and somewhat terrified at the results of this evening's experiment -- astonished at the wonderful power you have developed, and terrified at the thought that so much hideous and bad music may be put on record forever."

- Sir Arthur Sullivan to Thomas Edison via wax cylinder voice mail. 1888.

[Aussie0zborn]

Steve B first mentioned this DMM project when the Church of Scientology bought their second DMM lathe from the Europadisk auction for USD $75,000. I have discussed this with them here in Australia and they were astonished that anyone knew about this project.

As Opcode pointed out, L Ron Hubbard's speeches are being transcribed to disc. The reason for this is as follows : the discs will be buried in time capsules with a wind-up DMM acoustic playback device so they can be played without electricity. Given the 18% price rise in electricity here in Australia and the next increase of some 20%, I think they're onto something.

I have also discussed this with their people in Los Angeles and they still have a lot of cutting ahead of them. Those lathes will not be for sale anytime soon.

[Serif]

Interesting reading.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Freakout

I understand that the Church of "Scientology" have one of the best equipped recording studios in the world.

Are there any mastering studios in the Vatican City? I think they have their own radio station.




- Don Tay

[opcode66]

And, of course, these people might be posting here. So be respectful and nice to them.

I was being a little humorous. But, I think by the extent of my knowledge of Scientology you should know that I respect them. I as far as I respect all religions. I made a study of Scientology. Not formally. But, I acquired a good number of lectures and listened to them. I also read a lot both scathing and praising Scientology. I do not follow any particular faith. But, am interested in all.

I will say it is fairly entertaining to listen to L. Ron. And, I thought this story was fairly interesting. How they are preserving the words of their prophet. That's all. They will tell you themselves that they are preserving these things for travelers from other planets in case we are no longer here to share these words with them. It is no secret. It is also not a something that is unique to them. If you recall, we sent out metal discs on a joyride through space for similar reasons.

The lathes are not in a secret location. The discs that they are cutting are temporarily held in limbo in a vault is my understanding. And, I swear I read and heard that their playback devices are solar powered. But, I guess wind up works too.

The explanation regarding money was simply that they have the funds to do all of this expensive work. And have likely funded the production of some very nice blanks. Wtih no bottom line so to speak, they could have had many bad runs until they got them just so. Finally, the comment regarding funding was to introduce the idea that their gear must be in fantastic condition....

[mossboss]

Well I am quite glad of the fact that we all seem to at least have some common ground on this, judging by the post's here
I would hate to add up all the money that has been expanded over the centuries in the printing of Bibles or scripts for any other religion, for that matter
The fact remains that the leaders and followers of Ron Hubbard, been a fairly late belief system, have spend a mere pittance by comparison to the older institutions in pursuing their beliefs
If any one suggests that they have lots and lots of money it must pale into insignificance by the wealth held of say, the Catholic church or the Church of England
Many other religious institutions around the globe have untold wealth
So what
Just let these guys do their thing
As I have said before it can only be a good thing for our art, the reasons do not matter
Cheers

[flozki]

to put some oil in the fire....
i guess the church of DMM should make a joint venture with v....recorder.de


i was not successfull to convince them to invest into my direct2beer mastering..
damn! so i stay poor, alone, missunderstood and totally off balance....only caruso can safe me!


and if someone doubts the function of "the Balancer" in public he will feel how nice and respectful they are....

so maybe we should concentrate on the technical aspect of the dmm blanks.
or move the topic to the treehouse...

[opcode66]

I only mentioned their resources because it translates to the condition in which their gear is kept. From my understanding it is all in fantastic shape. And, they have been investing in metal blanks for some time. That's all. No judgements here. Just the facts.

[fraggle]

lol whats going on....

[mossboss]

Hey Flo
You are right of course DMM is so obscure that it may as well finish up in the tree-house
In so far as the tech aspects are concerned I wouldn't be holding my breath about that either
How many are out there working so as to tap that knowledge
Besides no one will be sharing as most of them are in a commercial environment apart from the ones with the Scientologists
So here we are on the matter
Now lets get realistic
Getting this beer thing happening man I am in, so just let me know
Cheers

[GeorgeZ]

Chris knows it, but for others (Steve B., Flo...): since this week we operate 3 DMM lathes and one lacquer VMS70 lathe. It seems that we will be some kind of rarity

[greybeard]

Berliner used sheet zinc for his etched records, and I had observed that the crystal boundaries are usually very obvious. Etching of a surface acts differently on a single crystal and on a boundary, giving rise to one source of noise in the master record. So, for an interesting experiment in 1995, I used DMM masters to etch subsequent to acoustic recording because there were only diminutive crystals in a virgin copper blank. Time and temperature would change the crystal structure -- the reason for refrigerating. I had a chemist as a consultant, and it worked a charm. With a suitable etchant, avoiding hydrogen bubbles, the results became very good. A client received my recordings, treated them with the vaseline-based compound that had been used in the tropics for ages to protect copper surfaces, and stored them. To my knowledge they have never been issued.

Just to remind you, after having passed the stage of photo-etching Berliner developed a principle of a beeswax covered zinc plate, with the recording stylus driven from the diaphragm to cut through the beeswax to the bare zinc in an undulating groove. The swarf was taken up by a layer of alcohol that was supplied on the top of the beeswax. He then used a solution of chromic acid to etch the groove. Running a needle through the groove was sometimes used to polish it. Berliner thus had a positive -- direct to mother. He used a separating layer and deposited copper onto the zinc in order to get a negative for pressing records. Thus started commercial record manufacture.

I suppose you could say that 100 years later I was performing partial stripping of the copper!

I still hang on to the remaining masters, but they have tarnished, last time I inspected them.

Ha, ha, neither cutting nor embossing!