Glenn Miller Vinyl Production

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mischmerz
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Glenn Miller Vinyl Production

Post: # 48967Unread post mischmerz
Wed Jan 17, 2018 3:55 pm

At the request (or as per suggestion) by Aussie0zborn, here is a report about my (http://www.rollofone.com) Glenn Miller production.

First I have to say that I am a big fan of American Music from the mid-thirties to the late 40s. Especially big band, dance jazz, but also related international music. Anyway - I wanted to pay an homage to Glenn Miller and started in to the process of re-issuing 78rpm Glenn Miller records.

I approached the estate of Glenn Miller and, of course, Sony, with my plans and they were all very supportive - for a price - of course. I negotiated license fees for the sound and images (and the usage of the RCA Victor logo) and paid a significantly more substantial amount of money to get access to the original genuine metal masters.

We weren't allowed to touch them ofcourse and we don't have the equipment to play those anyway (ridges instead of grooves), so we contracted a (Sony owned) studio to transfer the metal masters to DSF. Though the sound of the metal masters was (in part) brilliant, other parts were severely damaged / distorted due to old age and other reasons and I my partner and I had to use almost every trick in the book to bring the sound back to life. It was important to us to keep the sound as close to the originals as possible - no special effects or reverb, no "automatic" repairs or click removal.

Given the poor condition of those metal masters I am sure that this was the last viable restoration from those originals. An example is in my blog here (https://www.rollofone.com/?p=1021). Needless to say, it took weeks for the restoration of some songs.

But I also didn't know anything about how to create boxes, how to print liner notes and all the little stuff surrounding the production process. I contacted several American companies for quotes but I truly wasn't willing to pay $10 or more per box, or $3 or more for the booklet. I finally found a company in China willing and able to build the boxes with multi-color printing, add the liner notes (which had been written by a guy who pretty much knows everything there is to know about Glenn Miller and his music) and I got boxes and liner notes including freight from China for less than $1.

The pressing, labeling, packing and shrink-wrapping was done by Rainbo Records and the records were shipped to our fulfillment center in Chicago. I can very much recommend Chicago Tech. Inc - they have very reasonable prices and accept even small partners. Rainbo was ok too.

It took almost two years from the start of the process to the first sale. Now that I know how to do stuff, what works and what doesn't work, the next production will go a lot smoother. We just produced 200 sets and sales are not exactly going the roof. I think I will sell enough to get the production costs back and that's perfectly ok giving the fact that it was a learning by doing process and .. like I wrote .. more of a tribute to one of my favorite bands. I will produce more re-mastered vintage on 78rpm but I am not going to pre-finance again.
Promo-Video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=zQgSeu5Lq1Q

I remain, with a curtsy,

Michaela
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Aussie0zborn
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Re: Glenn Miller Vinyl Production

Post: # 48971Unread post Aussie0zborn
Wed Jan 17, 2018 5:08 pm

Thanks for the write-up on the production of these records.

I'm surprised that they had the metal masters available and even more surprised that somebody else has a super rare stamper playback turntable. This seems like the best way to re-produce these records.

My late friend Noel had a label called Vintage Records and he would dub from 78rpm records onto tape, cut the master lacquers on his Neumann AM131 lathe (before digital was a thing) and issue LPs. The results were nowhere near yours.

I imagine that back then these were recorded direct to disc and so the metal
masters are, for all intents and purposes, the actual masters from those sessions.

This is a neat restoration and production. Well done.

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audiosteam
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Re: Glenn Miller Vinyl Production

Post: # 48975Unread post audiosteam
Wed Jan 17, 2018 6:03 pm

Thank you very much for sharing this.

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mischmerz
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Re: Glenn Miller Vinyl Production

Post: # 48978Unread post mischmerz
Wed Jan 17, 2018 10:42 pm

Thank you for the compliments. Looking back at all the work, I loved every minute of it. Of course I am not talking about all sh*t that happened, all the time we wasted pursuing something that wasn't possible. We all have to carve out our niches and my little studio focuses on a fairly small market segment that thankfully overlaps with my personal taste - most of the time.. We sold records to every corner of the world and we have loyal customers who ask us to supply their jukeboxes with new tunes, restore cherished records, tapes, cassettes or even 8-tracks. We have copied valuable 78s - I had the honor to work with records that would easily fetch $10,000 or more if they were for sale. Last September I restored a declaration of love .. spoken on a card board record 70 or so years ago. The gentleman who spoke it had passed away and the widow wanted to hear it one more time. Since I didn't know how to treat so old card box recordings, I bought a few on Ebay and used different substances to find out what would work best to give the lacquer enough flexibility to be able to play it. Nobody would ever pay all the work I put into this .. but it was fun and important.

Anyway - we all have our attachments to the work we do. I admire each and everyone here. All the folks that do their part to give us those magical moments whenever the needle drops into the groove. I hope I made a few people happy when they got their Glenn Miller box set, put a record onto their turntables, yanked the position to 78, maybe for the first time in years and listened to the sound we restored. Than all is well :D

Michaela

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Aussie0zborn
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Re: Glenn Miller Vinyl Production

Post: # 48984Unread post Aussie0zborn
Thu Jan 18, 2018 7:29 am

It's great when you enjoy your work, isn't it?

Which lathe / Cutterhead did you use to cut these records?

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tragwag
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Re: Glenn Miller Vinyl Production

Post: # 49277Unread post tragwag
Fri Feb 09, 2018 12:48 pm

great to hear about this, thanks for going into detail.
making lathe cuts on a Presto 6N, HIFI stereo cuts on vinylrecorder
at Audio Geography Studios, Providence, RI USA
http://www.audiogeography.com

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prestok10
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Re: Glenn Miller Vinyl Production

Post: # 49493Unread post prestok10
Wed Feb 28, 2018 7:44 pm

So where does one acquire this set?

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