Vinyl Recorder for Sale

[emorritt]

I tried dealing with Souri years ago and gave up. One day he's a nice guy to deal with, the next - like opcode said he's an ass. A more critical problem with buying his product isn't just getting it in the first place, taking his "training" and then "cutting a while" before you're 'allowed' to upgrade to a better system, it's once you *have* his system if you look at the moon crosseyed on the wrong night of the week he'll cut you off - no real reason, but no further support, no discs and no needles. Period. No questions asked, just a wild hair up his ass and he'll stop supplying you because he thinks in some way you've "broken the rules". So, then you're stuck with a worthless piece of junk that you can't even switch over to cutting lacquer on. There are several of his users out there that he's done this to. Chances are if there's a vinylrecorder for sale, the hapless victim (read: owner) is getting rid of something for which he can no longer can buy supplies or put to good use. If you buy one second hand, unless you jump through all of Souri's hoops and follow every step he demands exactly, he won't sell you supplies.

In his defense, I do understand why you would want to make sure someone knows what they're doing if selling them such a system. Cutting good records isn't as simple as burning a CD and if your buyer is green to the process then you'll have a never ending swarm of phone calls with question after question and that in itself could be a nightmare. The two people in the US that I'm aware of that restore and sell professional lathes also provide installation and training to make sure the person using the machine has all they need and knows what they're doing. This isn't something people should complain about. However, they don't have the control to cut off supplies so the buyer is stuck with a $30K+ system and can't use it for whatever asinine reason. THAT'S the big problem and danger of doing business with Souri.

[fraggle]

just don't get personnel guys!
I'm finished with this conversation...

[Bonati]

Hey montalbano - I appreciate your defense of the Vinylrecorder. It seems like you've had a good experience with it & it makes a profit for you. That's great, I'll trust that you can cut good records with it. But...it sounds like there are a mountain of people who are frustrated with both the lathe and the supply chain monopoly.

In comparison, I have never heard of Apollo denying the sale of blanks to anyone inside the US.

[montalbano]

@ Opcode and @ all

hey let's all take it easy I didn't want to be high on myself and nothing against you man, I was speaking generally, after all I'm not a Souri representative so I fucking care about what people might think about his machine, I just said my opinion as a regular user and that's all.

I have had no complaints also in the beginning, without the plate and motor, but as you said it might have depended on non-trained ears and on the recorded material. If you don't have pianos, strings or sine wave-shaped sounds, it is difficult to say whether there is flutter or not, and again the flutter depends on how deep you cut and how wide is the stereo image.

There's more: since you are very picky about the flutter, I'll tell you that the precision plate and motor will minimize the flutter, but won't cancel it 100%. So you will probably have gone mad with that!

Also I didn't want to mean that I can make a better cut with respect to anyone else, for sure not you, as you wrote that it was Souri who sent U the test cut of that track. So peace. You are right, there are lots of cutters, systems, etc. - look, I am very peaceful and I have to run a complete pressing plant, so I have lots of headfucks to look at and the cutting is just one of the various aspects. Centered records, flat records, the right PVC, the stampers ... miiiinchia ... I have tons of things to look at. We use Vinylrecorder for dubplates, it works, that's all. OK?

And I wanna be positive after having seen all this frustration with Souri and will try 2 give U some advices, take them for what they are I'm just talking from my experience:

- you said you will cut with 20 bits and 128 Khz, that's OK and please also consider the A/D converting, mind the fact that the quality of the converters can make the difference. E.G. An Apogee converter can make the difference and also the MOTU converters are very good in my opinion. And if you do that 20 bits / 128 Khz sampling from a material supplied from a CD the work will be useless, as the loss of quality will already be present as the CD is 16 bits and 44,1 Khz. So if you will cut from VIRGIN analog material why not cutting directly from a Studer tape or a TEAC. I have one in my studio: no one has ever supplied material in that format! But I keep that, to remember the old days. Some do that here, anyway. So 100% analog. I fucking care, but some do that.
- also talking about frequency response, consider the opportunity to cut half-speed. Audiophiles and picky people ask for that very often ... You can do it also with the Vinylrecorder... And you can beat some of the cutterhead's weak points that way! E.g. you can master the track accordingly, cut a lacquer using half-speed, adjust eq accordingly, some even use inverse RIAA for halfspeed ...

Now the real problem is that Souri has no 14"s available, he ran out of them and didn't make more due to lack of requests.

But this is a senseless topic anyway, because to plate a Souri's disc you have to go REALLY slow. You can't do the classic job, this means to do preplating at around 40C and then move the plated lacquer to finish the stamper onto another bath running at 60C. You have to dedicate one bath to the Souris discs, and this means that you have to keep the heating elements and spindles motors running for DAYS. You have to go VERY slow always at preplating speed, OK? So as for the plating speed the equation Watts=VoltsxAmperes is always true, and it doesnt depend on the time you take to finish the stamper, but meanwhile the heating elements and motors keep running and this raises the cost. And at the end of the day, it is more worthy to have one regular lacquer plated in 2-3 hours than to have one Souris disc plated in 2 days.

I think you have got the point: we all make stampers FAST for a matter of COSTS. It is not true that a fast plating is better: bullshit. The chemical composition and purity of the bath is much more important to ensure elastic stampers without tensile stresses. Generically speaking, the rule of preplating at around 37-40C and plating at 60C is a good compromise between quality and cost.

Assume you go slow. Ventilation system keeps running, say 1 Kw power, then the cells spindles keep running regardless, allow another Kw, then the heating elements of the bath go on and off to keep it in temp, this might depend on the season but allow another Kw, then again the bath's pump, and that's another Kw ... and so on. The longer it takes to make the stamper, the more these fixed costs will matter, because talking about the plating process itself, a faster or slower plating will cost always the same if we look to the rectifiers and their needed Kw. And the same can be said about the nickel's cost per stamper. Say one stamper weighs 200g, one Kg of nickel costs about 21-24 €. But the rest? Time matters.

I hope this will solve some doubts. Do you want to see a stamper coming from a Souris disc? The old good Vittorio @ Elettroformati already done it. We can do it as well. But please let's not consider it as a possible standard. It will NOT work in the "wheel".

[emorritt]

Souri sent me a couple of samples years back and they did sound good, so getting results with the system is possible. I do know a couple of his customers though and they basically live in fear of him. One slip up (such as selling some blanks to a non-approved user) and their supply of blanks and needles is gone. However, like Vinylium he has made great strides in supplying a system that for a fraction of the cost of an industrial system like a Neumann or Scully you can cut stereo records at home which is a major undertaking for any one person.

[Bonati]

I think I found a small operation in the US that uses the vinyl recorder for "custom" records:

http://www.singlepieceslate.com

Mostly punk/hardcore. Pretty surprising. I know they're cutting, so they must be having a decent time with it.

[Vix]

Wow. I've just got back from being away and have seen the posts here.

I'm quite surprised at some of the venom about Souri- he has never been anything but a gentleman to me. I told him I was selling the vinyl recorder and he said any new owner was welcome to buy styluses and blanks from him. True- he was concerned about training, and wouldn't give technical support for someone he hadn't trained but that is completely understandable because using the machine does take care and understanding and it is easy to make expensive mistakes in a moment. (This is why I was keen to sell it to someone who would have some support).

Wow and flutter can be seriously minimised by taking care with the heating of the record. When my old 1210 wore out yes, it was serious, but a good motor in 1210 will power through a cut with a record that is warmed correctly and so is evenly soft enough- then the record can cool, harden, and you get many many plays for something that cost you less than a tenner to make. This is not bad.

There are many happy users of this machine and I think the cost/quality ratio is excellent.

I'm going to post some photos of it in situ. I've even taken one with a topical newspaper headline to show it's recent. I'm breaking up my studio so do need to sell it soon. Sorry for not replying to everyone who messaged me so far. I'm afraid I have to rush off again but pictures will be posted next week and comprehensive replies sent.

[filtersweeper]

LOLs!

[piaptk]

I think I found a small operation in the US that uses the vinyl recorder for "custom" records:

http://www.singlepieceslate.com

Mostly punk/hardcore. Pretty surprising. I know they're cutting, so they must be having a decent time with it.

they mostly do indie Rok and twee pop (and whatever else people want to pay them for). And they've cut several records for me and I've been very happy. I've seen the machine operate, and I definitely agree that the cost value of souris machine is much higher than anything else I can imagine (having no first hand experience with anything else except presto 6ns). However, I was so excited by their machine when they first got it, I contacted souri about trying to buy one, and his responses made me
realize I didn't want one that bad, and I decided to just stick with my 6ns (which are more than enough for what I want to do). But John from singlepieceslate has assured me that Souri actually is a really nice guy, perhaps slightly eccentric, and that a lot gets lost in the translation.... I would by the way recommend Singlepieceslate to anyone... Their prices are stupidly cheap, and it's super nice stuff.

[petermontg]

I tried dealing with Souri years ago and gave up. One day he's a nice guy to deal with, the next - like opcode said he's an ass. A more critical problem with buying his product isn't just getting it in the first place, taking his "training" and then "cutting a while" before you're 'allowed' to upgrade to a better system, it's once you *have* his system if you look at the moon crosseyed on the wrong night of the week he'll cut you off - no real reason, but no further support, no discs and no needles. Period. No questions asked, just a wild hair up his ass and he'll stop supplying you because he thinks in some way you've "broken the rules". So, then you're stuck with a worthless piece of junk that you can't even switch over to cutting lacquer on. There are several of his users out there that he's done this to. Chances are if there's a vinylrecorder for sale, the hapless victim (read: owner) is getting rid of something for which he can no longer can buy supplies or put to good use. If you buy one second hand, unless you jump through all of Souri's hoops and follow every step he demands exactly, he won't sell you supplies.

In his defense, I do understand why you would want to make sure someone knows what they're doing if selling them such a system. Cutting good records isn't as simple as burning a CD and if your buyer is green to the process then you'll have a never ending swarm of phone calls with question after question and that in itself could be a nightmare. The two people in the US that I'm aware of that restore and sell professional lathes also provide installation and training to make sure the person using the machine has all they need and knows what they're doing. This isn't something people should complain about. However, they don't have the control to cut off supplies so the buyer is stuck with a $30K+ system and can't use it for whatever asinine reason. THAT'S the big problem and danger of doing business with Souri.

you CAN switch over to cutting lacquer, if you contact souri he will point you in the right direction to buy the ruby stylus, never had a problem with him

as is said here before "alot is lost in translation"

[mossboss]

Here Here
I know of at least two people who never had an issue with the man over quite a long period of time
In actual fact quite the opposite He is very helpfull as well as co-operative and quite a nice guy from what I am told
After all look at the heading on this very forum
"A forum devoted to record-cutting deviants, renegades & experimenters"
may be eccentrics should be added so as to describe some of us
Cheers

[graph]

is this stuff still for sale, if so any pictures?

do you have an asking price in mind (not including turntable) ?

does the package include Amp sold on Vinylrecorder.com?

is the Vacuum Cleaner exactly what Vinylrecorder.com sell?


Cheers.

[petermontg]

is this stuff still for sale, if so any pictures?

do you have an asking price in mind (not including turntable) ?

does the package include Amp sold on Vinylrecorder.com?

is the Vacuum Cleaner exactly what Vinylrecorder.com sell?


Cheers.

ill pm you the details to get in touch with vickey

[graph]

thank you.