MDC lacquers

[Third]

Hello everyone,
can i ask a quick question. Is anyone having any issues with MDC stock at the moment...particularly with excessive surface noise...noise with "frying" characteristic?
Or any cutting pin problems?

Thanks in advance forany input

cheers
Sean

[mossboss]

We have not had issues may be a dud few you have It happens
By the way have a look at a proposed Pro section I put up just for post's like this May we have your view please
Cheers

[ak23]

Hello Sean,

yeah, a lot of studios having these problems.
But it seems that the main problem is not MDC.
I found the Stylus quality of Adamant & Transco very poor
compared to some month ago.

My years old used styli are better then most of the new ones.
They are just not sharp enough, maybe the facettes are not right.
I don´t know.

Also it seems that some piece of
lacquers remains on the tip and burns in.
Especially with MDC = higher surface noise.

I tried a lot of different badges of MDC´s some seem to not have
this problems some are worse.

The exact problem is difficult to narrow down because every Stylus
gives different results.

Please tell me the Ser:Number of your MDC´s and we can compare.

Results on Apollo lacquers are nearly perfect but also not as good as
half year ago. But i think it´s a stylus problem.

greetings

Andreas

[mossboss]

Hi all
It seems that the MDC material is a little softer than in the past so a bit seems to stick to the stylus tip a real pain
We wash that off with a bit of acetone with a cotton bud for every cut
It seems to be OK for 7" a bit of a nightmare on the 12"
Pot luck
If it picks it up half way surface noise galore
Stylus heating is crucial
Test cut every lacquer with adjustment of heat for each lacquer
It makes a difference
Cheers

[emorritt]

Andreas I was having problems with Apollo's styli about a year ago. They'd last roughly 7 to 10 sides then the groove noise would get worse and worse. Old cutters worked fine, but the new ones didn't last. Then about 3 months later I was getting styli that would last longer than normal. I certainly hope these are not going to be recurring problems. Apollo's blank quality seems to have gotten better since last year, at least I'm not finding blanks in a box (dubs or masters) that have pinholes or check marks clearly in the recording area. I've never tried an MDC blank, heard that in the day they were the best you could get. Who's distributing them in the US nowadays?

[mossboss]

Hey Andreas
How are you aligning the stylus when you mount them on the head?
Have you the Neumann jig? If so have you checked it's accuracy on the parallellism of the microscospe to the head mounting holder
If this is even slightly out you will have these symptoms
Cheers

[ak23]

Hey Andreas
How are you aligning the stylus when you mount them on the head?
Have you the Neumann jig? If so have you checked it's accuracy on the parallellism of the microscospe to the head mounting holder
If this is even slightly out you will have these symptoms
Cheers

hello moss:

I dont see/hear a big difference when adjusting the stylus heat here with
Stripy MDC.
Sometimes it is difficult to remove the lacquers wasteover from the tip
after cutting. I clean also with acetone.
I align the Stylus with The Neumann microscope. Sometimes with my stereo
microscope. But i can see it also with my bare eyes sometimes better.
I have very good eyes.
The neumann microscope is very easy to align. But is is a bad microscope imo.

I did not realised any big differences when adjusting stylus. But some
styli seem to worked a bit better.

I Got MDC charge number : L1905 (the lates ones) they are very good.

The I2811 are much worse, they produce these problems , the milky
stripy cut. They work ok for loud 12" singles and 7" but i think you
can damage your stylus with them.
But i sent also some older badges or MDC back. They were much worse then
the I2811.
If the jar burns in the tip what can you do ??

greetings

Andreas

[ak23]

Andreas I was having problems with Apollo's styli about a year ago. They'd last roughly 7 to 10 sides then the groove noise would get worse and worse. Old cutters worked fine, but the new ones didn't last. Then about 3 months later I was getting styli that would last longer than normal. I certainly hope these are not going to be recurring problems. Apollo's blank quality seems to have gotten better since last year, at least I'm not finding blanks in a box (dubs or masters) that have pinholes or check marks clearly in the recording area. I've never tried an MDC blank, heard that in the day they were the best you could get. Who's distributing them in the US nowadays?

hi emorit,

i had no problems with apollo this year. I am ordering a lot.
Transco and also Adamant Stylus quality is not constant in my opinion.
But i cut with the worst Stylus about 15-20 sides.
normally between 50-80 sides.
You should report these problems to the supplier !
I don´t know where you can get MDC in the US.
In germany Estemac are distributing them and in the UK = protape.
I used MDC mostly in the past 6 years. Since mid of 2009 i found
the quality very inconstant. Also a lot of other studios i talked too.
But you can say over the last 10 years the quality of MDC was always
perfect. But i guess in the USA the pressing plants are more used to
Apollo & Transco products.

greetings

Andreas

[emorritt]

Yes, Apollo seems to have corrected the issues they were having - I haven't had any bad disks in a long time now. And the last order of styluses worked as they should as well. You had the same results I did - about 15 sides, sometimes less or a few more, before the stylus wore to the point of being useless. I usually expect at least 35 - 45 sides from a stylus on average, below that - especially as low as 15 or 20 - I would expect a replacement. Yes, I did complain to Apollo about the styli, as I think many of the rest of us were as well. Seems to have taken care of the problem. Actually, I never found your comment about Transco cutters to be true; every group (usually 10 at a time) I ordered from them all worked just fine. When Apollo took over making them I think they may have been suffering from "learning curve". Just purchased a couple of Adamants to try out - been a few years since I've used them but I've read other comments by other mastering houses on this board that they use Adamants all the time without issue. So... here goes...

[mossboss]

Hey Andreas
How are you aligning the stylus when you mount them on the head?
Have you the Neumann jig? If so have you checked it's accuracy on the parallellism of the microscospe to the head mounting holder
If this is even slightly out you will have these symptoms
Cheers

hello moss:

I dont see/hear a big difference when adjusting the stylus heat here with
Stripy MDC.
Sometimes it is difficult to remove the lacquers wasteover from the tip
after cutting. I clean also with acetone.
I align the Stylus with The Neumann microscope. Sometimes with my stereo
microscope. But i can see it also with my bare eyes sometimes better.
I have very good eyes.
The neumann microscope is very easy to align. But is is a bad microscope imo.

I did not realised any big differences when adjusting stylus. But some
styli seem to worked a bit better.

I Got MDC charge number : L1905 (the lates ones) they are very good.

The I2811 are much worse, they produce these problems , the milky
stripy cut. They work ok for loud 12" singles and 7" but i think you
can damage your stylus with them.
But i sent also some older badges or MDC back. They were much worse then
the I2811.
If the jar burns in the tip what can you do ??

greetings

Andreas

Ok Andreas
Here is what we do just to make sure that the lacquers which may be inconsistent, (which you never know just looking at them anyway), get a leg up so we can get a result
During a test cut on the outside of the lacquer which we do for every cut we drop the play back arm on
Drop the stylus heat from the previous setting by say 30-40% Inject a tone that you can hear well we do a 2K tone while cutting and listening, increase stylus heat until there is no further improvement on the background noise than take back the pot a little
That ensures the best heat setting for that lacquer
A further improvement can be gained with an infra red lamp on the lacquer during cutting assuming that the lathe is at around the 20-22 Degrees C
We leave the TT turning with the lamp on for around 5 minutes keep it on while cutting
These are standard steps apart from the lamp anyway from days gone past but i have come across people that either they do not do it or they don't know about it
With the whittish stuff on the chip it seems that the heat may be a bit down or the other way to hot
You can eliminate that issue by the above steps It is reasonable insurance as these things are now so costly you can ill afford to waste one
MDC have been doing this for many years and the plant is still run by the same people but the ingredients for the formulations are an ever changing scene so they are at the mercy of the raw material suppliers and we are at theirs
I would have thought that Apollo as well despite as much as they try they have raw material issues as well It is a fairly demanding process with a lot of black art involved as well which only comes after many years on the job
Besides no supplier knowingly will put out a bad product some times it just slips through or it is just on spec with no other choice left to them but to proceed with what they have
Hope this is of some help to you and others
Cheers

[emorritt]

Chris, wouldn't heating the lacquer itself with an infrared lamp increase advance ball scoring? Or do you use an advance ball? I still do...

[Simon]

I use the same method on old ones and heat up to 40

I do not have an advance ball.

[drdub]

we found that using 60w lamps on pvc, and redlight for laquers
makes stylus heating obsolete.
cut more than 4000 sides without stylus heat.

[Simon]

That is what I found with two 30w lamps - no need to heat the stylus

[Third]

At the moment I've got H3811 batch cutting ok, I have the heat at 0.65 throughout the disc a I found that increasing towards the centre wasn't good at all. I had to muck about with the zero depth position on the carriage (vms80) ie the cutting angle of the head.
The prblems with surface noise and appearance of a groove that looked "ploughed" rather than cut was the same on both MDC and Apollo lacquers. I'm thinkng as you, that the styli are more the culprit.
We're ordering more stlyi from a different batch number to see it that helps.
All in all its a pain in the butt, as we've been using MDC and Adamant styli for the las decade with out issue.
I'm cutting with the room at 24 deg at the moment, which gets a little sweaty sometimes....that seems to help a little...
Frequent visits to the basement and the techys to clean the point under a microscope to scrape of the burnt on lacquer. Acetone doesn't seem to be enough sometimes.
Thanks for all the other comments from everybody, It's all very useful indeed. There's so many variables to consider,...but that half the fun isn't it

[emorritt]

Third did you try increasing the cutting angle slightly more forward? I recently tried an Adamant (for Westrex) and didn't notice that it was slightly longer than the Transco; at least this one was - thought there was a 'standard' for this. Without adjusting the cutting angle I was getting the "plowed" look that you mention. Re-adjusted the head position so the cutting angle was slightly more forward and the rough appearance went away. Just a thought. Yes, 'variables' can be fun and other times you pull your hair out...

[Third]

Third did you try increasing the cutting angle slightly more forward? I recently tried an Adamant (for Westrex) and didn't notice that it was slightly longer than the Transco; at least this one was - thought there was a 'standard' for this. Without adjusting the cutting angle I was getting the "plowed" look that you mention. Re-adjusted the head position so the cutting angle was slightly more forward and the rough appearance went away. Just a thought. Yes, 'variables' can be fun and other times you pull your hair out...

I did readjust the angle..I'm not too sure if its a little forward. One of our engineers thinks so, but to my failing eye's the plate looks flush...either way it made the groove look better. Problem is, i'm going to run out of H3811 very soon...and the next batch I have don't behave in the same way.

Whats also interesting is the bottom of the groove with this batch of styli had 2 lines...only after 6hrs. It looks like a stlyus with 20+hrs on it....I wonder if the saphires they're using are cheap or faulty.

I wish the variables would stop varying, as i havn't much hair left

[emorritt]

It was suggested to me to cut with a slight forward tilt; otherwise the groove isn't uniform and in places it looks like the lacquer 'tears' along side the groove into the land, leaving a pit through to the aluminum substrate. Almost like bad adhesion or something else going on. Vertical or near vertical does this horribly with Apollo/Transco lacquers and masters. Adjusting forward, and I'm not sure the exact angle - which I'm sure is different from batch to batch, seems to rectify the problem. Yes, I'd appreciate both Apollo and Adamant getting the stylus game right so their product is consistent. They seem to be doing well with the blanks for the moment.