SH Spotlight How records are made; shows the making of the lacquer, etc. Youtube. New. Must see!

I really enjoyed watching those video clips, Steve.

Record making is a process that is both intensive in terms of labor and machinery and fascinating. It's great that the finished product is so beautiful.

 

Yes, that was funny. I did learn something from watching that video, though. I always assumed that the vinyl "biscuit" was more or less the same diameter and thickness as a pressed 12" record, but it is actually a small, thick bit of molten vinyl the same diameter as a record label. The force of the press flattens it out to the 12" diameter. Weird, wild stuff. I never thought about that.

One side question I've always wondered about: when one is cutting the lacquer on a lathe, how does one create the visible "bands" that separate the songs? Does the lathe operator have to manually widen the groove spacing on the fly, and then narrow it again in time for the next song, or does the lathe somehow automatically do this?

 

OK, I've got a question.
The video shows a completely flat lacquer being cut, plated, etc. But almost every LP and a handful of 45s I have feature a raised edge, and often a raised (thicker) section where the label is. I know the video is simplified and leaves this part out, but how and when are these raised sections done?

-Bud

 

Thanks for sharing.

What impresses me most is that this complicated, involved process got (gets) used on on thousands of tiny, independant releases in low batch runs.

I mean, it is boggling to think that the whole process is completed from start to finish for not only big label releases but also for some of the ultra-low quantity pressings. I have some bootleg 7" colored vinyl singles (pressings of ~500) and it just facinates me that all this trouble, effort, and technique gets put into the process of making an LP that could only hope to sell a few hundred copies.

 

And they make nice souvenirs...after they cool off.

 

What I had also always noticed is the ridge that each record has as its edge. That is where the record is trimmed, which I did not realize until now.

 

That someone invented this whole process approximately a century ago is a testament to the power of the human mind. It's amazing how much fidelity is preserved through all of the steps necessary to record and press a record.

 

Not wanting to get off on a crazy tangent, but I didn't realise that the phonograph and cinema are roughly the same age. Perhaps the phonograph is a more impressive invention, whereas cinema evolved as an innovation that combined still photography with automatic mechanisation to enable the successive exposure of multiple frames. Apparently the mechanisation was based closely on the operation of early machine guns!

Most film scholars suggest that cinema in the broadest sense was innovated around the mid 1890s, with the Lumière brothers'. "Arrival of a Train at a Station (1895)" often called the first real film produced to be distributed theatrically, rather than just shown at fairs, expos and scientific forums.

 

Steve,

Thanks for posting these videos. They took me back a few weeks ago to the HES convention trip to RTI pressing plant, which was absolutely interesting for me. I still cannot believe that this process has remained about the same since 1898!

Jerry F.

 

I've seen to the transition from one band to the next referred to either as "crossover spirals" or "spread grooves" (the latter term from one of the United Recording & Affiliates' 1966 newsletters). I also can see about the tricky situation of timing when mastering; my original Apple copy of Paul McCartney & Wings' "Jet," for example, has the lead-out groove start just as the song is ending. Sure, it does end before reaching the locked groove, but it's thisclose. I've also some copies of records where the song starts before the lead-in groove ends. (The worst example: a lacquer of the original issue of Part 2 of James Brown's "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" on King single #45-5999; the Godfather of Soul's "Hey" at the fade-in just before the sax comes in, is right at the edge of the record!)

 

Thanks, Steve. I had often wondered about that. Sounds like a pretty high-stress process.

 

How did they achieve the banding effect on albums with seamless segues between songs such as Sgt. Pepper?

 

That was very cool! Thank you Steve for posting those links!

 

At the very end of the process of the vinyl being pressed where it drops down to the other records in a giant stack it looks kind of rough. Doesnt that have the possibility of damaging the vinyl?

 

I would've thought everything would be on some kind of battery backup/inverter system just in case of a power outage. If we have one to keep the gambling degerates betting and cashing tickets at the 14 racetracks connected to the "hub" that I work at, I'd think RTI would have one.

 

Heh. I remember that one very well.

 

And while on YouTube, I also chanced to see the 1942 Command Performance film, where I saw a c.1938 Scully lathe in use at the studio where "Blue Danube" was recorded. Having some RCA 78's of the 1940's, I can see that the kind of pitches associated with these particular type Scullys were used - 88, 96, 104 lpi etc. The only thing not on YouTube of interest in that respect was The Sound and the Story about the "Living Stereo" recording of Romeo and Juliet by the Boston Symphony (I presume post-1948 Scullys, with a different layout of buttons and make, were used by then). And unfortunately, my PC isn't equipped with QuickTime.

 

Thanks, Steve!

When you look down the groove with the microscope in the cutting equipment, what depth of field do you get?

How many Xs?

Thanks in advance.