About vinyl manufacturing

 

 

Cutting and processing

 

Vinyl manufacturing begins with cutting. The audio is cut in spiral shape with a diamond stylus to lacquer (the most common way nowadays) or to metal, most commonly copper (DMM i.e. Direct Metal Mastering, not common nowadays, in fact there are less than 10 places where DMM cuts can be made nowadays). Lacquer cuts are soft and can't be used to press any records without processing but DMM cuts are strong enough to press records without processing though only in small amounts. The two main differences of DMM and lacquer cuts are the fewer steps of precessing of DMM cuts compared to lacquer cuts, which results in lower surface noise, and the significantly different sound quality due to frequency modulation that happens in the groove of DMM record at the time of cutting. DMM records usually lack bass frequencies and have plenty of higher frequencies, which has caused some people to call them bright, thin and crispy. 

 

After the lacquer cut has been made it is galvanized. A layer of silver is sprayed on the lacquer cut to make an electricity conductive layer on it and it's then placed in electro-forming bath where a layer of nickel forms on to the silver-coated lacquer cut. When the layer of nickel is thick enough it will be separated from the silver-coated lacquer and the formed negative plate with all the information of the cut stored in negative image is called metal father or sometimes metal lacquer. The silver-plated lacquer cut is destroyed in the process. Now the metal father is placed in an electro-forming bath where a layer of nickel forms on it and when the layer is thick enough it's separeted from the metal father. This newly-grown metal positive is called metal mother and it can be played like a normal vinyl record. The metal father is archived for back up and for future repressings and the metal mother is placed in an electro-forming bath where a layer of nickel forms on it. Again, this layer is separeted from the metal mother but it's now negative image like the metal father and it's called a pressing plate or a stamper. Two stampers have to be made for each record, one for each side of the record, and these stampers are used for pressing a small heated lump of PVC into a vinyl record we consumers may then buy. One set of stampers can produce 500-1500 good quality records before they wear out and have to be discarded, the less records are pressed from one stamper set the better quality the records usually are. For instance, it's said that EMI cared for it's record pressing quality and used to press 500 give or take 15% records out of one stamper set in the 70s and 80s. Especially in the old days the metal father, the metal mother and the stamper numbers could be found on the vinyl runouts but nowadays vinyl are produced in so small amounts compared to the old days that these numbers are not being commonly used. 

 

For DMM cuts the galvanization process is simpler because the DMM cut is hard enough to be used as metal mother. The DMM cut is placed in electro-forming bath where a layer of nickel forms on to it and after separating the nickel layer you have a stamper i.e. two steps in the galvanization process are not needed for DMM records. This is the main reason why DMM records have less and lighter surface noise than lacquer cut records. 

 

History of phonogram records

 

The earlietst disc records (1889-1894) were made of various materials including hard rubber. In 1895 a shellac-based compound was introduced and became a standard in record material. Shellac is a resin secreted by the female lac bug. Shellac record were usually played at 78RPM and they were heavy and fragile, they would break like a glass if you dropped them on the floor. The production of shellac records ended in many developped countries in the late 50s. The first vinyl-based record material was introduced by RCA Victor in 1931 but vinyl didn't come popular record material until after the second world war.

 

Nowadays vinyl records are pressed of PVC, a very durable and chemically VERY stable form of plastic that should not be burned because it contains chlorine and forms hydrochloric acid when burned. 100% pure PVC is white slightly transparent brittle stuff not suitable for vinyl material. Additives, colour pigments and clearing agents are added to 100% pure PVC to make it suitable for vinyl material and to make it look good, sometimes even transparent like a glass. Other materials to replace PVC in record material have been researched but none have been found with even close the same physical and chemical properties and availability as PVC.  

 

Test pressings and acetates

 

Test pressings are the first records made from the pressing plates usually as a sample to the record company to test the sound quality or as a model copies of the finished product (or both). If test pressings are accepted by the plant or the record company retail records are pressed. The number of test pressings can vary widely, usually around 3 copies are made though I've heard as much as 15 copies being made and significantly more test pressings can be made for promotional or selling purposes. Test pressings are most often pressed on black vinyl and they usually have white labels with little or no markings at all but they always carry identical runouts to the retail edition. Some pirate pressings are intentionally being made to look like test pressing but they usually have significantly different runouts than their official counterparts. However, all white label releases are not test pressings because some records are intentionally being released only with white labels, I have been told this is very common in electronic music made for DJ use but I've never yet seen white label rock or metal music records made for retail purposes. There also exists test pressings of picture discs, these have white cardboards in place of the usual pictures.  

 

There may exist even rarer records than test pressings though I've heard only rumuors of them. It's said the VERY first record made of the cut is an acetate record, which is used to test the sound quality of the cut in an early stage of the processing. Usually only one acetate record is made, acetate is not as nearly as durable as PVC so acetate records can only be played around 10 times before their grooves turn to white and they literally fall apart, which makes them EXTREMELY rare collectors items. Many promos and test pressings are erroneously being sold as acetate records on ebay for instance.  

 

Pressing quantities 

 

For a long time the minimum amount of records pressed in the same run was 500 copies though nowadays one pressing can be less than 500 copies or contain 500 copies on various colours but it usually costs more per one record. For instance, in 2010 Nuclear Blast had 500 copies of Sonata Arctica's Reckoning Night pressed by Record Industry 200 of which were on 2LP black vinyl, 200 on 2LP white vinyl and 100 on numbered 2LP gold vinyl (the original pressing by Pallas in 2004 was 1000 numbered copies on single white vinyl). Nowadays it's very common that LPs are released on many different colours in limited amounts and many colours are nowadays originally being sold only in one shop. In some cases black vinyl seems to be becomming a rarity. 

 

 

 

Few notes of vinyl

 

I must emphasize the following notes are strictly my opinions based on my experience with vinyl with my equipment although I can give citation for most of them if needed. You are likely to have some different opinions.

 

Cutting (mastering) has the biggest effect on vinyl sound quality. After that comes pressing quality, vinyl material (PVC) quality and colour all three of which depend strongly on the pressing plant. Of course you need a good quality recording to begin with. 

 

Black vinyl has nearly always the best possible sound quality compared to THEIR coloured OR picture disc COUNTERPARTS and picture discs ALWAYS have the worst possible sound quality though there does exist some very good quality picture discs. IMHO the only example where black vinyl does not have the best sound quality is white vinyl pressing of Imaginaerum from Nightwish. I've played hundreds of clear vinyl records and it seems to me, dispite some people praising the sound quality of clear vinyl just because PVC is "clear stuff" in its natural pure form, clear vinyl is always one of the worst sounding colours. Coloured vinyl tend to have more smoother and not so detailed sound quality than black vinyl while black vinyl always has the deepest (especially on bass frequencies) and most detailed sound quality. 

 

NOTE: it's NOT always possible to compare black vinyl to it's coloured vinyl and picture disc counterparts. In other words, it's common that, for instance, red vinyl from one plant sounds better than blue vinyl from another plant. In order to find out the effect of vinyl colour or picture disc to sound quality you MUST ALWAYS compare records pressed FROM THE EXACTLY SAME CUT. Since many records are not pressed from the same cut in different plants around the world it's easier to compare black vinyl to its coloured or picture disc counterpart pressed in the SAME plant within short period of time. Nowadays it's pretty easy since many records are being released on various colours in limited amounts but it wasn't so in the old days because then they usually made only one or two coloured vinyl pressings in small numbers. 

 

The following vinyl always have more or less worse sound quality than their black or coloured vinyl counterparts:

- tri-coloured split vinyl like the Dark Pasion Play reissue on white/dark blue/grey blue reissue from Nightwish for instance

- bi-coloured half-n-half vinyl like the reissue of Hell Awaits from Slayer for instance

- splatter/speckle vinyl like the De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas RSD reissue from Mayhem for instance

- marbled vinyl 

Like picture discs they are all made for looking, not for playing. 

 

The classical explanation for picture disc having the worst sound quality is due to its composition and manufacturing methods. Basically a picture disc just a sandwich of dummy black (or sometimes coloured) PVC plate, two pictures on cardboard or paper and two very thin layers of clear transparent PVC or PE (polyethylene, another important form of plastic). The two thin clear transparent layers of PVC or PE are very shallow, they have much shallower groves than the tradition black or any other coloured vinyl made of one single piece of PVC, which is why picture discs usually have the worst sound quality of all records. Anyone who knows something of the physical properties of PVC and PE plastics immediately knows why a picture disc with transparent thin layers made of PE sounds a lot worse than any normal vinyl made of PVC. If the two thin transparent layers of picture vinyl are nowadays commonly made of PE instead of PVC then I have no doubt in my mind that's the reason that results in worse sound quality of picture discs. 

 

The classical explanation for coloured vinyl having worse sound quality than black vinyl is that black vinyl has been the standard colour of vinyl manufacturing for decades and therefore black is the colour that has been researched the most. That means there exists additives that enhance the sound quality of black vinyl and black vinyl only. It's commonly said one of these additives is carbon (the black element). Remember that 100% pure PVC (the material vinyl are made of) is not black but white slightly transparent brittle stuff. Another explanation is that black vinyl can withstand and therefore must be pressed using higher pressure than coloured vinyl. In other words, coloured vinyl is said to be softer than black vinyl. However, I've heard there's one exception to this rule: white vinyl which is said to cause the most stress to pressing equipment because white vinyl is the hardest vinyl material. 

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Vinyl worth hunting for

Lets face it, nowadays vinyl always has slightly worse sound quality than its CD counterpart, at least all the vinyl I have listened to and compared to their CD counterparts have, but it was not always so. There still exists many old vinyl pressings that sound better than many or all of their known CD counterparts. 

 

 

If you are looking for something special in vinyl there are few things that IMHO make vinyl something very different from their CD counterparts and therefore something worth hunting for:

 

    * DMM: a method of cutting the master disc in metal instead of lacquer, some people don't like DMM records because of their characteristic harsh and thin sound.

 

    * Records pressed in the Haarlem plant: all the known records from the Haarlem plant seem to be bass rich records even more than their CD counterparts and 

       they are nearly always of excellent pressing quality (I know only one warped record pressed in the Haarlem plant and it's an etched record).

 

    * 45RPM editions: if cut properly they sound much better than their 33RPM counterparts, especially 45RPM DMM records are something VERY special but also VERY rare.

 

    * RL cuttings: many cuttings from Ludwig are legendary and highly sought after among audiophiles, Led Zeppelins II probably being the best known example.

 

 

Here are few examples of records I think everyone interested in vinyl should hear at least once:

 

    * AC/DC - Back in Black LP, US pressing cut by Ludwig, MASTERDISK RL on the runouts,

       Probably the best known AND the most readily available of the legendary RL cuts. 

 

    * Guns N' Roses - Use Your Illusion I or II 2LP, Sterling Sound DMM cut and Sonopress pressed European LPs.

       One of the best quality 33RPM DMM records I have ever played.

 

    * Iron Maiden - Piece of Mind LP, UK pressing with gatefold cover and Utopia harp logo on the runouts.

       The Fame reissue sounds better to my ears than the original edition (EMA 800, no barcode).

 

    * Led Zeppelin - II LP, first US pressing(s) cut by RL

       Oh yes, this is THE legendary cut from Ludwig, raraly seen in true VG+ or better condition and extremely highly priced every time it pops up for sale but the sound quality

       is worth every penny, especially for collectors and music lovers. 

 

    * Metallica - Kill 'Em All 45RPM 2LP, the TownHouse DMM cut MPO pressed edition on Music for Nations label from the 80s (there are at least two pressings with slightly

       different center labels), not the 2008 reissue which has nothing to brag about compared to its older counterpart.

       Based on the MPO quality I'm familiar with finding a perfectly flat copy may take a long while.

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