Fire at lacquer plant threatens vinyl record production

[GrimJosef]

It's not all great. I've sent recent discs back with excessive surface noise and I've also seen what looks like some kind of oily contamination. There have been stories of substances being used to improve the vinyl's detachment from the press dies. But the price does seem to mean that sellers are more prepared to take anything defective back.

Cheers,

GJ

[qualityten]

Good to see that some of us are still buying and listening to vinyl as well as helping members to get their old record players going. I acquired a few thousand LPs back in the noughties when I couldn't afford CDs at £15 each. Today, I don't buy new LPs at £15-20 either, though I have received some as gifts. They are okay, but don't have the vibrant rich quality of 60s pressings.

[jamesperrett]

Originally Posted by Nuvistor

The local HMV shop have quite a lot of records, I have not looked closely but seem to be releases of 70/80’s material, perhaps I didn’t look close enough and there are later ones.

There are plenty of new vinyl releases but many of them are fairly small scale and will probably only be available in the independent record stores rather than chains like HMV.

[Arthur2075]

Just a totally irrelevant thought. I can still purchase new phonograph cylinders from Vulcan Cylinder Record Company. No problem getting my Edison 4 min reproducer re tipped.
Funny thing progress - who remembers the Microsoft Zune MP3 player.

I’m sure vinyl will be safe.

[joebog1]

I must agree with GJ on quality of new LP's. A friend who collects LP's buys a couple every week. Some of the quality is attrocious!! in fact to me they sound like very badly ripped MP3's.

I have been given a few new LP's as gifts and they have been excellent. Leonard Cohen " You want it darker" LP is superb in noise and recording quality, actual lyric content may not be for all however.

George Harrisons "All things must pass" reissue claims to be from the original master tapes and masters is also superb. Still in the same boxed set as the original.

Joe

[bikerhifinut]

And I thought I was the only Leonard Cohen fan in the village! Yep all the new Cohen LPs I have had of late have been very good pressings.
it does seem to be a gamble sometimes and it isn't the cheaper pressings on lighter weight vinyl that are the worst culprits, I'm finding a proportion of the "heavyweight 180gm" issues to have warping, and dishing sometimes so bad they are nigh on unplayable. It hardly seems to happen with the lighter 125 gm pressings and I often wonder if its a sales point rather than a pressing quality thing? Some of my favourite LPs are quite floppy lightweight things and they play faultlessly and sound just as good as an LP can.

A.

[dave walsh]

No you are not the only Leonard enthusiast BN. Speaking of high quality reproduction, I once saw him at the Apollo in Manchester with minimal support ie the usual extraordinary female trio, what looked like a Casio Organ and just a great PA. Mostly it replicated and was indistinguishable from the quality of the Vinyl LP release at that time "New Skin For The Old Ceremony". It's a cliche but you could indeed have heard a pin drop on occasion. It felt like being in a Cathedral. The Box Set DVD/CD of his performance at the 1970 Isle of White Festival is extraordinary [if you can find one these days]. They wake him at 2-30am to try and calm the rioting that's going on....and he does totally relaxed I'll check out "You Want It Darker".

I do still buy some vinyl but I'm not as exacting re quality as many collectors. I've said before that the Concert For Bangladesh [Harrison Sponsored] marked a watershed for me in the decline of vinyl at that time. The discs were floppy and the sound muddy. The box said 40 Microphones were in use but I wondered how many were turned on? 180 gms does seem superior generally but not always as you say. The sixties pressing were pretty consistent [especially mono] and didn't tend to dish unless left in the car on a sunny day [never my experience]. I do tend to get the heavier pressings for my son but I think you need to be into a heavy duty Hi Fi, perhaps louder world than suits me-even though I've some Quad Kit. As a Dylan enthusiast, I've looked recently at the "Blood On The Tracks" edition that's emerged, ie over 4 sides on two carefully remastered Discs at 45 rpm-available for a considerable price. For me, it's "Content-not Process".... rather than the other way around.

Dave W

[joebog1]

Be careful of the "Digitally Remastered" records Dave!!! I have a Nick Drake boxed LP
"Bryter Layter" that is digitally remastered. It sounds like it was played on a six transistor radio, then recorded using a crystal earpiece run backwards that was positioned 8 feet away from the aforementioned 1 1/2" speaker. THAT was a major $150 mistake for me.

My old scratchy version is the one that I still play.

Joe

[dave walsh]

Good [and realistic] advice there Joe! His sister Gabrielle was a
very good actress. I saw at the Royal Exchange in Manchester years ago!

Dave W

[bikerhifinut]

Originally Posted by joebog1

Be careful of the "Digitally Remastered" records Dave!!! I have a Nick Drake boxed LP
"Bryter Layter" that is digitally remastered. It sounds like it was played on a six transistor radio, then recorded using a crystal earpiece run backwards that was positioned 8 feet away from the aforementioned 1 1/2" speaker. THAT was a major $150 mistake for me.

My old scratchy version is the one that I still play.

Joe

I bought the 3 LP boxed set a long while back Joe, I'll dig out the sleeve notes book that came with it as it described the issues experienced in remastering. For certain at least one of the LPs had to be made from an early CD reissue as they'd mislaid the original tapes or they'd been destroyed. I have to say if I'd known that I would have saved myself a shedload of money and bought the CD set. I'm sure the notes did mention they'd had a lot of difficulty getting any kind of result from the quality of the remaining material.

A.

[paulsherwin]

Almost no modern reissues will have ultimately come from analogue sources. When the record companies noticed the emerging sticky shed problems in the late 90s they had their archived tapes baked and digitized at 96kHz (sometimes 192kHz) before they deteriorated further. 20 years later there are unlikely to be any playable analogue studio masters left.

Anything described as 'digitally remastered' has been digitized at some stage.

A vinyl reissue from a commercial 44.1kHz CD would be very much a last resort though. There have also been reissues from original vinyl pressings or even cassettes hooked up to the mixing desk, but that really is getting desperate even with professional kit.

[Nuvistor]

On the topic of remastering I have Naxos CD of a remastered version of Elgar Violin concerto, violinist Albert Sammons. This is a 1929 recording, and first electrical recording of the piece. It was transferred from Laminated English Columbia pressings by Mark Obert-Thorn.

Really good transfer with very little surface noise, CD released 2002. Pleasure to listen to.

[Ted Kendall]

Originally Posted by paulsherwin

Almost no modern reissues will have ultimately come from analogue sources. When the record companies noticed the emerging sticky shed problems in the late 90s they had their archived tapes baked and digitized at 96kHz (sometimes 192kHz) before they deteriorated further. 20 years later there are unlikely to be any playable analogue studio masters left.

Anything described as 'digitally remastered' has been digitized at some stage.

A vinyl reissue from a commercial 44.1kHz CD would be very much a last resort though. There have also been reissues from original vinyl pressings or even cassettes hooked up to the mixing desk, but that really is getting desperate even with professional kit.

Sticky shed only affects some tapes from about 1970 onwards, when whale oil was replaced by polyurethane in tape binders. To be sure, pre-1970 tapes need care in playing and have other problems, but there is no overriding mechanism making them unplayable. Careless storage and deliberate destruction are other issues, of course. True, most vinyl is cut from digital files, but EMI, now owned by Warner, retain their analogue masters. Indeed, the vastly expensive Electric Gramophone Company facsmilies are cut from the original tapes on period kit.

Abbey Road, it seems, are happy enough to cut lacquer from 44.1kHz files - some recent Beatles editions were mastered thus - if only because it keeps ultrasonics out of expensive cutter heads. Most of the poor reputation of CD releases is down to mastering decisions taken long before the signal reaches the A-D convertor.

[bikerhifinut]

Quite so Ted.
And theres also the thorny issue of early A to D converters not being quite up to the job, this was also part of the problem. And possibly the reason why a lot of first generation CD releases got a bad reputation. Along with your mention of the rest of the process. There's still a form of EQ applied to "Red book" CD and I did read that a proportion of the recording engineers didn't bother or understand the reasoning etc behind it. There will be correspondents on here that could explain it better and in laymans terms that I could understand.
As to the High resolution copies made from original analogue masters, I'm very happy to purchase a modern pressing made from a carefully copied 96 or 192khz at a high bitrate from the analogue original on my understanding that at those sample rates nothing at all is missed from the original tapes and thus we have as perfect a copy as can be made and one that won't deteriorate in the future.
I have no personal need for anything "better" than CD quality in the domestic system though, I have tried "hi res" files played through a very capable DAC and I find a well produced CD to be as good as it gets, all else being equal.
And right now Cd's are beer money purchases so it's a win win for me.
I still enjoy LP though, its the old romantic in me I guess!

A.

[jamesperrett]

Originally Posted by paulsherwin

Almost no modern reissues will have ultimately come from analogue sources. When the record companies noticed the emerging sticky shed problems in the late 90s they had their archived tapes baked and digitized at 96kHz (sometimes 192kHz) before they deteriorated further. 20 years later there are unlikely to be any playable analogue studio masters left.

I know for a fact that many recent re-issues come from analogue sources because I've done the transfers for some of them. Yes, it may take a bit longer to bake the tapes than it used to but once baked they usually play perfectly. There are also plenty of masters that are still playable without baking as only certain types of tape suffered from sticky shed syndrome.

[jamesperrett]

Originally Posted by bikerhifinut

There's still a form of EQ applied to "Red book" CD and I did read that a proportion of the recording engineers didn't bother or understand the reasoning etc behind it.

Nowadays CD's are normally mastered flat but in the early days some were mastered with a 15/50uS pre-emphasis curve which had to be matched by a de-emphasis curve in the player. Other early digital formats like DAT also had this option which, as I understand it, was intended to reduce any unwanted artefacts from early D/A convertors. I don't think any CD's use this pre-emphasis these days.

[dave walsh]

I don't want to go OT here but given the references to EMI/Beatles by Ted [at p33*] and the great prevalence of expert knowledge emerging from himself and Joe/Paul/James/Nuvistor etc, re transfer techniques from analogue that I'm not very knowledgeable about, I wonder if there's any further comment re the original tape recording process-especially as related in the excellent book by the late Geoff Emerick "Here There and Everywhere"-in terms of getting the maximum dynamics and reproduction from the original source? He's very detailed about the Studio process at the time! Is that as accurate as it seems?
I didn't know about Geoff's book until relatively recently and find it fascinating. I tend to bundle it with the Hunter Davies [2014] volume "The Beatles Lyrics" and give them both to friends/enthusiasts.

Dave W

[PsychMan]

Does anyone honestly care whether the source material for a vinyl pressing is digital? All studios now will be digital, and if its a high fidelity digital source and is mastered properly for vinyl then what's the problem?

As I understand it, the problem now is either poor mastering or no mastering at all for vinyl. When vinyl became defunct we probably lost a lot of expertise there, not to mention the fact albums make no money compared to what they used to. The same has happened with producers and studio engineers, take the money away and labels cant afford to hire someone in a dedicated specialist role any more - not like they did anyway.

I think many of the artists I buy new vinyl from are probably more discerning about their releases, as most stuff I have bought sounds fine. My biggest gripe is with off centre pressings, which are everywhere. Ive returned such records before, only to receive one with an identical fault... But, with a drill or Dremel, and some strong tape, that is at least correctable!

[Martin Bush]

Just as an aside to this, a fire also wiped out a load of master tapes a few years ago, although the story only came out last year.

https://www.spin.com/2019/06/univers...cordings-lost/

So I wonder what sources any future pressings from these artists would come from.

Perhaps a bit OT, but interesting I think.

[jamesperrett]

Originally Posted by PsychMan

Does anyone honestly care whether the source material for a vinyl pressing is digital? All studios now will be digital, and if its a high fidelity digital source and is mastered properly for vinyl then what's the problem?

I can still do all analogue recording here although I've only done one such project in the last 15 years. There are other studios that can also do all analogue recordings and still a certain level of demand for it. However, apart from that one project that I recorded a couple of years ago, just about all the vinyl masters that I create are sent to the cutting engineer as digital files and no-one buying the records seems to have an issue with that.