direct to disc

in honor of record store day, one of the local audio businesses which repairs and maintains cutting lathe's did direct to disc recording over at their shop.

It was quite interesting. these guys also repaired, refurbished the lathe and cutter used on the American epic  PBS series.

talk about about going to school.

The chain, a couple of ampex 350's as mic pres, feeding minimal eq  into a mixer with the output into a varimu  out to scully stereo lathe.  boy did it sound good.

artists performing live  cut directly to vinyl
https://the.supersense.com/

Paging Bluebird...

Was that at Len Horowitz place?

Lol,

I was telling Ruairi about a recent project I did. It wasn't "live" to the lathe, but direct from 2" tape.

Studer A827 ---> Neve VR ----> Tie lines ---> my lathe room ----> tube EQ (filters)-----Tube Varimu ------> Lathe.

We did 2 songs on a 12" at 45 rpm. There was no preview. Cant see into the future I have to admit it was fun. I was on the phone to the mix room. I'd drop the cutter and tell em over the phone. "Press Play!"

What I learned:

Cutting at 45 RPM with a wider than normal groove, allowed a louder cut without distorted Esses or skips even though I wasn't using a low end crossover.

All you bands out there, do singles on 12" instead of 7" !!!

Gold said:

Was that at Len Horowitz place?

Click to expand...

yes sir.

> do singles on 12" instead of 7" !!!

Not new.

Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons ‎– Oh What A Night, Ben Liebrand Re-Mix 1988, Format: Vinyl, 12", Released: 1988
A1 December 1963 (oh What A Night) Ben Liebrand Extended Remix 6:14
B1 December 1963 (Instrumental) 3:41
B2 December 1963 (Ben Liebrand Remix 3:29

Clips my phono preamp.

Gold said:

Was that at Len Horowitz place?

Click to expand...

Lens a trip, he used to repair our lathe and I learned a lot from him... Maybe more than he wanted. Regardless, I'm sure he has his hands full these days.

PRR said:

Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons ‎– Oh What A Night, Ben Liebrand Re-Mix 1988, Format: Vinyl, 12", Released: 1988
A1 December 1963 (oh What A Night) Ben Liebrand Extended Remix 6:14
B1 December 1963 (Instrumental) 3:41
B2 December 1963 (Ben Liebrand Remix 3:29

Clips my phono preamp.

Click to expand...

Yea thats the whole thing with cutting. You never know who/what equipment is playing your cuts. You can't cut for the lowest common denominator, or else all your cuts will be noisy and have weak bass. And you can't make super loud cuts either or most peoples systems will distort or "splat" any serious high end. So you got to keep it in a pocket. I have two different players I check stuff on. One with a mid level Shure cartridge and one with a Ortofon blue. The Ortofon really plays as true as it gets, and it has like 4dB more gain than most cartridges.  I'll A/B the digital file I just cut on an acetate playing on the Ortofon, and its really hard to tell the difference. Blows my mind every time I do it. If I do a cutting  demo, I make sure and bump the record player up a dB so everyone goes "Wow its sounds so warm and big". I'm afraid someone might say "whats the difference?" if I don't bump it a little

That Neumann SX74 cutting head is really magic. I mean the whole thing is magic, your scratching music into nail polish. mid/side, Then a needle gets dragged across the crevice magnetically decoding the vibrations to stereo, then crazy EQ and amplification....and it sounds almost identical to a digital file. Unbelievable.


P.S. for all those who have never heard an acetate played, it is a lot quieter than a vinyl. No pops and clicks. It is what the negative mold is made from that goes into the vinyl stamper machine.


P.P.S and people say they can hear the difference between sample rates. Hahahahahahaha.

pucho812 said:

yes sir.

Click to expand...

I’d like to check out some of the Westrex film sound equipment. I know nothing about that stuff.

bluebird said:

It is what the negative mold is made from that goes into the vinyl stamper machine

Click to expand...

I thought the metal mold was a positive?

pucho812 said:

I thought the metal mold was a positive?

Click to expand...

The first plate that is pulled of a lacquer is a negative. The grooves go up. That's  the "father". The father is plated to create the "mother" which is a positive. The grooves go down and it can be played with a normal cartridge. The "mother " is plated to make "stampers". The stampers go in the press and are a negative, the grooves go up, so they make in impression in the PVC record.

PRR said:

> do singles on 12" instead of 7" !!!

Not new.

Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons ‎– Oh What A Night, Ben Liebrand Re-Mix 1988, Format: Vinyl, 12", Released: 1988
A1 December 1963 (oh What A Night) Ben Liebrand Extended Remix 6:14
B1 December 1963 (Instrumental) 3:41
B2 December 1963 (Ben Liebrand Remix 3:29

Clips my phono preamp.

Click to expand...

Was it a valid clip (clipping the output after RIAA playback EQ) or clipping the input?

It has been decades since I messed with this but IIRC the nominal input voltage design target was something like 150mV which at 1kHz and 40dB gain would be just clipping the output.  Of course at 20 Hz 10-15 mV would clip the output....

My last preamp to end all preamps would accept around 2V peak-to-peak square wave at 20kHz in the input and even more above 20kHz since there was a 75uSec real pole at the output of that first open loop gain stage (JFET), but I never tested to see how much more because that was not going to ever happen in real life (the square waves never happen either).

At LF it won't take many mV to overload the nominal 60dB gain. 

JR

PS: I won't speak bad about "mothers" but I have some old one-off lacquers that my father (a recording engineer for RCA) cut back in the 50's.  That was what they did for personal recordings back in the day.

Pucho, you should see if you can get Len to show you how to cut. I think you would really enjoy doing it. You have an edge over the average "Joe" being you know electronics

AND if you ever did get into it, you have me and Paul here to help you along!

Gold said:

The first plate that is pulled of a lacquer is a negative. The grooves go up. That's  the "father". The father is plated to create the "mother" which is a positive. The grooves go down and it can be played with a normal cartridge. The "mother " is plated to make "stampers". The stampers go in the press and are a negative, the grooves go up, so they make in impression in the PVC record.

Click to expand...

Ah yes, I thought with the groove sticking out so that you press the vinyl, it was called a positive.  I'll have to refresh my memory  from the  movie I saw with mel blanc on how records are made.
And here it is,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxkSRvkKF9k

bluebird said:

Pucho, you should see if you can get Len to show you how to cut. I think you would really enjoy doing it. You have an edge over the average "Joe" being you know electronics

AND if you ever did get into it, you have me and Paul here to help you along!

Click to expand...

Sir you and I need to grab lunch so you can show me around all the cool stuff.