How Vinyl Records Are Made

I've posted before on how records are made but this is a nice modern production line. This baffling revival of vinyl has led to the re-activation and even new construction of record production facilities in America. So far this year total record sales are down almost 9% but sales of LPs, those 12-inch vinyl discs are up 33%. that meteoric rise is just s capstone on the 250% increase since 2002.

Amazing no?  I still believe that it's the last gasp of a doomed format. But in the mean time I will enjoy picking up high-quality re-pressings of Jazz sides I'd never otherwise own in mint condition. Thank you sentimental hipsters. As Claire Suddath quipped..."These people probably also eat kale."

PART 1

PART 2

3D Printed Vinyl Pop Up Store

Digital Music News broke this story but I can't help repeating it. I suppose anything you can hold in your hands is actually 3D. Two dimensional space has produced so few notable recordings. The idea here is that 3D printing technology now allows "instant" limited printings of recordings. Fidelity and durability are limited, but the potential uniqueness still has some value.  Take a look:

The LP RPM Paradox

Th LP rpm paradox is one that  Patrick Hughes and George Brecht never tread upon
as Bill Watterson bravely once did:

The Calvin and Hobbs comic above deftly summarizes the situation. If any two points on a LP are rotating at the same speed, say 33rpm, how can they rotate different distances?  The distance around the outer edge is 37.68 inches, (12" diameter x pi) the last groove might only be six inches around ... How is this possible?

The fundamental confusion here is that speed is not the speed you are thinking of. It's a confusion between linear speed and angular speed. To be fair, the relation between linear speed and angular speed is less than intuitive.

In physics, angular frequency (aka angular speed) is a scalar measure of rotation rate. Every point on the record has the same angular frequency. Linear speed = the radius x angular speed. So the angular speed can be constant (33 rpm) while the linear speed is different at each point along the groove. So it's not that the common understanding of rotational speed is wrong, just that it's incomplete. More here.

In reality, linear speed still matters.  Hypothetical audio quality decreases over the length of the record because the distance around the inside of a 12-inch record is less than half the distance than around the perimeter. As the distance around each revolution decreases, the high frequencies become harder for a playback stylus to read. Most audio engineers will tell you flatly that those frequencies simply can't be reproduced on inner grooves as outer grooves. This is because the shorter rotations are equivalent to a reduced sample rate. Audiophiles often wont put more than 16 to 18 minutes per side. More here and here.

Hate/Love for Clever Marketing

Noticing that the young and hip today aren't too keen on CD-R promos this German record label, Kantor came up with a vinyl record, and QR code triggered smart-phone app that mimics playing the record. Some of the press around this claims that the smartphone plays the record but that's just not true. Nonetheless it remains highly clever.

The music is crap Eurodisco of no redeeming artistic value, but the gimmick worked. They shipped 900 and over 70% of the QR codes were activated. If you have been on either end of a radio servicing you know that number is amazing.

Howard H. Scott - RIP

A moment of silence please. Another anonymous man who changed our lives has died. Were it not for WWII Scott probably would have been a career musician. Scott studied at the Eastman School of Music in 1941 and was drafted shortly after starting graduate piano studies at Juilliard. He shipped home in  July of 1946 and was hired by Columbia as a trainee at Columbia Masterworks. He was lucky enough to end up working on their secret LP project under Peter Carl Goldmark along side William Bachman and other heavyweights. It culminated in the debut of the microgroove long play record introduced by Columbia Records in 1948.

In 1930 RCA Victor introduced a long-play record... the lacquer transcription disc. These were 12 inches in diameter, and revolved at 33.3 RPM with narrow tightly spaced grooves. In 1931 they started making them with a plastic called Victrolac which was actually PVC plastic contrary to what some texts claim. Plasticized PVC (vinyl) wasn't invented until 1926, but polystyrene dates back to 1839. These discs were of the much newer PVC. So how did Scott  re-invent the vinyl platter disc 20 years later? What they did was make it better. More here.

Consumer record players of that era couldn't play them. PVC is too soft for phonograph play with a standard steel needle. Even those high end electric players that did spins at 22.3 rpm, didn't do so at an adequately constant speed causing very notable pitch variations. In short, sales sucked and RCA gave up in 1934. Columbia picked up the baton.  By December 1939, Columbia was using 16-inch, 33.3 RPM transcription disc masters for all it's master recordings. They had stretched the disc to hold 15 minutes per side. It doesn't sound like much, but remember an Edison cylinder held just over a minute, and 78s just around 3 minutes. This was four times as long! By 1947 they had squeezed out 22 minutes per side. In 1948, with the variable groove they broke the 30 minute barrier.

Howard H. Scott was only 26 years old at the time and not as technical as the rest of the staff but he was the crucial man in the dubbing process. These first long-play records were spliced together from old 78 rpm and shorter 33.3 rpm masters. This required playing overlapping recordings and toggling the input from turntable to turntable. Scott cued the start and snapped his fingers conducting the technicians manual adjustments. His music education and background made him the ideal man. He went on to be a staff producer at Columbia and later an executive manager at MGM. In the 1990s he worked at Sony overseeing CD transfers. He died on Sept. 22, he was 92. More here.

Format Wars: Vertical Vs. Lateral Cut

Much of the history of media is the history of format wars. Some are hugely public and involve consumers like 8-Track Vs. cassette or VHS vs. Betamax. Some are completely hidden from the consumer such as the various formats that were considered for AM stereo: C-QUAM, CAM-D, PMX, V-PCM, and others. In broadcasting because we share a public trust we have to commit to the same system ultimately. In physical media they can fight like dogs for years seeking a clear-cut victor. today I'd like to revisit a format battle from 1905.

The first retail  recorded media was the Edison cylinder.It debuted in 1888 and dominated completely until about 1915 when 78 rpm discs began to gain market share. Today they still make records. They're made with PVC instead of shellac, but they're easily recognized and the technology is largely the same. But early in their history, there was a variant that died out. It was an incompatible format just as contrary as Apple and Windows.

 
Modern record grooves are horizontally cut. Emile Berliner invented horizontal grooves. The grooves literally wiggle back and forth laterally. If you've ever seen an electron microscope image of a record groove you have seen this. Up close, say 1000x it looks like a mountain valley.[images here] Pathé had vertical cut grooves. they were not alone in the vertical cut, Edison Diamond discs also used vertical cut grooves. The "hill and dale" process as it was called cut a deeper or shallower groove responded to the vibrations from acoustic energy. It was invented by Edison and can of course also be found on cylinders. More here.

The lateral cut 78s were played with a steel needle. These were cheap to make, cheap to buy and universal in all discs descended from the Berliner design with lateral-cut grooves. Edison Diamond Discs required a diamond stylus. The discs are a quarter inch thick, and the early discs are made with a celluloid base coated in condensite. The later discs have a core of pressed particle board coated in condensite. As an added minus Edison has really bland taste in music which he applied to his eponymous catalog. More here.

Pathé Records were even more proprietary their vertically cut records required a sapphire ball stylus. The needle didn't come to a point, it was literally round on the bottom edge. Because of this, they weren't even compatible with the Edison records. Before 1915, their records were also center start, (as opposed to outer edge) another dissimilarity that was unfriendly to the market. [More here] Then there was the size problem. Pathé made discs anywhere in diameter from 8.5 inches in diameter up to 20 inches in diameter! On most other machines, the spindle wasn't 20 inches from the base of the tone arm. Not only couldn't consumers use the standard needles, they couldn't always use their existing phonographs.  Other phonograph makers began making adapters for their tone arms so their customers could play both types of discs. This is like the modern DVD/Blue-Ray players. A smart manufacturer does not have to take sides.

But Pathé did have to take sides. Pathé gave up on vertical cut records in 1925, and released a new line or records Pathe Actuelle. Those could be played with the more-common steel needles. Edison held on stubborn as you'd expect. He didn't make any lateral cut discs until 1927, finally conceding defeat.

Polystyrene is your friend

Polystyrene is a hard, relatively inflexible plastic. It's rigid, and brittle and should never ever have been used to make records. But it was. Polystyrene was used to make both 45s and LPs into the 1970s. Not all records were made with polystyrene, most were made with vinyl.You can see the difference without knowing your plastics. The polystyrene records had glued down labels, and vinyl labels were pressed directly into the hot vinyl. You can also flick it with your finger. Vinyl makes sort of a dull noise, polystyrene makes more of a high pitched thwack.

Polystyrene was injection molded a process that is slightly difference from "pressing." Polystyrene beads are heated into a liquid form and is then  injected into a closed set of stampers in a press. Because there are no labels inside the stampers they need glued on after. But polystyrene records wear quickly and are very susceptible to cue burn. If you've ever bought one used you know what I'm talking about. They generally sound like crap. I have a couple on Mala Records I cant' bear to part with despite the noisiness.Tim Neely at Goldmine focused on the positive:

"Styrene records get a bad rap because they don’t tend to stand up to abuse as well as vinyl discs. That said, in near-mint condition, there is no audible difference between a vinyl and a styrene 45."

The material can be air-injected to make styrofoam, or made into food-wrap, or dozens of other more appropriate items. But when making records there is only one advantage. It's cheaper. There are two reasons it's cheaper:

• The stampers last longer because they're not directly heated. Metal fatigue slowly destroys stampers in vinyl.   
• The material can also be re-liquefied and reused .

The equipment for polystyrene and vinyl wasn't interchangeable. Polystyrene needs to be molded at much higher temperatures than vinyl for pressing. It's so much higher that they actually shrink while cooling. This is what causes that odd "orange rind" surface appearance. I have read that the Columbia Records pressing plant in Pittman, NJ was once a major producer of injection molded polystyrene pressings. I think that was the plant that made those dark-red polystyrene 45s from the mid 1970s. It is interesting to note that before the 70s all polystyrene records were black. I don't' know the significance of the color change.If you go looking for it let me warn you that it's subtle, you'll have to hold them up to a light to see it.

As you know, some funk and soul recordings were never re-released so the only pressings out there are the original polystyrene beasts. So when you see these rare discs up for auction or elsewhere consider that when you see the price. The condition will usually be pretty bad. These get more fragile with time, they break easily while cleaning, and the damn labels fall off.  If you have some of these I can make two recommendations:

• Make a digital copy now and play that rip, not the record.  
• If you insist on playing the record, use the lightest tracking weight possible, because the wear is only going to get worse.