Warehouse finds don't only happen in our hobby....

[level42]

...but also in other fields.

Today, vinyl record pressing plants can't keep up with demand.

Sadly they have to rely on old presses for production. Here is a story where they find a lot of those old presses which will be going back into production again soon.


http://www.analogplanet.com/content/garage-sale-find-has-qrp-adding-13-additional-record-presses

It does make me wonder.....wouldn't there be demand for new presses and other machines needed for vinyl record production ?
Wouldn't it be possible to build even better one's today (better production tolerances, materials etc.) ?

[Etienne MacGyver]

Perhaps, but if existing machines work fine, they dont need to invest is my guess

they have trouble with the demand, but is that demand justifying the investment, that is the question i think.

[joeks]

Reminds me of an old topic I've read recently about bad quality vinyl these days.

I have the latest Racoon album on vinyl and it skips grooves a lot.
Never needed to adjust my Pro-jekt record-player before, but now I think I should raise needle weight a little bit to keep in in the groove better.

Some people think it's because of the quality of vinyl records these days.
They use the old machines from the 70's to press them.

On the other hand, with new pressing machines people will probably complain that it isn't authentic enough.

[level42]

Mmmm, if I were you I would retuen the album and complain.

Racoon is a Dutch band so I'm pretty sure it was pressed at the former CBS/Sony plant in Haarlem. I've heard complaints about them before (Caro Emerald album).

You pay quite a lot of money and so the vinyl should be perfect.

I have never had to change the weight on my Pro-Ject it's 1.8 gr. IIRC, factory recommended setting and haven't encountered what you have.

I think it varies a lot. I recently bought a re-issue of a Level 42 album which was remastered at half speed and directly for the original analogue studio tapes and pressed an 180 gr. vinyl (new only).
It's sounds absolutely fantastic and I actually discovered new things in the music that I hadn't heard before !

This record was mastered and produced in the UK and by Universal (to which the Polydor material of L42 still belongs).

It really depends on the mastering process and the pressing. I think the pressing machines themselves don't play a very big roll, that is, as long as the amount of pressure is good and even everything is fine. However if the molds (matrijzen in Dutch IIRC) are of poor quality, or used for too many records you could get these issues. All in all its quite a complicated  (but fascinating !!) process from the source to the final record and lots of things can go wrong.

http://youtu.be/ZbTPKCtdhSA



One of the issues I believe the Haarlem factory has (or had ?) is that when Sony wanted to shut it down, some employees took it over and produced mainly dance/house vinyl which made the company survive through the 90s and 00's. However, mastering quality often meant " as fucking loud as we can get it into the groove" was usually the only "quality" they cared about...I don't know if they changed that now.

The company is now called Record Industry by the way, when I just started working it was still owned by Sony and it was a customer of the company I worked for so Ive been there a coupl of times

I must say that must new vinyl sounds very very good. I have various really new albums like Daft Punk and also reissues from f.i. Michael Jackson but I often find these better sounding than older original pressings.
I think most of the time there is now more focus on quality because that is the market.

The only records I have from Haarlem are 7" Singels from Caro Emerals but those are in my Jukebox so quality is not that I portsnt there.....

[Franzy21]

I heard that it is more or less the same with MPO in France.
They are undersized for the production they are supposed to make.
I heard the quality of the vinyls was not so good.