Cut Lacquers Vinyl

Once the music has been mastered the lacquer cutting can begin.

Cut lacquers vinyl.

This is the first and most delicate step in the record making process. Vinyl mastering and lacquer disc cutting vinyl mastering consists of optimizing the final mastered song for the unique characteristics of the vinyl format which include low and high frequency treatment level adjustment groove spacing optimization and if necessary low end summing to eliminate undesirable phasing that can occur from stereo effects in the bass frequencies on vinyl. Theoretically both sides of a lacquer could be used for cutting. This analogue mastering technique is widely accepted and used thanks to bigger number of lacquer cutting lathes available and the tradition of lacquer mastering through the years.

If the cutting engineer is not the dude at the plant who just pounded three beers on his friday lunch break but rather a sober and experienced cutting engineer working in a sterile environment on a well maintained lathe there is hope of a properly cut lacquer. An acetate disc is a type of gramophone record widely used from the 1930s to the late 1950s for recording and broadcast purposes and still in limited use today. These discs are the original copies of your music. This is crucial for the vinyl s final quality since the lacquer errors amplify themselves during the process of galvanization of stampers for pvc moulding.

I think this is going off on a dangerous tangent if left unchecked. Since dmm was developed during the time period when vinyl was being overtaken by cassette tapes and ultimately compact discs as the dominant consumer music formats use and r d work was not extensively implemented in the. Lacquer technology cutting into lacquers is an older method of mastering for vinyl records but still has many supporters and fans. This is a technology developed in the mid 1980 s for cutting masters for record manufacturing.

Although not comparable in scale frank remembers the dubplate scene as offering creative precedent for the current situation. However the manufacturer guarantees a flawless surface for only one side of the lacquer. This stage involves audio engineers using a lathe machine and a very sharp gemstone to carve your music onto a flat lacquer coated metal disc. Direct metal mastering dmm.

See also lacquers and lathe. Transferring your digital vinyl pre master to a lacquer is an extremely crucial process and has a major influence on how your vinyl will sound. The cutting engineer plays the stereo tracks and uses a lathe to cut grooves into a blank lacquer disc. Lacquers are often cut by those who have made the vinyl master and all that is on the release is the mastering engineer s handle initial.

Unlike ordinary vinyl records which are quickly formed from lumps of plastic by a mass production molding process an acetate disc is created by using a recording lathe to cut an audio signal modulated groove into the surface of a special lacquer coated blank disc a real time. Acetate discs are used for the production of vinyl records. Sending your audio straight to a vinyl pressing plant and letting them handle the lacquer cutting is essentially the equivalent of that.