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Ash , Tuesday, 10th of August 2010 02:01:56 PM

Read the following article:

June 26, 2008 10:11 AM PDT

Ash

/>Making vinyl records the old-fashioned way
Posted by Daniel 

Registered User

Terdiman 4 comments

At United Record Pressing in Nashville, 

Joined: Thursday, 3rd of June 2010, 06:51:02

Tenn., LPs are still made the old-fashioned way: with lots and lots of 

Posts: 1392

vinyl. This is a bin full of little vinyl pellets that will be melted into 

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records.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)
/>NASHVILLE, Tenn.--When people think of the Beatles coming to America, 
they usually conjure up images of The Ed Sullivan Show and screaming 
teenage girls chasing the Fab Four on the streets of New York.
/>But here in Music City, there is something else to commemorate the 
earliest stages of the British Invasion: the fact that the first American 
Beatles 7-inch record was produced by United Record Pressing--then, as 
now, one of the largest makers of vinyl in the world.

On 
Monday, as l swung through Nashville on Road Trip 2008, l was lucky enough 
to get to visit the production facilities of United Record Pressing here 
and get a firsthand look at how LPs are made. Before you scoff at the 
notion of making records, consider that over the last few years, the 
format has made a big comeback, with sales skyrocketing and turntables 
moving off store shelves like they have not in years.

Why? The 
reason is pure irony.

According to Jay Millar, the marketing 
and sales manager for United Record Pressing, it has everything to do with 
the emergence of Apple is oh-so-ubiquitous MP3 player.

''It 
really started picking up when iPods started coming onto the scene,'' 
Millar said. ''Everything got so sterile with digital that people were not 
spending time'' with the physical manifestation of their music.
/>A record-pressing machine at United Record Pressing. The company is one 
of only three in the United States that still produces LPs in any 
meaningful amounts.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)
/>In other words, as iPods began to dominate the music world, people were 
leaving their CDs on the shelves, and iTunes downloads, as well as those 
via file-sharing services, took over.

But for audiophiles used 
to actually handling some sort of disc, this change has led to a reversal 
of fortune for the LP, a format long thought to have gone the way of the 
floppy disk.

For a company like United Record Pressing, that 
is been great news, as its sales have been going up steadily as more and 
more artists turn to records as a way to get their music into the hands of 
people who care about it.

So how is a record made?
/>First, a separate company with facilities nearby takes the original 
recording--which can come in the form of an audio tape, but (audiophiles, 
cover your eyes here) more often comes on CDs since many artists are using 
software like ProTools to cut their tracks--and uses it to cut the familiar 
circular grooves into an object called a lacquer.

The lacquer 
is then delivered to United Record Pressing, which begins the process of 
actually making the LPs.

First, the lacquer is sprayed with a 
layer of silver, which, after it sets, is then peeled off. The resulting 
sheet is known as the master, and it is the opposite of a record, because 
it has ridges rather than grooves.

The master is then used to 
make what is known as the mother, a metal version of the record that can, 
itself, actually be played.

At United Record Pressing, black 
is not the only color of vinyl that is used. There is also red, orange, 
blue, gray, and even a mixture made from the cuttings of the other colors. 

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

The mother is then 
pressed into what is known as the stamper, and this, too, has ridges. The 
stamper actually is the basis of every record that comes out of this 
factory.

At this point, it is all about raw vinyl, millions of 
little chunks of the material that resemble Pop Rocks.

And it 
is not just black either. The company also makes records that are red, 
orange, blue, and gray. Sometimes, it takes all the discarded vinyl from 
several pressings and mixes them together into a kind of hodgepodge color. 


First, the vinyl is melted down into what is called the 
biscuit. This is the center of the record, the round part with no grooves 
and the little hole. To this is added the label, which is pressed onto the 
biscuit, a step that does not require any adhesive. Rather, the biscuit is 
so hot from the vinyl being melted down that the label sticks right on. 


The labels, which are printed here by the thousands, are 
actually baked in a special oven so that they retain no moisture, 
something that could cause bubbling on the actual record.

To 
ensure that labels do not bubble up after being pressed onto a record, the 
labels are baked in an oven to remove any moisture.
(Credit: Daniel 
Terdiman/CNET News.com)

Then, the biscuit is placed in the 
middle of a machine and then it is joined together with a fresh supply of 
vinyl, and together they are smashed between a plate and the stamper. A 
blade then shears off the excess vinyl, and voila! A brand new record 
slides out of the machine and onto a rack.

When all is said 
and done, it is actually a remarkably simply process. But there is still 
much more that must happen before an LP leaves the facility.
/>First, at least one of each new album run must be tested. So on one side 
of a room that long ago was used as a room for record release and signing 
parties--Hank Williams Jr. had a party thrown for him here when he was 16, 
Millar said--a woman is sitting and bobbing her head as she listens to 
songs on headphones, making sure the new record has no problems. If it 
does, United Record Pressing will have to tell the record company what the 
issue is.

There is also the small matter of putting the records 
in their sleeves--something l saw two people tucked away in a corner of one 
room doing. They had their process down pat: grab an LP, inspect it quickly 
for obvious defects, pick up a sleeve, slide in the record, repeat. />Click for gallery

Millar showed me a room in the basement of 
the building that contained thousands and thousands of folders--really, 
they seemed like extra-thick album covers with no art--that contain the 
masters of every record the company has produced over the years. This is a 
treasure trove bar none, since United Record Pressing works with pretty 
much every major label you can imagine.

Inside each folder is 
the master, and a full set of all the associated materials: the master, a 
label, an album jacket, and anything else that might be included, such as 
liner notes. And these days, as with an Elvis Costello album Millar showed 
me, the folders may also hold an insert with information for a digital 
download of the album.

In fact, it is these digital downloads 
that may be heralding the re-emergence of the LP and the death of the CD. 
That is because many artists are now offering record buyers a one-time 
free download of all the tracks on the album as a bonus.

This 
is still a small enough phenomenon, of course, to barely register on Apple 
is radar. iTunes is safe, in other words.

Still, for 
audiophiles who used to buy CDs, this gives them a way to have a physical 
disc to listen to the music on, as well as a way to easily tote it with 
them.

''People do not need their discs to be compact 
anymore,'' said Millar, ''because you can not get much more compact than 
MP3. So it is back to the big discs.''

* 10 hours ago
* - 
3 days left to answer.
 
 
 
 
 

Top

langga , Wednesday, 11th of August 2010 11:16:27 AM

For the most part, only die hards, really have any real  

HunnyBear , Thursday, 12th of August 2010 02:51:07 PM

Have old 78 speed record, 33 speeds for the lps, 45 for the