New vinyl presses

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#2
Just curious. In modern times it will be easy to cut vinyl master isn't it. We can digitally manipulate the recordings (RIAA and low fq. levels etc. ) and cut straight away. Not like old times where high skill (appreciate the old master vinyl cutters) was required.
 
#4
Hiten said:
Just curious. In modern times it will be easy to cut vinyl master isn't it. We can digitally manipulate the recordings (RIAA and low fq. levels etc. ) and cut straight away. Not like old times where high skill (appreciate the old master vinyl cutters) was required.
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Mainly the same process as during the earlier days, but of course it depends on the source and on customers demand.
If somebody want to have vinyl pressed from tape he might be more happy to rely on a service that uses an all analog approach, even when combined with some of the latest vinyl cutting hardware.
 
#5
Thanks. Yes I am talking about modern digital recordings. I guess it would be little easy to cut vinyls these days with that source. I also wonder if we can discard the cutting lathe altogether. These days in printing industries high resolution metal plates are used, 3D printers are also developing, We have lasers which can finly etch metal. All these saves lot of electronics and mechanics involved in producing metal master. Possibilities with right equipments would be great in future. Mind you all this for people who love vinyl medium. Easy way would be to listen to digital recordings straight away. 🙂

This (Link) is primitive but still impressive.

Regards.
 
#6
Hiten said:
Thanks. Yes I am talking about modern digital recordings. I guess it would be little easy to cut vinyls these days with that source. I also wonder if we can discard the cutting lathe altogether. These days in printing industries high resolution metal plates are used, 3D printers are also developing, We have lasers which can finly etch metal. All these saves lot of electronics and mechanics involved in producing metal master. Possibilities with right equipments would be great in future. Mind you all this for people who love vinyl medium. Easy way would be to listen to digital recordings straight away. 🙂

This (Link) is primitive but still impressive.

Regards.
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Direct printing imo will still have quite a long way to go, as todays resolution is far behind what it is needed.

Overall the return of vinyl as something like a mass phenomenon is a really interesting story; it took time until two or three years ago before someone started to invest in the production of new presses. Now, with this restart of alpha toolex there are afaik three suppliers of new presses.

The situation on the cutting is quite similar; the basic lathe is quite robust so will still work (usual maintaining assured) for dozen of years, but cutter heads are sensible parts, so there is not only need for servicing but for replacement heads as well; there are two companies which supply new build cutter heads.

Modern rapid prototyping and manufacturing makes it obviously easier to try new things, see for example the guy at ..:😀eep Grooves Mastering::.. and he not only supplies parts but offers a free vst plugin with riaa encoding and other things. Don´t know anything about quality but up to now it´s the only one (that i know, but it is not a field in which i specialize) that offers something like that.

Others like vinylium of switzerland developed something new but pure analog; the czech GZ media developed a Visual Vinyl Mastering application that is built into their Neumman DMM consoles, but i don´t know if they still use analog eq at the end of the mastering process.
 
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#7
I agree 3D cutting is still in early stages. And it will take long time and should be cost effective. But I presume it would be faster and more precise in future. Probably cheaper too, if there is sufficient market.
Regards
 
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