| DIY Vinyl Cutter, guidance needed :+) - Click HERE for Original Thread |
| loonatron |
Hi, I am a qualified metal machinist, and I was wondering if anyone knows if it is possible to construct a Vinyl cutter, like the Vestax unit (VRX 2000) maybe using the cutting head off the Vestax unit, if a source is available. (haven't found a supplier on the net yet)
I'm not sure if the VRX ever made it to the masses, I have never heard of anyone owning one.
the VRX uses 'Harmodisks' which supposedly last 90% the life of a pressed vinyl record. does anyone know of a source?
BTW, if anyone can also point me to any sources of info, for the specific science/details of the equipment for pressing vinyl, that would be cool too.
have a nice Christmas break! from Steve :) |
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| sreten |
http://www.vestax.com/products/spec...2000_specs.html
The specifications are very poor :
14 minutes a side
fixed cutting speed (causes the above)
max velocity 5cm/sec
20Hz-12.5KHz +/- 3dB - yuk
Only possible use is making 12" 45's for clubs.
Pointless in terms of hifi IMO.
:) sreten. |
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| Havoc |
You can find some info in "Sound recording practice" by John Borwick. Not much, but enough to give some clues to look further.
Also "The life and works of Alen Dower Blumlein" by R.C. Alexander. It has a lot of references to patents concerning stereo recording and disc cutting heads.
Think it might be easier shopping for a second hand one. Make sure your floor can stand it!
http://www.classicelectronics.com/Photolathe.html |
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| fdegrove |
Hi,
| quote: | | Hmm...it wouldn't surprise if Mr. Pass jumped into this thread: |
Looks like a Neumann lathe...
| quote: | | Think it might be easier shopping for a second hand one. Make sure your floor can stand it! |
Yeah...Cheaper second hand than building your own surely.
Cheers,;) |
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| sreten |
I'll just add unless you have a 2-track analogue mastertape
the whole endeavor is entirely pointless in my opinion.
(unless your going for live vinyl transfer !)
The analogue reference is not vinyl, its 2 track tape.
If your master is digital, end of story, copy it on to CD.
One of the points of CD is its the same as the Master.
Unless you presume vinyl transfer and replay somehow
improves the end result, IMO its not a sensible arguement.
:) sreten. |
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| fdegrove |
Hi,
| quote: | | The analogue reference is not vinyl, its 2 track tape. |
Guess we're the rare animals that actually were lucky enough to compare...
Master matrix to vinyl is delicate to do and I can count the truely successful ones on one hand...
Digital master transfers should be better but I'm afraid I can't say I notice much improvement, quite to the contrary...
There are some improvements at frequency extremes sometines, but as for realism?
You don't beat an analogue master easily...
Naturally, there a hundred other factors too but I guess discussing Blumlein and Decca booms is just a waste of time nowadays...
Dynamic range and stereo imageing to die for...Few CDs come even close.
Those lucky few with ribbon speakers or horns may know what I mean...
It's almost the real thing, almost.
Cheers,;) |
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| Havoc |
| quote: | | One of the points of CD is its the same as the Master. |
If you mean that cd is the lp master tape, then no it isn't. There is normally an intermediate master just for cutting. Things like a narrower bass range and more compressing would be the difference. |
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| loonatron |
I think sreten is talking about the fact that an ideal CD replication is the same as the master, whereas a vinyl mother is different to a vinyl pressing... the stampers lose a bit of resolution, pick up noise, pops, etc, hence the development of 'Direct Metal Mastering' technology. (I think the groove is cut directly into the stampers, it is new technology) http://www.europadisk.com/Dmm.htm though I wonder if the tracking ability is affected...
anyway, my motivation for creating vinyl records is because I've wanted to press my own material since I was a lad, and there are only two vinyl pressing houses in Australia, and an experienced record label man told me not to bother with either of them, though I'll still check out some of their pressings myself, to find out first-hand. If I could somehow accumulate the equipment to press vinyl myself then I would be happy! (and would suddenly find I have lots of new friends!)
BTW, I am an analogue freak, and I hope to one-day be able to have a pure analogue signal path from studio to pressing! I'm not silly enough to expect benefits by providing a CDR master to a vinyl pressing house! (though it happens all the time!)
I wish I knew what happened to all the pressing equipment that got abandoned in Australia in the mid-90's!
yeah, 12.5kHz (3dB down, at that) is pretty horrible!
Anyway, thanks for those replies! it is fun reading them!:D (i'm a newbie):) |
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| sreten |
| quote: | Originally posted by Havoc
If you mean that cd is the lp master tape, then no it isn't. There is normally an intermediate master just for cutting. Things like a narrower bass range and more compressing would be the difference. |
You are quite right, though when CD was introduced they
made a big deal of the the possibility of the CD and Master
tracks being identical, i.e. no transfer loss.
Some engineers cannot leave it alone, adding bass EQ,
compression, "cleaning it up" and other dubious practises,
along with normalising levels if required.
With modern high bandwidth hi bit recording on hard disk,
its less and less likely the master is recorded in CD format.
(16bit/44.1kHz)
:) sreten. |
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| sreten |
| quote: | | yeah, 12.5kHz (3dB down, at that) is pretty horrible! |
Call me cynical, but +/- 3dB = - 6dB at 12.5khz in my book ;)
:) sreten. |
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| Havoc |
| quote: | | I wish I knew what happened to all the pressing equipment that got abandoned in Australia in the mid-90's! |
Gathering dust most probably. The trick is to find them. Maybe there are 2 pressing houses in Australia, but there might be some small labels that do have one. I remember that around here, there was a specialised shop that got themselves an LP press and made during a few years LP's themselves. They stopped long ago, but there might be others. The yellow pages and a phone might be your best bet. |
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| fdegrove |
Hi,
| quote: | | I remember that around here, there was a specialised shop that got themselves an LP press and made during a few years LP's themselves. |
You don't mean the "Pavane" label by any chance?
Cheers,;) |
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| Havoc |
| Don't remember if they used a label name. Must be more than 15 years ago. |
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| loonatron |
| quote: | | Call me cynical, but +/- 3dB = - 6dB at 12.5khz in my book |
you mean you suspect that some manufacturers are sneaky, and graph the frequency response so that the peak of the loudest frequency is at +3dB, therefore the highest 'frequency response' becomes the point where the curve crosses -3dB?
anyway, thanks for the Yellow Pages suggestion, Havoc.
BTW, thanks for all those replies everyone, I enjoyed reading them! |
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| loonatron |
| thanks, I had a look, and played email ping pong with the seller. |
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| mikem108 |
The only reason to use diy vinyl is so that you can DJ with your own music on vinyl if you dislike CD players. For this purpose Final Scratch software is really the go.
www.finalscratch.com |
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| loonatron |
| [oops, triple post] |
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| loonatron |
When a DJ plays a CD, after playing Vinyl, I can tell straight away. I like the sound of vinyl better, and the cleanest recording I have heard was on vinyl. (Words, by Paul Van Dyk, on mute records, nice, heavy pressing, if I ever see it in the shop again, I'll get another copy, to use as a reference record!)
and I've listened critically, to many CD's, on several systems, in two different recording studios.
anyway, it is mainly cos of the wonder and awe I experienced, whilst watching records playing when I was a lad that makes me want to get my material onto them! (not that I have much material as yet)
And when I (rarely) DJ, I hate using CD's!
oops double post, that was an accident!
I'm in Pennant Hills area, where are you?
BTW An internet buddy of mine was thinking of building his own version of Final Scratch! |
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| loonatron |
anyone want to talk vinyl production with me? I have only been able to find the basic principles on the net, not assembly drawings of the machinery, or component drawings or how to get the chemicals and supplies etc!
I came across one site that sold supplies, but I couldn't find it again!
apart from that I'll have to sneak up to the closest vinyl pressing plant, and peer through the windows! (several thousand kilometers away) |
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| loonatron |
Well I found some pictures of the vinylium cutter, but I still need to find out how to build a cutting head. I don't understand why so many people are bent on building their own TT but don't want to experiment with cutting discs themselves. (trying to challenge;) )
BTW my previous post on Direct Metal Mastering was wrong... the mother is cut direct, not the stampers! |
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| junoman23 |
hi loonatron,
i saw this thread, its really funny.
i own a neumann vms 70 lathe + sx74 cutterhead etc.
don´t like to demotivate you but forget it. ! ;)
do you think somebody gives you a plan how to build a cutterhead? this i a secret of neumann and i only know two persons who got it and one you rebuild it.
The Westrex heads doesent sound that good so only a SX74 is interesting.
A Cutterhead by the way, if you find one, cots min. US$3500 in a good condition, removing coils, service etc. additional 3000.
And a cutterhead without cutting electronics, pitch control, a 14" turntable which is levelled to 1/1000 high difference + amps. etc. etc. is useless.
if you are able to build a good sounding fullrange loudspeaker then you maybe have a chance to do, because a cutterhead is working similar in a way but much more complicated.
I just distroyed my head 2 months ago, and the one and only guy in europe who is able to repair a head properly explained me a lot how it works and how long neumann took to finally, after 25 years of scientific work, build a good sounding cutterhead.
if you can work accurate of 1/1000 mil. be a mechanican, etc. it is possible, but you need a plan, and nobody will give you one ! ;)
if you are really interested buying a machine, the easiest way is to buy a a machine. i just saw a good one on ebay 2 weeks ago fr 17000 US$ in NY which was very cheap. usually u pay double.
other thing is that you live in australia. i think there is no pressing plant there, and if, can they do the galvanik for the lacquers???
usually pressing plants in warmer coutries use DMM, its easier for them, galvanic process is not too much work. but soundwise, forget it. if you like the sound of vinyl you need to cut in lacquer not hammering it in copper. that sounds like a early digital recordings.
best regards
junoman 23
PS: i have never seen any working vinylium dubplate cutter. the vestax sounds like **** and is just a joke. |
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| kalinski |
ok well,
i started with the same question some years ago...
and wanted to build my own cutterhead and lathe...
I searched around and found vinylium.ch !!!
these guys also had the same question as you and me long long time ago
and by the time they not even managed to get a used cutting lathe, they collected nearly all of the evermade models.
After years of work they now are the only people on this planet, knowing how to repair a neumann head and lathe (maybe there are two or three more still alive...)
they knew there are people like us out there so they
invented the kingston dubplatecutter, which now is ready to sell.
Although there are two more homestudiocutters available (vinylrecorder.com and vestax..while the vestax is not working) this one is the best thing for you, if you just want to start recording your own plates in highend quality. I know it works! There are people out there using it! check vinylium they will tell you how it goes.
The vinylrecorder works too (and there are some studios in germany and
austria which use it) but it has no so called feedback coil (correct me if i am wrong) which is not very professional IMHO
the technics mk2 is not the best lathe for a vinylium or neumann cutterhead
(you saw the pictures of the neumann and scully !?that s heavy weight!)
so maybe you are able to build your own lathe (vinylium managed to build a neumann-lathe clone as students on their own and it still works!!!)
if you find a very good motor and you know how to control the speed, if you can build a huge solid metal disk like 15" or something and find a way to get itself turned by the motor without any kind of undesirable vibration at 33 or 45 RPM?
after that you'll need a "bridge" to fix the cutterhead on and move it slowly and very exact towards the center of the disk. (with something like a big screw...)
40-50 (or even more) years ago their where some lathes on the market for homerecording,
like presto, wuton, reko-cut,brennemann & berger, truembach
which had poor soundquality in terms of hi-fi...but they had some little
and working mechanics to move the cutterhead over the plate while
cutting it...at that time you could also purchase just the parts e.g. from brennemann & berger to build your own custommade cutting system. but I have found only few documents about that yet...
if you want to know more(all) about vinylcutting get this book:
AES: Disk Recording Vol. 1 Anthology series direct from the Audio Engineering Society...
but beware: this book is for _real_ analogue nerds !
sorry for my uneducated english
good night
max kalinski |
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| loonatron |
Hey guys!
First of all, thanks for the replies! They were good ones, so you must have thought it through well, so thanks!
Junoman 23,
Yes it is silly. But not funny. This is very serious:xeye: :clown: OK, so it may seem funny, but that hasn't stopped me looking into it.
Well lately I've been trying to decide whether or not it is feasable. I have found good information on the whole process, the physics of cutting, the cutting head, with lots of photos of dissassembled cutterheads, and even a photo of an old Neumann stereo cutting head that has had a section cut out of it, so you can see how it fits together! (How could anyone do that!?:bigeyes: )
And the electronics, the equalisation, the equalisation of the negative feedback, the temperature of the heated stylus, etc. This was after only five minutes of looking in my college library! (after spending months looking on the net :dead: ) So I wonder what I'll find after looking in the State Library of NSW. I even found a circuit of the Westrex cutting amplifier! (though I wouldn't use valves, unless I knew it would all work first... I would try a solid state solution first.)
I've also found photos from the aardvark mastering website, of the coils being re-wound! (though the guy also said that he would never do it again!)
anyway, I wouldn't bother with the equalisation coupling for when the cutter goes closer to the middle, I would probably have manual controls for that, if it needed it at all. (only 4dB change at most affected frequency from 12" to 8" if I remember correctly, and that changes to 2dB if stylus is heated, according to the book I'm reading)
There's nothing stopping me from bolting my T1210 to something heavier, ok, I agree, I'm going to get a higher noisefloor than with a purpose built one. I could also make a heavier platter, to smooth out the ride a bit, but maybe that would be a bit harsh on the poor old T1210?
And I'll use a manual feedscrew to start with... ok, so I'll need 2 operators, until I make a feed mechanism! But, being an experienced machinist, I have a steady hand for that. I'll put up with less recording time than with a computer controlled feed. OK I'm only going to have about 6 minutes if I'm lucky, but this is a DIY project.
Well, I hope I earn lots of money quickly, so I can buy all this before I get silly enough to try and build it!
OK... now for the bodgiest idea... I've been wondering if I could use a full range speaker coil and magnet for the drivers... will they try to travel too much, or will the negative feedback keep the excursion distance down? Will they handle the power, without distortion, to be able to make the cut? (shows my lack of knowledge of voice-coil design)
OK, so this is all a bit ambitious, but I guess that never stopped Edison.
Kalinski,
thanks for that tip on the AES publication, I'll have to look for it! Vinylium seem to have sold most of their old gear now, BTW. No more pressing, either, bit of a shame!
Oh yeah, the Technics TT can be modified for more torque, too, but I'm not sure how that will affect the life of the unit!
Maybe I should find out if Vinylium will sell me just one of their cutting heads?
I also didn't realise that the "vinylrecorder" didn't appear to have negative feedback circutry! Surprising, as the rest of the electronics apparently handles everything properly (controlling feed pitch, equalisation)
BTW, when they talk about the radius of the cutting stylus, they talk in 'mils' What measurement is that? (I've only worked in thousandths of a millimeter before, and seen surface finish references in um)
Oh! I hope I stop this crazy idea before I spend too much time on it... (serious)
Does anyone know of someone who can cut dubplates in Australia? (not the guy in Melbourne who tries to charge $195 Au) That would be a more sane option!
Thanks for taking an interest, those who have had a look, or a talk...:)
Junoman, thanks also for the tip about DMM. I will take this into consideration when I come to, and send out any cutting/plating/pressing to those who can do it. |
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| kalinski |
don't know about a cutting studio in austria...
but not too far away (looking on the whole globe)
you will find:
Name:
Peter King Lathe Cutting
Address: Peter King Record Manufacturing
21RD, Woodside Road
Geraldine
New Zealand
Telephone: + 64 3 303 9755 / Cell phone: 64 25 623 5389
very interesting and unique cutting studio....
about the DIY-cutter: maybe the movingcoil system of a fullrange speaker
will be good enough to cut some sound on plate (and i heard..the vinylrecorder was built of a pair...but i may be totally wrong...)
but it will be very diffcult to bring a second coil for the feedback in and to
fix the styli to the two coils!
I don't want to spread someones personal secret but I once saw a pic showing a cutterhead build from two supercheap speakers with the membran cutted out
perhaps it would be best to start with a non-feedback system and take
an EQ to correct the output to "flat" (haha)
maybe you could use the ortofon design:
coil1 coil2
|¦ ¦| |¦ ¦|
\ / \ /
°_______° bridge
|
V styli
maybe not
let me see a photo of your cutterhead if its ready |
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| Evaas |
| regarding the "mils" reference - is the company american? It might mean millions of an inch |
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| Havoc |
| Mill is normally used for 1/1000 of an inch. Like a millimeter is 1/1000 of a meter. |
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| Evaas |
| yeah, what he said :cool: |
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| loonatron |
Well thanks, guys, for getting me excited, I thought this topic was dead! apparently not!
http://www.aardvarkmastering.com/history.htm
http://www.aardvarkmastering.com/westrex.htm
Many thanks go to aardvark mastering for making this information available!
http://home.comcast.net/~cassetto/kingcontact.html Peter King link- surprising stuff!
kalinski- Yeah, I thought about how I could suspend the speaker mechanism... But a loudspeaker's travel moves a lot, and a cutting coil moves hardly at all. Which makes me wonder if it was suppressed, by being forced into a 'hard' material like lacquer, or vinyl, or polycarbonate, or whatever, if the frequency response would go all crazy, and it would probably overheat, (need a protected amp!) due to the fact that the voice coil relies on the moving in and out to keep it cool. I wonder if distortion would be a problem! I will try suppressing a small old loudspeaker with my finger, while it is going really loud, to find out! Such a system may not even have enough power to do a very deep cut (though I would definately have the cutting stylus heated) so I wonder, too if a feedback coil would do much. But I guess the feedback coil would definately restrict the excursions of the coil, while making powerful oscillations. But how to implement a feedback arrangement? I have heard of a feedback coil that sits on top of the cutter head, summing the L and R signal components combined amplitude. Which makes me wonder whether feedback is applied on each channel separately. I wonder why the designers of cutterheads didn't effect feedback purely electronically? I wonder why an audio isolation - like transformer wasn't used from the outputs of the cutter amp, which feed back (inverted phase, I think, to limit travel of the cutter coils) into the cutter amp via an equaliser?
Anyway, these are all concepts at the moment... may or may not be viable... I don't have good access to a metalworking lathe at the moment anyway...
Max, I Never heard of the Peter King guy, but I found some info about him on the net (http://home.comcast.net/~cassetto/kingcontact.html) which was really interesting! Apparently he has moved to a new address, according to this link...
Evac, and Havoc, I appreciate your answers on 'mils'. In workshops here in Australia, we use the saying 'Mills' as slang for millimeters, so I was confused until now!
see ya, from Steve :D
cheers, all, I've found this very exciting! |
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| loonatron |
I think I have misunderstood the way negative feedback works.
BTW, when I was talking about the 'sound' of vinyl, in an earlier post, I noticed that when I listened to a CD yesterday, that had been recorded from vinyl, I could hear that quality that I was talking about, which is interesting. But I did have the windows down, so maybe I was imagining it! |
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| kalinski |
just to fix my ASCII-Art from above about the ortofon design:
here again (as u all may have seen already)
the basic principals...
the fairchild one is missing (looks somehow like a cross with 4 coils...)
I don't know which might be the best for DIY...
ortofon:
westrex: (uhoh a bit too large)
neumann
this one is like the westrex but with two magnets...
please mail me if the links don't work...
BTW: negative feedback is used to control the cutteramp electronically,
also you'll prelisten to the feedbackcoil-signal before/while cutting over your
monitorspeakers...
good night |
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| loonatron |
Thanks for those Pics! they worked fine!
The thing about feedback that confuses me is this... I previously thought that a phase inverted signal from the feedback coil was fed into the drive coil, which would have the effect of dampening the movement of the coil, which makes sense to me. But then I read a breif discription of feedback in an OP-AMP, and that really didn't make sense to me, so I wondered if my understanding of feedback in a cutterhead was incorrect:confused:
cheers, Steve |
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| junoman23 |
hi loonatron,
yes you are right, the feedback is used to control the movement
while cutting and maybe gets the resonance under control. there is also a shock suspension in it, very similar to that in a 2CV Citroen car, only smaller.
feedback in an op-amp is something different.
greetings
junoman23 |
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| Pjotr |
Hi Steve,
Wish you a lot of luck if you really want to build your own cutting machine. It will for sure keep you busy for many, many years. The principles seem easy, but there are many pitfalls hidden to come to something workeable.
If your goal is to cut disks for real than you are maybe better off with this:
http://www.floka.com/sales.html
But you’ll need deep pockets I guess ;)
Cheers |
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| loonatron |
Juno,
thanks for that feedback on feedback :D (sorry for the cheeze:cool: )
thanks, too, Pjotr. |
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| vinylflo |
hello everybody.
just saw the thread about DIV cutters.also i read a lot of rumours. so i want to help clear some things. i dont want to make advertisements. but i guess its good to give some first hand information.
i did my first home DIV cutter more than 15 years ago. later on i founded vinylium and i do repair heads,construct new ones as well as developping new stuff for lathes.blablabla.
about vinylium: vinylium has always many old cutting lathes for sale. in any price range from simplest mono head to most recent VMS-82 DMM cutting suite.we have them on regular stock.theres always material.you can also buy just a stereohead or a stereohead with cutting electronics. no problem. then build your own lathe.
if you want to stay on the DIY-side. then there is
www.floka.com/cutterheads.html. i had to move the site to a new location. so i take the chance to redo all. so pictures and most information not present at the moment but will come back.
http://www.floka.com/cut/prmitivcut.html
just check from time to time for new info.
i just put a small link here.will be up tonight.have to find the pictures.
for the cutter with 2 loudspeakers and some glue.
http://www.floka.com/cut/simplehead.html
have fun.you can build whatever you want.no problemo |
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| loonatron |
Thanks, Flo, those pictures are very interesting!
I appreciate your reply, I know you are a busy person!
I'm also glad to see a company supporting all those people with record cutting lathes! (I don't want to give up my Technics 1210's just yet!) |
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| loonatron |
| BTW, how did you link those cones to the torque tube on the LC-002? |
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| vinylflo |
hello i linked them also with the plastic links made out of q-tips.they are quite solid light weight and available....
i also once wound some feedback coils around the q-tips. but forget feedback construction on hotmelt- qtips- speaker constructions. those feedback tests where a desaster.
use a good ferrofluidic damped hf tweeter. thats probabbly the best approach. they have a strong dampened resonance. so with a little pre-eq and half speed technique you should get fat sound.
send me some pictures of your stuff. would be nice to see
flo |
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| loonatron |
Hello, again flo!
It is very generous of you to share this information, considering that this is also your own engineering/business area, so thanks. What is a q-tip?
I will send/post some pics as soon as I get some stuff done!
ferrofluidic tweeters... is there an easy way to tell?
BTW, your plastic drinking cup/knife blade recorder was one of the first images I saw when I first started looking for ideas for DIY cutting!
I'll be starting off my experiments with a technics 1210, with your modification for extra torque, so to get as close as I can to half speed, I'll have to cut at -8% pitch on 33.33rpm, and adjust the speed of the source material, so that it will play at the correct speed at 45rpm. Its going to be hard to see if the platter is turning at a constant velocity though!
bye, from Steve |
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| vinylflo |
q-tip. hmm the thing you use for cleaning your ears to hear hifi again.
normally a 1mm plastictube with cotton on both ends. cut the ends away and you have nice links. 200 links for a dollar. no to bad for diy tests.
too bad i cant find the picture anymore.would make things clearer.
ferrofluidic tweeters. i always check on loudspeaker catalogs. in europe there is intertechnic, monacor or even conrad. i ask normally for tweeters not in the catalogue anymore. or for surplus. so i get them cheap. i fried a lot of those when i made the tests..also its sometimes not easy to remove the protection grill.
ferrofluid tweeters are also good because resonance freq. is dampened. and the ferrofluid removes the heat better from the coils.
halfspeed 45/33 is not too bad. 20k becomes 14.67 khz. thats pretty ok.
but use the lock position not the -8 pitch.... |
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| loonatron |
I thought that's what a q-tip was, but I wasn't sure! I also thought it might mean the end of a pool/snooker stick!
So Flo, how did you attach the plastic tubes between the cones and the torque tube?
I have read that the links are usually metal, silver soldered between the coils and the torque tube, but that sounds inflexible to me, like the joint may fracture?
thanks, from Steve |
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| loonatron |
report on experiments...
I made a makeshift mono cutterhead out of a 5" Kenwood singlecone full range speaker (because it was free).
I made a reverse RIAA filter
I made a cutting stylus out of tungsten carbide (a diamond, or sapphire, or ruby stylus is too expensive for me to do experiments with, at the moment!)
The stylus was heated, with a nichrome coil
I cut some music into a blank vinyl disc (the blank side of a 12" white label)
results: horrible 'sssss' sound, which I think was caused by chatter from the cutting stylus. Tungsten Carbide is very hard to sharpen, so applying more clearance angle to cutting surface is a couple hours work, using a silicon carbide grinding wheel, then another hour honing it on a honing stone! I reduced the length of the shank of the stylus as much as possible, but the 'sssss' is still there. the frequency response was about 10kHz, at a guess.
Big question for those in the know.... If I use a proper dubplate blank, will the 'sssss' sound go away?
all in all, it has been fun!:) |
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| junoman23 |
hi loonatron,
sounds nice so far. if possible please post a picture, would be nice to see or hear how your head sounds like.
i have a lot of styli i can give ou for free, most of them are used but ok for dubs and experiments.
i think dubplates are not easy to get in oz, i will send some records to a friend of mine in sydney soon, maybe i can arrange something
greetings
andreas |
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| loonatron |
Hey Andreas,
I also replied to your email! For everyone else, I think that the reason for the chatter was that the cutting speed was too high. I will have to find a way to slow down my Technics 1210 to half speed, I guess. Unless the chatter was (quite possibly) due to trying to cut material that was too hard. Or both. (yes both!;) ) I did another cut near the centre of the record, where due to the slower surface speed, the chatter/hiss was a lot quiter!
how do you post pictures/sounds on this forum... Do you need to supply your own webspace for this? I'd better find some free webspace somewhere!:xeye: |
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| vinylflo |
hello
congratulation....at least it reroduces some sound......post some pictures would be great..
a few things. DIY is nice. but i think there are a few things you should get as is.
1 stylus. you would never get the quality of a proper polished stylus.so if you can take the used styluses from andreas.would be perfect. if not buy some new ones. 65$ each. but the qulaity of sound will increase dramatically..
2. material. forget in a first step to cut into vinyl. i did that in the beginning... you loose stylus after stylus and sound will be bad. always. best is regular dubplate material. but thats kind of expensive for experiments. another thing are thin PE-sheets or..dont laugh...X-Ray films. ask at a hospital. sometimes they are happy to clear out their archives...normally they throw them away...not too bad. still noisy but better than vinyl.
maybe you find other materials (let us know whats good)..but dont use vinyl. its too hard. and the stylus lasts only for minutes. max. a few hours. better would be diamond stylus. but they are expensive and extremly fragile.
3. noise. check for the propper cutting angle. big difference in sound....but if you use accetate laquer and original stylus sound should be great. if there is already noise in the unmodulated groove dont go further try to make unmodulated grooves without noise and then measure frequency range again...big surprise... |
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| loonatron |
Hey Flo,
always interesting to read your ideas and suggestions, so thanks :)
| quote: | | forget in a first step to cut into vinyl. i did that in the beginning... you loose stylus after stylus and sound will be bad. always |
heh heh! I agree! even at 16rpm mastering it sounds terrible!
Polyethylene?
| quote: | | if there is already noise in the unmodulated groove dont go further try to make unmodulated grooves without noise and then measure frequency range again...big surprise... |
I look forward to that moment!
I'll post photos as soon as I borrow a digital camera, and figure out how to get pictures on here! (haven't looked into it yet)
see ya, from Steve |
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| loonatron |
Tried cheap plastic sheets today, bought from an art supply shop. I think they are acetate, but not sure. (the staff didn't know what it was, they just said "its thick plastic" ... not too helpful!)
This material works so much better than vinyl for experiments! Thanks for the hints VF!
I will try cutting some of my own music shortly. I don't want to post music samples on here that are not mine, for obvious reasons. (all the experiments done with my own material have been on vinyl discs, not acetate yet)
Well, all the experiments so far were by holding my 'cutterhead' by hand, to cut the grooves... dodgy, yes, but I was so eager to just try it! Now I need to start building a proper disc cutting lathe, and look forward to some real results. (this may take a while!) I will build a lathe with fixed pitch feed, and some other 'proper' essential components to expect a reasonable result.
Well, thanks to all those who have given me encouragement and advice so far. I really appreciate it, especially as some of you are professionals, sharing your knowledge with me:) |
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| ppalma |
Hi. I'm new here, but I see the topic is very much interesting for me.
I'm making some tests of the cutterhead I made myself with piezoelectric transducers. I haven't seen any like this before, so is it at least worth trying to use piezoelectrics in cutterhead?
I'm currently redesigning the amplifier for driving piezoelectrics, maybe there is someone who has some experience with this problem?
I made some tests using just normal amplifier. I used the playback stylus and plates covered with gelatine(just for tests). It sounds terrible, of course, but until I have "real" stylus on vinyl I can't say if it is the problem of material and stylus or the cutterhead.
I'll be happy to see what you think about this idea.
Frendliest regards, Peter |
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| loonatron |
Hi there.
What gave you the idea of using piezo's? Trying to emulate the old 'crystal' cutterheads? These are way out of fashion now! The most popular 'modern' cutterheads are all moving coil type. I think this is the best bet. But I'm not going to try to stop you, if that's what you really want to try.
Did you do your experiments on a disc-cutting lathe?
good luck! :) |
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| ppalma |
Thanks for reply!
Yes, that's what I was affraid of - that the idea to use piezoceramisc may not be good.
The idea just come to me when I was analyzing the geommetry of the coil movement on its suspension. I just thought that when it moves back and forth its position in the magnetic field changes - it gets closer to the magnet. I thougth that this can cause some distortions. That's why I try to use piezoceramic transducer - it is simply a plate, so it doesn't need any additional suspension like coil needs and tha point where tha links are attached moves only along the axis of the plate.
But piezo needs different amplifier than coils and it also has some other problems.
If it will not work good I'll give this idea up, because I see that trying to make things simple I make them more complicated. ;)
I didn't use 'real' lathe. I just made use of some slideways from an old ploter. Works fine for tests.
But the problem is that I don't have any stylus for tests. The one I use is just playback stylus. I thougth that if I ude it on something soft it will work until I get some real stylus, but it doesn't.
Thanks again,
Peter |
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| loonatron |
| quote: | | I just thought that when it moves back and forth its position in the magnetic field changes - it gets closer to the magnet |
no more than a normal speaker. Though depends on the design... maybe the magnet is longer than the moving coil...
| quote: | | The one I use is just playback stylus |
I thought of trying this as well, but the radius of the tip of a playback stylus is too large. A cutting stylus has a finer point.
...Steve |
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| gpapag |
Quote:
"...and the point where the links are attached moves only along the axis of the plate... "
Peter,
Two points here:
1. Given the fact that a piezo crystal vibrates in more than one mode, man hardly can assume that a piezo plate vibrates only along the axis of the plate. In fact this "only" is achieved (hardly),strictly through the restricting action of piezo plate mounting.
Even in the case of a piezo plate that is cut at an angle favoring longitudinal vibrations across the plate thickness, piezo dynamics is hard to analyse. It is even harder to achieve a given pure vibration (if quality is the goal).
2. Amps for piezo drive need have a high voltage out (100-300V) and a high output impedance. Normal audio amps won't do.
Regards
George |
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| ppalma |
I give up the idea of piezoceramics for now. It is easy to get piezoceramic plates, but it is hard to get two of similar parameters.
I will try to find something good to read about electromagnetic cutterheads.
Thanks for advice.
Piotr |
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| loonatron |
If you can find it... (the college I used to go to had it in their library.)
'The Audio Cyclopedia'
Has very good info. There have been several editions, I think the best one was early 70's, the later versions have very little info. (digital was taking over)
also look on the Aardvark mastering website for good cutterhead dissassembly photos!
...Steve |
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| ppalma |
Why the 0-180 systems (like the Fairchild 642) was not popular? Has anybody here seen/used this cutterhead and could say anything about it?
Thanks, Peter |
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| reverber |
It would be interesting to see what this stuff could do in a cutterhead:
Terfenol-D.
"Magnetic domains in the crystal rotate when a magnetic field is applied, providing proportional, positive and repeatable expansion in microseconds."
Cody |
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| willybig |
| hey I have been designing a record cutter for three years. It is drawn on auto-cad and I am redrawing it and making the toolpaths in mastercam. I am a mechanical designer and machinest as well. |
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| loonatron |
That's cool, willybig! Sounds professional!
Mine is made 100% by hand, so far! (except for a few commercially made bolted on bits, like slideways, and feed screw!)
I've been building in my spare time for many months now! Hopefully I can do my first proper cut within the next couple of weeks! (mono, non feedback)
It looks like it will be a constantly developing project over the next year or so!
It would be interesting to see how you go!
... Steve, aka loonatron |
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| willybig |
| if you want to find a good tube amp to fix up for feedback search this amp diy KT88 williamson the schematic shows that it could be set up so a feedback coil could send the feed back into the amp. |
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| loonatron |
| Here's a pic from several months ago... I did some test cuts... sounded bad! (But it was interesting!) But now I have some proper dubplates, and styli... Now I have to buy or build a proper cutterhead, and find a proper amp from somewhere... as well as build a better turntable. (experiments were with technics SL1210... TT in photo is a mockup!) |
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| aaron123 |
Loonatron, this project definately got my interest... have you worked on it since your last post? If so, what is the progress?
-aaron |
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| natsirt |
| For those wondering what happened to the record cutting machines in Australia, the last were sold by Philips in the mid-90s and bought by a Victorian company, Corduroy. They are the only people, I believe, still making vinyl commercially. They are Corduroy Records in Highett, Vic. |
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| loonatron |
Hey Aaron,
Thanks for taking a look! Nah, I haven't done any more work. I got a new job a few months ago, and now I spend 3 hours a day travelling to and from work. I also started studying electronics two nights a week... so I don't know when I'll get to play with this project again... maybe when I get some annual leave or something...
Hey Natsirt,
that's really interesting!
all the best, from Steve |
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| kaicutz |
Hi to all
it wanted to know that dimensions and weight I specify requriment the cutting head, provided that I have more or less understood that the stylus to support a specific weight for his perfect cut. |
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| jethdub |
Hey loonatron, I owned a vinyl cutter, used at the time for cutting dubplates (acetates) for playing on my own sound system, and as a service for local DJ's. The unit was called a kingston, made by vinylium, based in Switzerland. Ours was the first in the UK, an early model which has probably been refined since...cost us about 4ooo english pounds, the price has probably gone up now though. The guys at Vinylium used to supply heads(The designer of the kingston, Flo, is the european Neumann engineer and the head is the same as on a neumman lathe), if you still fancy Diying such a machine, you'll need a very stable platter to keep that disk spinning at a constant speed. You'll eat diamond cutting styli at 80pounds a piece too...If you're still into the idea look them up...
And to whoever suggested it, i don't think a second hand Neumann would be cheaper...they fetch 25-50grand! |
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| loonatron |
Hi jethdub,
I didn't know that you could get diamond cutting styli for the kingston. I thought you could only use sapphire cutting styli, on normal dubplates. (like the ones from Transco or Appollo, that only last so many plays)
Unfortunately, I've had to put this project aside, I'm studying and working too much! (but learning about power amplifiers, which could come in handy later!)
Kaicutz,
I don't remember the answer to these details, it was nearly 18months since I looked into this stuff... but my dodgy cutterhead had an adjustable counterweight to adjust the tension on the spring that the cutterhead is suspended from. When making cuts, the literature I have seen refers to depth of cut, rather than weight or pressure on the cutting stylus.
All the best, from Steve
P.S. does anyone know where the ex 2GB (Sydney) cutting system ended up? It was up for sale recently |
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| uglydavegray |
| yes i saw this record cutter on ebay the other day, i wonder if it could be re designed using original equipment to cut all types of records, apparently it has a box of blank discs, plastic on aluminium and still works, it is priced at AU1500 I have some interest in buying this item, can anyone tell me if I could doctor it to do what i want it to do? i also found this website with all the specs on the unit. www.coutant.org/hmv2300/ |
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| jethdub |
You would have to check the vinylium website, but I thought that they had released some modifications to allow the Kingston cutter to cut long life disks on a special plastic formula..similar to the vestax cutter (Though I heard the vestax cuts never sounded too good..the kingston could produce some nice cuts with practice and sensibly mixed source material..avoid over enhanced subs and in particular excessive peaks in the upper treble range..any sibilance was always a problem that was exaggerated on the cut and could blow the cutter head fuses)... Though the cutter styli were sapphire for standard dubplate cuts, I believe the new disk material requires diamond styli...even more costly.
Is the cutter on e-bay in the UK.?..It could be ours if so, as I'm living in mexico temporarily and my partner had agreed to sell the unit...We just never had the time to really work with it. |
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| jippers |
Hi all,
Loonatron I live on the Central Coast of NSW (about an hour north of you) and I'm extremely interested in doing the same thing as you, although I'm kinda getting a bit discouraged.
I'm interested in cutting my own vinyl and would like to know how your progress is going. Please inform us all... |
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| loonatron |
Hi Jippers,
Hey, its cool that there is someone close by that is probably almost as crazy as me. Unfortunately I don't have the time to work on this little project anymore, I'd also have to buy a small metal machining lathe to finish it off. (don't have access to one anymore) So now its become a bit of a weird art piece.
BTW if putting your tracks onto disc is what you want, there are people who can do that for you. (unfortunately you may have to look overseas, but there are websites that claim quick turn arounds at good prices)
...Steve |
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| vinylfactory |
Hi Loonatron
I built and run the vinyl pressing plant in Sydney.
You might want to come down and check it out.
or
www.vinylfactory.com.au
Best
Andy |
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| wigston |
| I use a home-made vinyl cutting system(not made by myself). I am not an engineer but I have a good knowledge of cutting vinyl. If you are having any problems I should be able to help I have experienced most of them myself. I also have a supplier of high quality blanks. Any questions let me know,e-mail is vinylrecordcutting@tiscali.co.uk |
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| Wojtaso |
Hi Andy (VinylFactory)
I am in process of setting up vinyl manufacturing and pressing factory in Europe.
Can you advise me where should I look for all equipment needed to start the production?
I have a good supplier base for vinyl raw material supply but the rest is still big question mark.
Thanks
Wojtaso |
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| wigston |
I do not press vinyl, I record music on to blank vinyl records by cutting a spiralling groove in to the record using an eliptical diamond.
I asked my supplier once where the best place to get vinyl pressing plant equipment was and he said Russia. He told me you could get second hand equipment for around 10000 euros(this was a couple of years ago). I think he said the biggest problem was transporting such bulky and heavy equipment. |
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| RancidAltoid |
I've just been reading through this thread with the same (rather insane) idea as some other people. :)
After reading the thread, I still don't think I'm fully understanding how the cutter head works. Looking back at an old post by kalinski, are those diagrams of stereo cutter heads or mono cutter heads? I'm assuming if those diagrams are of stereo cutter heads, I'd need to feed the left channel to one coil and the right channel to the other coil.
-Adam |
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| zeonrider |
I late , I know, here is something of WESTAX .
Regards zeoN_Rider
Sorry file is larger of 2.5MB if you want mail me. |
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| RancidAltoid |
Yeah, it would be great if you could email it to me:
webmasterATscriptpileDOTcom
-Adam |
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| zeonrider |
Send me your exact Email.
Regards zeoN_Rider |
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| Desi Bell |
Can anyone tell me when the first vinyl disc was cut - as opposed to acetate or nitrocellulose?
I don't mean direct cutting, but from an analogue tape.
Also the make of lathe. Was the first vinyl cut done with a standard cutting head of the time or was a purpose-built head produced/customised.
I've waded through the net, but found nothing. Lots of info about how vinyl records are made, which I knew, but I can't find out who made the first vinyl cut and when.
Thanks |
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| loonatron |
Do you mean the first lacquer master which was then used in the plating process to make a mother, which can then be used to make a stamper?
Sounds like you know that vinyl records are virtually always pressed, except for a small minority of one-off discs. (modern one-off discs are sometimes made from a kind of polycarbonate, I'm sure there are a few different materials in use, its been a while since I have been up to speed on this)
I don't know if anyone has ever made a high quality lathe-cut vinyl disc, as it is an extremely hard material to modulate (cut) audio into, though many would have tried, probably not long after vinyl was invented at a guess. Then again they managed to make Direct Metal Masters so I guess someone may have done it.
Dunno if this helps? |
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| Desi Bell |
Thanks loonatron
Does that mean that Vestax's VRX-2000 vinyl cutter doesn't actually use blank vinyl discs?
If not then my mistake, but if direct vinyl cutting is done, I was just looking for a bit of history, like which was the first lathe successfully used. |
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| zeonrider |
Yes, actually use blank vinyl discs!
Regards zeoN_Rider |
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| Desi Bell |
| Thanks zeonrider. Do you know when the first vinyl disc was cut and what lathe was used? |
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| KAOP |
Hi everyone,
I'm actually trying to gather information on how to build a vinyl cutter or vinyl lathe myself. I met a guy in a festival who got one selfmade by an old engineer from switzerland and I was amazed :bigeyes:
Could loonatron tell what kind of book he found about this subject ?
From what I understand now it's a kind of reverse tweeter with a very sharp and heated needle but is possible to build one ?
Thanks a lot for any help on this matter. |
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| dj_nme |
Has any-one tried tungsten TIG electrodes to make cutter needles from?
They come in sizes ranging from 1mm to 3.2mm diameter and are very, very hard.
Sharpened tungstens can scratch into most other metals very easily.
I have a reliable source of short pieces (2 to 3cm in length) which could be used if thought to be suitable. |
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| zeonrider |
Nice source for cutter, but what did you think about sharpening this part of needle?
Sharpened tungstens can scratch into most other metals very easily.
AS you sad.
Regards zeoN_Rider |
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| PigletsDad |
| quote: | Originally posted by KAOP
Hi everyone,
I'm actually trying to gather information on how to build a vinyl cutter or vinyl lathe myself. I met a guy in a festival who got one selfmade by an old engineer from switzerland and I was amazed :bigeyes:
Could loonatron tell what kind of book he found about this subject ?
From what I understand now it's a kind of reverse tweeter with a very sharp and heated needle but is possible to build one ?
Thanks a lot for any help on this matter. |
It doesn't cut vinyl, but lacquer blanks.
These are then electroplated, to make a metal "negative". In the production process, there are two more electroplating steps which eventually give you a stamper, and this is used to press semi-molten vinyl to make a record.
The lacquer can be played, but is fragile and wears quickly, and normally kept solely for making the metal parts. |
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