Lathe Cut Records - source question

Right. Expensive to get done because of low volume and a sluggish process, so the band has to jack up the price to make money. Then sometimes they jack it up more because it's artificially limited or whatever. I never buy this sort of gimmick cash-in stuff.

 

And then you get the people who NEED everything on VINYLZZSEZZZzzz and find great merit in converting their MP3 collection to “physical media” so they can “own it” or hear it for reals, because it doesn’t count if it doesn’t go through muh needlez! So they pay some schlub to cut it into a picnic plate and all of a sudden it’s the way it was meant to be heard!


Is it any wonder I’m so disenfranchised with the state of vinyl in 2020? I liked things much better when this was the domain of audiophiles and collector nerds. Not format fetishist babies who are legitimately losing sleep over not being able to hear the Shrek soundtrack on a Crosley

 

I do see your points here and agree with many, although you seem way angrier than me

I tried getting some music cut on a 45 last year. My personal reasons were admittedly pure fetishistic.
I've recorded some of my own music and wanted to have it on vinyl.
Sure, I was breaking whatever "audiophile" rules that I subscribe to, but what the hell, it's just a bit of fun.
My home recordings aren't going to win any awards anyway, so sonic wonderment be damned!

I looked at many of these dub cut companies and many offer the same explanations...
Played on a decent set up, these records will last as long as any normal disc.
I don't believe that hype, but that's what they tell you.

I sent a company 2 lossless tracks to cut on a 45 as a test.
The fidelity itself was fine, nothing astonishing, but much what I expected.
The problem was the wow and flutter was off the charts, yet it was not cut off center. It was dead centered yet sounded like the worst W & F I'd ever heard on a record,
and that stuff drives me mad!
I have no idea how they could hear this and decide it was acceptable. It's safe to say those people should not be cutting records because they clearly are clueless.
Sadly, I think a lot of their customers must be the kind of people you describe in your post, and are probably as clueless as the people doing the cutting.

If I found a company that did a good job of cutting one off dub plates, I would still consider getting another disc cut, purely just for fun.
Just so I could have a record with me on it. It's the only way that's ever going to happen.

Rick posted earlier that he'd had some tracks cut on 45's for his jukebox.
I consider that to be a perfectly valid reason to use these services.
Just a bit of good ol' fun, having tracks that you can't get on a 45 for a Jukebox, cut on a 45 for a Jukebox.

 

Yeah, I wish it was still like the 90's when very few people were buying records. I find it quite bizarre that in this day and age someone wants to take a (quite possibly decent recording) on tape and carve into plastic with a $1.95 lathe.

jeff

 

I think there’s a sliding scale of “lame” to “slightly less lame” reasons to want a lathe cut done. I get it, I’m a sentimental person, and I definitely know what it’s like to want something to exist. There are definitely some things I think would be cool to own on vinyl, against all better logic and reasoning, because logic and reason don’t necessarily always win at the end of the day.


I’ve even had some lathe cuts made before, one I was helping someone out in making a birthday present for a mutual friend who’s a musician and would’ve enjoyed the novelty of seeing their own album on vinyl. No offense to them but their stuff is not ever going to get a wide release, at least not on anyone’s dime but their own. I made sure they were familiar with the shortcomings and differences between this and a real record so there were no misunderstandings.

Other times I’ve gotten my own stuff cut, again - pure novelty.... ah, there’s that keyword again. If you visit Third Man Records, they’ve got this vintage 1940’s recording booth that’s been retrofitted to cut plastic at a slower speed. Essentially making modern style lathe cuts. You go in the booth, talk, sing, belch out the National Anthem - whatever. Sounds like listening through a tin can, but it’s a fun souvenir.


Those to me have plenty of merit, no justification necessary. But I just don’t get it when it comes to like, random songs and the idea that this somehow makes it more legitimate, or a transformative experience of any sort. Just a couple examples from the comments section on that TMR video…


“I’d take my entire digital only music collection into a full on physical vinyl collection”

“Punch Drunk Love Soundtrack. I have it on CD”



Oy. I like records, and these people presumably like records, but wow. I reaaaaally can’t relate.


It’s interesting you mention the W/F on your lathe cut. The one thing you really would never have to worry about with any record cut on a lathe is it being off center, so they at least have that going for them. But speed still tends to be an issue, because the cutting “lathes” are often just retrofitted turntables jerryrigged with a cutterhead.

In the TMR video, you can see footage of the disc being cut on a beater Technics 1200. Great turntable when playing records is a consideration, but not nearly enough torque to maintain speed cutting through a lacquer. And cutting through plastic is even harder.

I’m not at all familiar with the album being demonstrated in that video, but when the playback samples come in I can pretty clearly hear significant wow/pitch deviations that I can only assume are not present in the original recordings.

I’ve spoken with Matt before, nice enough guy and we have many common interests. But I pointed these issues out in the comments and he insists that, as someone who is actually familiar with the album, the record sounds spot on, and is amongst the best sounding records in his collection. If that’s true I’d hate to hear the rest of his records because the playback samples are telling me a very different story!

 

The lathe they used is either junk or not working properly. I wonder if these people even test or calibrate their gear.

 

You may have hit on the issue.

 

I don't know the album. There is a lathe operation in Texas or somewhere that claims to do high quality lathe cuts. They have a Bruce Springsteen sample on their website, supposedly to show off how good their work is. To me it sounded like a low grade MP3 played over FM radio.

 

I hear the same pitch variations in the clip. Very unpleasant.
What's really messed up is the record I had cut was far worse!

This is why we can only ever trust our own ears.

 

Imagine playing this on a Crosley or some crap player and hear even worse wow and flutter!

 

The sad thing to me is that we can hear these issues through a YouTube video - myself in particular just watching it on a phone - but these aren’t immediately apparent to him listening directly to a Clearaudio Concept. Just goes to show, you can buy nice gear but you can’t buy a trained ear.

I’ve said it a billion times in the past. Listening is a skill! It takes time, it takes experience. Again, nothing personal against TMR, but it’s really misguided to make the claim that these are every bit as good as your typical pressed record when even at their best they have some pretty apparent sonic issues, which he doesn’t even realize he’s hearing and insists everything is fine.

He has a responsibility as someone who has built an audience who look to him as someone who is presumably knowledgable, not to spread this sort of conjecture in a way that makes it appear factual.

He recently started a label, but now this video makes me start to question things, like who QCs his test pressings? I would seriously get a second set of trusted ears on any future projects. It’s not enough to make a noise that resembles the original input. He’s very passionate about this whole vinyl thing and I fully support that desire to learn and grow, but... he’s just not there yet, and this video is more or less announcing that loud and clear.

According to Matt’s response to my comment, the dude cutting these seems to be pretty proud of the fact that they haven’t changed their stylus in 8 years. So, I guess there’s your answer

 

That's the problem with social media. Anyone can start a channel and hype themselves up as a self-appointed guru. I wonder if anyone watching his channel now remembers what it was like before he changed the name?

No kidding.

 

Here's the said clip that @patient_ot mentioned: https://www.littleelephantcustomvinyl.com/sample-cuts

From the samples, I can hear splattering sibilance and distortion in the Bruce Springsteen track. The second song by Presidential Decree sounds like a 16-bit, 44.1KHz 96kbps MP3 file.

He's probably one of quite a few people who cannot discern wow and flutter to the ears. Same thing that caused quite a ruckus in the Tone Poet wow/flutter thread in the Music Forum.

Personally, I am not a fan of TMR for other reasons and that video is also proof why I stay away from many vinyl-related YouTube channels.

 

Maybe it would correct it.

 

If I record an all-analogue LP, onto my computer, and then burn it onto a CD, isn't it digitally-transferred, but still an analogue-mastered recording?

 

So the sole act of converting analogue-to-digital, is considered "mastering"?

 

That doesnt seem right.

 

In this case (like in the real old days), the record was a blank and the cutting lathe cut the music (or speech) into the blank record as a one off. These record making machines were sometimes found at state or county fairs. You paid a fee, sat in a booth and did your thing while the recording machine cut the results onto the blank disc. This way, they could take the newly "mastered" record home with them and play it on their home record player.

 

Right, I have a few of those dating back to the 40’s/50’s. But in the old days you’d actually have those cut into a cardboard disc coated with laqcuer, if not an actual lacquer disc.

The whole cutting directly into polycarbonate thing is a fairly modern trend I’ve only seen become a prominent thing within the past 10 years or so. That is what is generally referred to by the term “lathe cut”

 

Regardless of the quality of a lathe cut's sound, does it hurt the needles in which it is played on? If I were to buy a lathe cut, would I be better off getting a special or cheap needle I don't care much for?

 

These are also known as vinyl dubs. They really don’t sound as bad as you’d think when done by someone who knows what they’re doing.

They’ve become quite popular in the DJ scene as a long lasting alternative to a standard dubplate, I have bought a few over the years so I could mix unreleased tunes on my turntables. Cutting a single track on a 12” they have surprisingly good dynamics.

I got mine cut at a place called dubstudio in the UK, they do acetates too.

 

I am not convinced that they are as safe for your stylus as a conventionally pressed vinyl record, but how often is anyone really gonna spin one of these? The occasional playback every now and then isn’t really going to hurt anything.