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Dubplate one dance1/17/2024 But a nickel disk is much harder than both a vinyl record and a master lacquer disk. It is not that the metal mother contains more information it most probably contains a bit less. Which brings us back to the paradox of the metal mother sounding better than the master disk it was produced from. This is where low vertical tracking force and a line contact stylus (which maximizes the area of contact between stylus and groove, reducing the PSI for a given value of VTF) come in handy. The grooves of a vinyl record hide within them much more information than what we can ever extract out of them. However, the elastic and plastic deformation effects are still present, which is one of the major differences one can notice between the vinyl compounds used by different pressing plants, especially if, like me, you regularly get to compare the same master pressed at different pressing plants using different vinyl compound formulations. The final product, the vinyl record, is a much stronger, more durable material than a lacquer disk. The effect of this elastic and plastic deformation under the playback stylus is a reduction in the stylus’s ability to resolve fine detail. Just think in terms of pounds per square inch (PSI). Even though the vertical tracking force is relatively low, even perhaps as low as 1.5 grams, the contact area of the stylus and groove is so small that the resulting point pressure is incredible. Ten playbacks are about as much as can be expected where sound quality matters.īut even more interestingly, apart from the permanent plastic deformation of the groove structure in the soft lacquer disk, temporary elastic deformation is also occurring, with the groove structure sort of collapsing under the stylus pressure while the disk is being played back. Even after a single playback, the quality has already degraded. Lacquer disks are extremely soft and fragile. Well, this is not about the information that is actually recorded onto the medium, but about the information that can be extracted out of it again upon playback. The metal mother simply sounds unbelievably better! Not only better than the final product, which is a few generation losses down the line, but also better than the lacquer test cut, which is upstream! However, the real shock came when I first got to listen to a metal mother made from my lacquer master, comparing this to both the test cut on lacquer and the final product. So, if the plating and pressing are done with due care at a reputable facility, the differences between the master and the final product will be very small. I have documented differences as low as 0.1 dB in spectral content over a bandwidth of 20 Hz to 20 kHz between a test cut on a lacquer and the final pressing. There is always a difference, but on a properly calibrated system, it can be kept small. I have spent countless hours listening to my own test cuts on lacquer, which I then compare to test pressings, and the final pressings that come back from the pressing plant. Regardless of the technology used, one of the challenges of the profession of a mastering engineer is to take test cuts to be played back on a regular turntable, to determine if the sound is as it should be. As a mastering engineer, I have always cut lacquer disks up to now. But in fact, there was something else about the idea of a DMM dubplate that had me drooling from excitement and I couldn’t wait to listen to it, my expectations already sky high.This is where my previous technical discussion of disk mastering technology becomes relevant. The fact that Günter Pauler is involved in this project (cutting a record directly to a metal disk) would have been enough on its own to get my attention. Which is a shiny new DMM (direct metal mastering) dubplate disk from Stockfisch Records right here in my hands, my name on its label! In the previous episode (Issue 147) we dived into my past encounter with the name of Günter Pauler, and we now come back to the present event.
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