Definitive Audiophile pressings

TenderLovingKiller® said:
Also, I missed the “Box Elder” lyric debate. That sounds like fun though attempting to suss out where the heck Malkmus is heading at the end of the song?

The correct answers is anywhere but here, but Box Elder is in Montana. I am sure SM knows this I assume he just liked how “MO” sounded as opposed to “MT” and since it doesn’t really matter he went with the abbreviation that rolled off the tongue better.
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You summed it up well, although some think it might be M.O. as in modus operandi. I agree that MO sounds much better than MT, but my theory is Malkmus mistakenly thought the abbreviation for Montana is MO
 
OMC said:
Google Mickey Owens as sheriff not baseball player. He was both but I was around during his redneck sheriff days in Springfield. My dad participated in his baseball camps and went on to be a NY Yankees prospect. I, on the other hand, was a deplorable liberal college student during Mickey’s reign as sheriff. To repeat, I wouldn’t change that for anything.
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Wow, he had quite a career, thanks for sharing that bit of Springfield history.

Here's my favorite Springfield story, which I learned about because of Cobra Scare, a delicious beer made by a local brewery
www.atlasobscura.com

Missouri's Great Escaped Snake Scare of 1953

Between August and October, residents of Springfield fought off cobras with garden hoes.
www.atlasobscura.com www.atlasobscura.com
 
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Can someone explain to me why you can't get so many units out of a master tape?

Have it put it together correctly with this understanding of it:

-Master Tape is run through to cut a lacquer.
-the lacquer is used to make a stamper (metal) that will press the records.
-the lacquer can only be used once as it likely gets destroyed in making the metal.
-the stampers can only be used 1000 times (best practice?)

How do other labels that have done more than 1000 units managed this? are they running the master tape again? For example where Tone Poets are doing a repress of popular titles - also some Tone Poet runs have been 3000+ so how are they doing this?
 
uvwxVinyl said:
Can someone explain to me why you can't get so many units out of a master tape?

Have it put it together correctly with this understanding of it:

-Master Tape is run through to cut a lacquer.
-the lacquer is used to make a stamper (metal) that will press the records.
-the lacquer can only be used once as it likely gets destroyed in making the metal.
-the stampers can only be used 1000 times (best practice?)

How do other labels that have done more than 1000 units managed this? are they running the master tape again? For example where Tone Poets are doing a repress of popular titles - also some Tone Poet runs have been 3000+ so how are they doing this?
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They make copies of the stamper and press more than 1000 per. So instead of using the original metal master to press, they copy that into multiple stampers.

4687_zzZ.jpg
 
Hemotep said:
They make copies of the stamper and press more than 1000 per. So instead of using the original metal master to press, they copy that into multiple stampers.

4687_zzZ.jpg
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I figured they must be making copies of the Stamper for the additional runs.

So why is this a bad thing? The stampers, although copies, are still from the original master tapes and I don't see a digital step in making copies of them.
 
How far back in this chain do they go to create those multiple stampers? Do they all come from the same mother? Do they go back to the metal master to create additional mothers, and create the additional stampers from there? The lacquer has limited use, right? It's not being used multiple times if it has come directly from the master tape, is it? (Because we assume the master tape is being used only once?)
Hemotep said:
They make copies of the stamper and press more than 1000 per. So instead of using the original metal master to press, they copy that into multiple stampers.

4687_zzZ.jpg
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Russ I said:
According to Mobile Fidelity, it's an issue of "generational loss":

View attachment 146810
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The lacquer can only be used once, but I'm not sure if they make multiple mothers from the father that can then each make multiple stampers, or if they just use one mother to make a ton of stampers. I'm also not sure how many they can make off of each because I've never found that info in my searches. But I'm sure someone on here knows way more than me since I've only read a few sites and watched a couple of videos.
 
uvwxVinyl said:
Aha! So this is actually just controversial specific to one step/ultradiscs from MoFi. Since they don't deal with mothers/father's like in a traditional sense they're alleging that the convert must be digital?
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I think the basic idea is that to do what MoFi purports to do with one-steps, working from the master tape, they'd have to go back to that tape each time they want to press another 1,000 records, because they'd need a new lacquer to create a new 'convert' (in their terms). Since going back to the tape 40 times (for Thriller's 40,000 run) is arguably impossible, there has to be another way, which we now have reason to believe is creating a DSD file from the master tape, and working from that DSD file each time a new lacquer is needed.

So it's not that the convert is digital, it's that there is a step being added between the master tape and the lacquer, and that step is digital.

Master Tape ---> DSD copy ---> Lacquer ---> Convert ---> Vinyl

In this way, the master tape is preserved after its initial (single) use, and each lacquer should be identical, with no "generational loss" in the process of creating as many of them as desired.
 
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Russ I said:
I think it's the basic idea is that to do what MoFi purports to do with one-steps, working from the master tape, they'd have to go back to that tape each time they want to press 1,000 records, because they'd need a new lacquer to create a new 'convert' (in their terms). Since going back to the tape 40 times (for Thriller's 40,000 run) is arguably impossible, there has to be another way, which we now have reason to believe is creating a DSD file from the master tape, and working from that DSD file each time a new lacquer is needed.

So it's not the convert that's digital, it that there's a step being added between the master tape and the lacquer, and that step is digital.

Master Tape ---> DSD copy ---> Lacquer ---> Convert ---> Vinyl
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That makes sense.

I just remember in that video he was saying *everything* they've done going back to 2015 (?) has been digital. I'm wondering if this would have applied to their non-one steps since those could have probably still utilized a traditional process.
 
uvwxVinyl said:
That makes sense.

I just remember in that video he was saying *everything* they've done going back to 2015 (?) has been digital. I'm wondering if this would have applied to their non-one steps since those could have probably still utilized a traditional process.
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Yeah, I don't think they were talking about just the one-steps. Seems it was as much about finding solutions for working with master tapes that were imperfect as it was about meeting the demands of the one-step process. At least that was my take from watching that video with the MoFi engineers.
 
Russ I said:
I think the basic idea is that to do what MoFi purports to do with one-steps, working from the master tape, they'd have to go back to that tape each time they want to press another 1,000 records, because they'd need a new lacquer to create a new 'convert' (in their terms). Since going back to the tape 40 times (for Thriller's 40,000 run) is arguably impossible, there has to be another way, which we now have reason to believe is creating a DSD file from the master tape, and working from that DSD file each time a new lacquer is needed.

So it's not that the convert is digital, it's that there is a step being added between the master tape and the lacquer, and that step is digital.

Master Tape ---> DSD copy ---> Lacquer ---> Convert ---> Vinyl

In this way, the master tape is preserved after its initial (single) use, and each lacquer should be identical, with no "generational loss" in the process of creating as many of them as desired.
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It’s not we have reason to believe, the mastering engineers said it.
 
Russ I said:
How far back in this chain do they go to create those multiple stampers? Do they all come from the same mother? Do they go back to the metal master to create additional mothers, and create the additional stampers from there? The lacquer has limited use, right? It's not being used multiple times if it has come directly from the master tape, is it? (Because we assume the master tape is being used only once?)
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You can only get one father (traditional) or convert/stamper (one step) from a lacquer. Lacquer is really fragile and the process of making the stamper/convert from it destroys it.

That’s kinda why with 40,000 triller one steps people began to wonder what the deal was because that’s at least 40 lacquers so at least 40 spins of the original master tapes without the digitisation of the master tapes. That seemed a big ask for master tapes which themselves are fragile and prone to degradation each time they’re used.
 
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