"Iain Churches" wrote in message
i...


"Serge Auckland" wrote in message
...

Anyone care to comment on what the download tells us?

I would imagine that the pressing quality is rather better now than it
was in the '70s. If nothing else, having guards round the presses
should help to keep dust down. Health and Safety sometimes is of more
use than just the obvious.

The download is a 5'30" BBC programme "Working Lunch" which visits the
old
EMI pressing factory, now under new ownership. The owner says that the
vinyl market is steady, showing no growth, but no signs of going away.
Also says that it's very much a niche market for collectors who like the
tactile nature of an LP and owning something tangible. The programme also
makes the comment that for some people, CDs have never come up to LP
standards of sound quality, which is why I suspect Keith had it on his
web
site.

Back in the '70s, I visited the CBS pressing plant in Aylesbury a few
times and was not very impressed by the obvious lack of care and quality
control taking place. LPs were pulled off the presses when still very
soft
and so warps were almost certain, all to save a few seconds in the
cooling
cycle and get higher production speeds. There were no guards round the
presses then, and dust was a constant problem, but seemingly totally
ignored. I have no idea if EMI were the same, but I would be surprised
if
they weren't.


Seeing this all again brought back memories. I visited the EMI factory
many times in the 1970s. In fact there was little difference between the
EMI, CBS and Decca factories. I also paid a visit to the old Saga factory
at Kensal Rise, and the factory of Charles Rumble (yes really!) down in
sunny Surrey.

In those days, the length of the press cycle was dictated by the record
being pressed. Decca full-price classical, cat SXL...... were turned out
more slowly that most on virgin vinyl. I suspect that QC was also higher.
But still, production was "brisk"

Now, there seems to be no use of recycled vinyl in the EU, even in
Czech and Baltic factories. The Russian plants too seem to be making
a special effort.

An important part of vinyl marketing is the sleeve. The Ray Charles/
Count Basie LP is a good example -a wonderfully presented gatefold
sleeve with an additional insert, packed with background information
about the artists and this particular project. The double LP, on 180gr
vinyl lived up to my expectations - not a click or a crackle on any
of the four sides. It is a truly wonderful listening experience.

It was interesting to compare this excellent production with the CD
version which appeared some months later. The CD had 4-6dB
compression, pushing the vocal back into the orchestra. Quite a
disappointment - although not totally unexpected. Ya see, louder
is better:-)

Regards

Iain




Oh the irony of it, that the one medium that has (for audio at least)
virtually unlimited dynamic range is now cursed with
compression/limiting/clipping to make it sound louder than the old limited
dynamic range media we knew and loved!

S.
--
http://audiopages.googlepages.com

"Serge Auckland" wrote in message
...

"Iain Churches" wrote in message
i...


"Serge Auckland" wrote in message
...

Anyone care to comment on what the download tells us?

I would imagine that the pressing quality is rather better now than it
was in the '70s. If nothing else, having guards round the presses
should help to keep dust down. Health and Safety sometimes is of more
use than just the obvious.

The download is a 5'30" BBC programme "Working Lunch" which visits the
old
EMI pressing factory, now under new ownership. The owner says that the
vinyl market is steady, showing no growth, but no signs of going away.
Also says that it's very much a niche market for collectors who like the
tactile nature of an LP and owning something tangible. The programme
also
makes the comment that for some people, CDs have never come up to LP
standards of sound quality, which is why I suspect Keith had it on his
web
site.

Back in the '70s, I visited the CBS pressing plant in Aylesbury a few
times and was not very impressed by the obvious lack of care and quality
control taking place. LPs were pulled off the presses when still very
soft
and so warps were almost certain, all to save a few seconds in the
cooling
cycle and get higher production speeds. There were no guards round the
presses then, and dust was a constant problem, but seemingly totally
ignored. I have no idea if EMI were the same, but I would be surprised
if
they weren't.


Seeing this all again brought back memories. I visited the EMI factory
many times in the 1970s. In fact there was little difference between the
EMI, CBS and Decca factories. I also paid a visit to the old Saga
factory
at Kensal Rise, and the factory of Charles Rumble (yes really!) down in
sunny Surrey.

In those days, the length of the press cycle was dictated by the record
being pressed. Decca full-price classical, cat SXL...... were turned out
more slowly that most on virgin vinyl. I suspect that QC was also
higher.
But still, production was "brisk"

Now, there seems to be no use of recycled vinyl in the EU, even in
Czech and Baltic factories. The Russian plants too seem to be making
a special effort.

An important part of vinyl marketing is the sleeve. The Ray Charles/
Count Basie LP is a good example -a wonderfully presented gatefold
sleeve with an additional insert, packed with background information
about the artists and this particular project. The double LP, on 180gr
vinyl lived up to my expectations - not a click or a crackle on any
of the four sides. It is a truly wonderful listening experience.

It was interesting to compare this excellent production with the CD
version which appeared some months later. The CD had 4-6dB
compression, pushing the vocal back into the orchestra. Quite a
disappointment - although not totally unexpected. Ya see, louder
is better:-)


Oh the irony of it, that the one medium that has (for audio at least)
virtually unlimited dynamic range is now cursed with
compression/limiting/clipping to make it sound louder than the old limited
dynamic range media we knew and loved!


Indeed. An enigma :-)

As far as I know, there are still no recordings
commercially available that have a dynamic range
of 80dB, so CD would seem to be the perfect medium.

A pal of mine regularly checks the dynamic range of chart material
and tells me that 10 to 12dB is not uncommon. During broadcasting
the "excesses" are of course compressed!

No wonder people get the impression that vinyl is a better
medium than CD!

Iain

In article ,
Iain Churches wrote:
Seeing this all again brought back memories. I visited the EMI factory
many times in the 1970s. In fact there was little difference between
the EMI, CBS and Decca factories. I also paid a visit to the old Saga
factory at Kensal Rise, and the factory of Charles Rumble (yes really!)
down in sunny Surrey.

In the '60s a pal of mine who was a trainee cameraman at the BBC got the
chop. Dunno why as he appeared pretty promising at his job, and a nice
chap to boot. I'd guess a personality clash on his crew or whatever.

He then got a night shift job doing pretty well everything at Saga -
certainly the pressing, but I'm not sure about cutting.

His name was Reg Smythe. Often wondered what happened to him - I moved out
of the house in Westbourne Park Villas which was near totally occupied by
BBC types.

--
*Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Tue, 20 May 2008 19:19:47 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article ,
Iain Churches wrote:
Seeing this all again brought back memories. I visited the EMI factory
many times in the 1970s. In fact there was little difference between
the EMI, CBS and Decca factories. I also paid a visit to the old Saga
factory at Kensal Rise, and the factory of Charles Rumble (yes really!)
down in sunny Surrey.

In the '60s a pal of mine who was a trainee cameraman at the BBC got the
chop. Dunno why as he appeared pretty promising at his job, and a nice
chap to boot. I'd guess a personality clash on his crew or whatever.

He then got a night shift job doing pretty well everything at Saga -
certainly the pressing, but I'm not sure about cutting.

His name was Reg Smythe. Often wondered what happened to him - I moved out
of the house in Westbourne Park Villas which was near totally occupied by
BBC types.

Didn't he get a more lucrative job drawing Andy Capp cartoons?

d

--
Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Iain Churches wrote:
Seeing this all again brought back memories. I visited the EMI factory
many times in the 1970s. In fact there was little difference between
the EMI, CBS and Decca factories. I also paid a visit to the old Saga
factory at Kensal Rise, and the factory of Charles Rumble (yes really!)
down in sunny Surrey.

In the '60s a pal of mine who was a trainee cameraman at the BBC got the
chop. Dunno why as he appeared pretty promising at his job, and a nice
chap to boot. I'd guess a personality clash on his crew or whatever.

He then got a night shift job doing pretty well everything at Saga -
certainly the pressing, but I'm not sure about cutting.

Cutting was not done at Kensal Rise. Saga used independent cutting
facilities like Recorded Productions Ltd, before they got their own lathe
at the studios at Maresfield Gardens. Their recording engineer was
indeed a BBC sound man, Richard (can't recall his second name) He
moved to the North later on, IIRC. My brother, in a freelance capacity
produced several albums for Saga in their military and brass band series.


His name was Reg Smythe. Often wondered what happened to him - I moved out
of the house in Westbourne Park Villas which was near totally occupied by
BBC types.

He probably went on to great things. Many ex BBC people did.

Iain

"Serge Auckland" wrote in message
...


Interestingly, the musiccassette production line showed more care being
taken than the LP lines. Perhaps being newer they were more automated,
consequently there was less scope for human screw-ups. They did seem to
take line-up of the duplicators quite seriously, and there was a time when
I thought that cassettes would end up better than LP. I bought a couple of
real-time in-cassette duplicated tapes and remember being very impressed,
but these never caught on. Sadly Dolby C duplication never got going,
perhaps because line-up was much more critical than Dolby B, perhaps
because the Public never understood Dolby processing and because CD was
due soon.


In the 1970s I briefly flirted with buying pre-recorded cassettes having
become totally disillusioned with the generally poor pressing quality of
LPs. Some were amazingly good, but the general standard left a lot to be
desired so I gave up.

Recently whilst clearing out my late father's effects I came across a couple
of 7.5 ips half-track mono Saga pre-recorded open reel tapes which he had
bought in the '50s. I had remembered these tapes as being of really
excellent quality, so it came as something of a disappointment when I played
them - a generally dull sound with plenty of superimposed clicks etc. A
combination of the relatively poor tape quality of the time, having been
played rather too often on tape recorders who's state of maintenance left
quite a lot to be desired, plus plain old age I guess (and maybe my memory
was fooling me a bit too).

Curiously on one of these tapes, of the Grieg Piano Concerto in A minor, the
first side ran for several minutes less than the second. So rather than make
the listener fast wind off to the end before turning the tape over, the
piece started several minutes into the tape. You could start the tape
playing from the beginning and almost have forgotten it was running when you
were startled by the flourish at the start of the piece, odd.

David.