If you are thinking of going crazy and cutting lots of records, you could buy the equipment to do it yourself at this site:

http://www.vinylrecorder.net/home.asp

I know the guy behind this site. He is local to mpls and I think he cuts alot of dub plates for people locally, but it would probably be cheaper to get them cut somewhere in Australia if you are only doing this for one or a few tracks.

where are you located?

Yeah those home record cutting machines are cool, vestax also make a complete machine, far to expensive for my wallet tho

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How much effort do you want to go to?

By which I mean there are a ton of services which you send them a DAT or CD and you get back a stack of records.

If you go this route, be aware as in everything some services are great and some are not so great. Get some testamonials and ideally some pressings from them to hear what they can do.

The downside is you have zero control over the mastering process. Given that if I'm at the stage that something's getting pressed I'm pretty keen on making sure it gets out with the best possible quality so I do it the hard way..

Which is to find a local (or not so local if you are prepared to travel)mastering suite & Engineer with a cutter. Here it's all about reputation, familiarity with the style of music you are trying to get cut, and the cutting machine.

I've been to several in the UK, and eventually settled on one that I love the results from. I trust the engineer so much I'm happy to send my stuff there to be mastered unattended. I've also had some horrible (and consequentially expensive!) results from well respected places.

The main reasons were:

1. Mastering Engineer not familiar with Trance and tries to make it "Pop Music". WRONG! This is your most likely problem with unattended mastering.

2. Poorly maintained, or badly specified cutter. This is a disaster as it's the final step before the masters go to the pressing plant. A misalignment, a poorly functioning or under powered amp, or a worn head and you may as well not bother.

Every "Respectable" mastering place I've been to uses a Neumann Lathe (cutter) with various amounts of upgrades and modifications. Given that these were last made a very long time ago good maintanence is key.

As for what gets cut you have a couple of options...

1. Dub plate. these usually are quite "quiet" pressings, as the coating is too soft to hold a deep cut. They also wear out very very quickly.

In a club with a decent sound system you can really notice a degredation in quality after 7-8 plays. It starts as a loss of high frequency, and migrates through crackles and pops down to garbage. At about 12 or so I normally wouldn't feel comfortable with the quality to continue useing it.

They're also very fragile. If you cue up put the needle on at the start and wind through. Don't drop the needle on the record where there is music. You WILL leave a click there permanently as the diamond needle nicks the soft acetate.

Consequentially they're expensive consumables (around £60 each in the UK last time I did one). A tip with them, if you are going to use them is to get the same track cut on both sides and mark off each play with a sharpie. Usually they'll let you do this for a minimal charge as they don't have to go through the mastering eqing and compression work again, it's simply a recut. Also when the engineer is cutting ask (and again pay for!) a dat to be run off, so if the dub [plate sounds geat you have a mastered copy that can be reused down the line or laquers without another mastering session (ie a little cash up front can save $$ later)

In general these days with people becoming more CD and computer based DJing friendly unless you reallly asolutely positively have to have it able to play on a turntable I'd attempt to stay away from them.

That said one dubplate is much cheaper than a run of 500 records, and if your track doesn't go down well you've saved money. BUT, if you're confident enough to cuting it to dubplate, why are you hesitating?

2. Laquers. these are 14" for a normal 12" record. The lathe cuts a positive, this laquer then goes to the pressing plant and is destroyed as part of the process of making the moulds for the records. Getting the moulds made is fairly expensive, but then once they're done you can make multiple runs. 500 initial, if it's successful another batch and so on.

One track I did (My first actually), I got the intial run done and had the plant hang onto the mould (usually a fee for this). What's interesting is that if you are this far you seriously INCREASE your chances of getting signed, as if you've managed to sell a bunch of records (Hint, make them all white labels and call them "test pressings") then a label's expense in getting a tack out will be much lower (ie re-run, marketing and distribution costs) as you have already covered most of the upfront costs. Not only that, you've proven that the track works in a club (if you have appropriate react sheets etc).

It also means you'll see money back faster as if you get an advance for a track he label has to recover it's money + a bunch of accounting gimmick money before you see anything else, if ever.

3. DTM plate. DTM stands for Direct To Metal. This requires a specialized head and produces higher quality records than regular laquers, but is much harder to find somewhere that does it. It's also more expensive, and unless you're producing audiophile vinyl I personally think it's overkill for trance and dance music in general. if you get a good deal on it though it's a good option.

The vestax cutter and anything else that isn't a Neumann generally are to be avoided. There ae lots of promises of improvemetns over the aboe, but millions of records produced in the above manner speak for themselves.

One last point (though the mastering engineer should tell you this). A 45 rpm cut has better quality than a 33 as there is more vinyl per second, which gives better resolution. This comes at the expense of play time though. If you are cuting a single rack per side, 33 can give you a louder pressing though as the grooves can be spaced further apart. Horses for courses, and should discussed on a case by case basis with the engineer.

Also for maximum quality, and loudness (also ease of DJing, which is important as difficult to use tracks and records get dropped from sets) wherever possible resist the temptation to cut more than one track per side. It may save a little money but you will regret it later for sure.

Finally, nothing beats standing in a mastering suite and watching your track literally be cut onto a record. It is a very special moment and one you won't forget.

What ever options you choose good luck, it really is a major step to get that far.

Of course you have to sell it then, but that's another story!

That was an excellent post, thanks for the info!

Rikki

Diginerd, thanks for your response.
I am not actually at the point of releasing tracks, it's just that I have looked at a few sites that do pressing, amd i figured how do you know who is good? obviously they all say they are the best, so like you said, someone with experience with the right style of tunes is helpful (hence my inital post).

You wouldn't like to name who you use by any chance? Myself and probably others too would be interested.

i heard the Vestax cutters leave a high noise floor, so avoid them.
As for dubplates, I think there is probably no need for them now coz you can just use a CD, but i still like the idea of using Vinyl in a set.
For those interested, this is a site explaining how a record is made
http://eil.com/explore/guide/vinyl_making.asp

As far as i am aware there is only one press in Australia, and i read somewhere it is quetionable how good the results are.

Porky's Mastering in central London. The place is a legend, it's totally tuned in to trance (and actually most other types of dance too), and has a great setup (If not as outwardly flashy as others I've seen).

They also have a Fairchild 670 compressor (The real 100lb monster) and have mastered many records by many people much better than me.

Anyway they're my pick, though I've heard great things about Masterpiece too.

I'm not going to name the places I didn't get on with though...

As for manufacturing it's been a while since I handled getting anything made. I'm sure someone else can chip in. The big thing is mastering though, pressing depends on the laquers. Good laquers is 90% of the battle.

Thanx for your input.

quote:

Originally posted by Diginerd Porky's Mastering in central London. The place is a legend, it's totally tuned in to trance (and actually most other types of dance too), and has a great setup (If not as outwardly flashy as others I've seen). They also have a Fairchild 670 compressor (The real 100lb monster) and have mastered many records by many people much better than me. Anyway they're my pick, though I've heard great things about Masterpiece too.

Porkys will always be my choice..... had nothing but good experiences with them.