Cut your own vinyl?

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springwood64
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Cut your own vinyl?

Post by springwood64 »

I'm exploring creating one-off vinyl pressings of music that's only available on digital.

Anyone used a service to do this?

For example: "Vinyl Carvers"
Pete

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Re: Cut your own vinyl?

Post by sktn77a »

How are you thinking of doing this?
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Re: Cut your own vinyl?

Post by springwood64 »

Some services will do a one-off vinyl cut for approx £35 for a 12" disc with 20 minutes either side (https://vinylcarvers.com/faq/)

You upload digital media and artwork and they do the rest.
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Re: Cut your own vinyl?

Post by sktn77a »

Cool, didn't know anyone was doing this!
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Re: Cut your own vinyl?

Post by donuk »

Why would one want to do this? Why not just get a DAC and listen to the original file?

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Re: Cut your own vinyl?

Post by springwood64 »

donuk wrote: 2021-01-25 23:57 Why would one want to do this? Why not just get a DAC and listen to the original file?

Donuk
Well I find my turntable more enjoyable than digital, tho I still enjoy digital, so I am curious. Would a vinyl cut of the same digital source also be more fun?

I've recently bought vinyl pressings of music I have previously only heard on digital and been impressed at how much more I enjoy it on vinyl.
Pete

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Re: Cut your own vinyl?

Post by donuk »

I think you open up some interesting points Springwood.

I hold perhaps a minority view in these parts the vinyl and turntables add something pleasant to the sound of music.

Converting a signal into the physical domain and converting it back again improves the perceived sound. It gives you a great opportunity to mess around with it.
Which is why some turntables need a lot of setting up and sound different if you set them in different wooden boxes and adjust the springs beneficially.

Maybe they are really just subtle echo boxes and which pleasantly colour the signals. And I love them too.

Nearly all music recordings since the 1980s have been made digitally. Someone has had to put them through a DAC to drive a cutting lathe. I maintain that the recordings are more true to life at that point and can never get closer to the sound that was in the studio when they were recorded. And some turntables have the ability to make them sound more musical.

Minority view perhaps which probably is not worth further debate.

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Re: Cut your own vinyl?

Post by dasher »

An interesting point Don, that converting from one domain to another does something pleasant to the sound. It's definitely not just applicable to vinyl and turntables though. I find that taking a Hi Res file transferring it to tape at 15ips also gives me perception of a more pleasant listen. I tend to make a straight recording - nothing in the path - but I do have control of the dB level of course. Interestingly I don't hear the same thing when going for vinyl to tape - I get a very close copy of the original, but then I have the machine set up to do this (it isn't primarily used to convert from digital).
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Re: Cut your own vinyl?

Post by springwood64 »

A bit more research makes me think that this is probably not worth the experiment as all the information I've found so far suggests the quality of lathe cut vinyl is not as good as factory pressed.

Here's an example from 'One Cut Vinyl':
There are several small differences with factory pressed vinyl:

One Cut Vinyl cuts straight to disc with specially adapted vinyl lathe cutters and analogue outboard. Naturally, physically carving a copy of a digital file onto a durable vinyl disc can never be a 100% perfect transition – so this is not a hi-fidelity, audiophile option. For example, lathe cut vinyl does tend to be quieter, and have a higher noise floor than the traditional acetate/pressed vinyl method.
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Re: Cut your own vinyl?

Post by Catweazle »

An interesting discussion, which I just came across. Personally - and being a victim of my scientific education, maybe - I strongly trust the 'source first' principle. Consequently, if a LP from a digital source sounds different, either your digital playback system is significantly worse, than your analog playback system, or you have lost information in the transfer process, and prefer the degraded sound for whatever reason. In this case I don't see how the tune could have improved. Maybe it sounds more "audiophile", which we dismiss as "better" according to this forum's rules.

In commercial recordings usually different master tapes have been used for LP production, and digital copies. This is the most likely reason, why they may sound different, and either one, or the other, can reproduce the source - aka: the music - more truthfully.

I hope it's ok to share this link (elsewise apologies to Fredrik, and please delete the link) which provides insights into the various challenges to produce a record from an original master tape, and what the term master tape means in the first place
https://pure-analogue.com/

"If it sounds better, it is better" a Glaswegian guy once said. But I doubt that a LP produced from your digital source has any chance to sound better than its source.
Last edited by Catweazle on 2022-01-09 15:00, edited 4 times in total.
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springwood64
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Re: Cut your own vinyl?

Post by springwood64 »

Thanks for the link to a fascinating website. I now know a little more about the process of turning music into vinyl, and I'm now motivated even more to cherish my original LPs. The modern process seems to rely alarmingly on rare expensive and deteriorating equipment
Pete

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Re: Cut your own vinyl?

Post by matthias »

springwood64 wrote: 2021-01-26 08:27 Well I find my turntable more enjoyable than digital...
Just a question Pete:
Did you listen to Källa?
I did not yet, but there are so much impressions here that digital might be at least as enjoyable as turntables.
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Re: Cut your own vinyl?

Post by springwood64 »

matthias wrote: 2022-01-09 15:16 Did you listen to Källa?
Not yet, but I plan to later this year. Currently re-stocking the treasure chest...

Also, I have managed to tune my digital replay so that now it is on an equal footing with my turntable. Consequently I'm happy to play either vinyl or digital now.
Pete

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Re: Cut your own vinyl?

Post by Tony Tune-age »

springwood64 wrote: 2022-01-09 14:47 Thanks for the link to a fascinating website. I now know a little more about the process of turning music into vinyl, and I'm now motivated even more to cherish my original LPs. The modern process seems to rely alarmingly on rare expensive and deteriorating equipment
I really appreciate the website posted by Catweazle too. And needless to say, I learned a little more as well Springwood.

Cheers
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Re: Cut your own vinyl?

Post by Lego »

A friend of mine Gordon who owned a record shop called Fopp claimed that a lot of vinyl he sold was cut from CD .If these records sound better than equivalent CD there's something seriously wrong somewhere.
I know that tune
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