Ever wondered how are vinyl records made? Do you know what it means when we say the records are pressed? Demand for Vinyl records has been growing in the recent year due to renewed interest in this analog medium of music. With more and more bands releasing music on vinyl, the demand for this will keep growing. In this blog post, I’ll walk you through the steps on how vinyl records are made.
The process to release a music album on vinyl consists of 4 steps:
- Cutting the Master Lacquer Disc
- Creating the Metal Stamper
- Pressing the Record
- Packing and Shipping
Cutting the Master Lacquer Disc
The first step is to record your music (Of course!). You could do it in a professional studio or use a home music studio app like Garageband to record your song. Once the master track is ready, you would send it to a sound engineer in a music studio. Using pro tools the sound engineer will master the track for vinyl playback.
Once satisfied with the sound, they send it to a machine connected to the cutting lathe. The cutting lathe uses a sharp ruby chisel which vibrates as the song plays and cuts grooves on a lacquer disc called Master Lacquer Disc . The room is soundproof as sound can impact the writing process thereby affecting the sound.
Once the disc is written, it is carefully examined (sometimes using a microscope) for any defects. It is ready to be packed and shipped for the next step
Creating the Metal Stamper
The Master Lacquer Disc acts as a mold used to create the master stamp called Metal Stamper. Each metal stamper can stamp 100,000 records.
The master disc is first washed with chemicals and then sprayed with a layer of silver. Next, the disc is dipped into a nickel bath. The nickel sticks to the silver by a chemical process called Electroplating thereby making the outer coat very strong.
The silver layer is then pulled apart into what looks like a mirror image of the lacquer disc. This is the stamper and called Metal Stamper. The Metal Stamper has ridges while the lacquer disc has grooves. The stamper is then polished and sanded into perfect shape to fit into the record pressing machine.
Pressing the Record
Next, the Metal Stamper is sent to the pressing plant to make the actual records. The material used to make the actual vinyl record is Polyvinyl Chloride. Pellets of Polyvinyl Chloride run through tubes and get heated with steam to make them molten.
They are then shaped into a hockey puck shaped gooey form called a “Biscuit“. The biscuit gets placed between the stamper discs on the press. Before pressing, the round labels are placed on either side of the biscuit. The stamper is then pressed against the biscuit at about 2000 psi at a very high temperature.
The biscuit gets flattened into a thin blade and cooled down immediately which makes it hard. Excess vinyl is then shaved off for reuse. The vinyls are then stacked on a spindle and ready for quality control.
Packing and Shipping
The records are quality inspected by QC (Quality Control) engineers for any warping, ticks and pops. Once they approve it, the records are ready for packing and shipping. The records are usually hand packed into inner sleeves and heavier cardboard jacket. They are then shrink wrapped and packed for shipping to your local record store.
Vinylgeddon
Apollo Masters Corp and MDC in Japan are the only 2 manufactures of the lacquer discs needed to assemble master plates for pressing. The facility in Banning, California produced about 70 to 85 percent of the lacquer plates used in vinyl production.
In February 2020, Apollo Masters Corp, caught fire and burned down. The fire at Apollo Masters Corp has been a huge blow to the vinyl production companies. Alternatives like Direct Metal Mastering using copper discs are being considered in the wake of this fire and reduce dependency on lacquer discs. Time will tell how the Apollo Masters calamity will affect the vinyl industry.
