Vinyl Quality & Colored Vinyl - GGR - Matt Earley

Scott Hull talks today with Matt Earley - VP of Gotta Groove Records.  The Topic today is vinyl quality control.  How do disk weight and disk color affect the quality of the record?
What steps do we take to create the best possible vinyl records? Are Colored records noisier than Black Vinyl?  Why 180 Gram records?

Want to make your own record? 
Team up with Masterdisk and Gotta Groove Records for some killer vinyl



Matt E. Earley
Gotta Groove Records, Inc.

WE WANT TO PRESS YOUR NEXT RECORD.
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www.gottagrooverecords.com

Music heard :
Artist - Ray Angry
Song -  Jake-Ism
Click to listen on Spotify :  Jake-ISM
Music mastered By Scott Hull @ masterdisk. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Hello everyone and welcome to Making Vindle at MasterDisc. I'm your host, Scott Hull, the chief engineer and owner of MasterDisc in New York. And today we've got a special guest. And uh I brought Matt on to talk about something that's um very important to me and very important to my clients. Um that's about vinyl quality and in general terms, what makes one record sound better than another, or one pressing sound better than another. So uh welcome, Matt. I'm really looking forward to talking to you about this.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Well, sure. Um we go back uh quite a ways. We've worked on a number of different projects together. Um, some easy ones, some difficult ones, um, some ones that uh seem like they would never get completed or approved, and others that went right through on the first pass. So um what from your point of view, what's important? What's most important?

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Well, you know, from a pressing perspective, our main focus is on the medium itself. So we we don't listen as much for things in the program material, for example, you know, distortion or certain frequencies and whatnot. Our focus is more on how quiet is the record? Is there uh background noise that we can adjust for at the point of pressing? Is there uh or are there pops and clicks in any spots? And are those related to something in pressing, or is it further up back the chain in plating, or even sometimes in the lacquer? And um a lot of our focus is on what can we do here to improve the sound uh quality of a given record. And like you said, you know, there's some records that fly right through, and we really don't have to do a whole lot of messing around at all. Uh, then there's other records that, you know, even just getting test pressings out the door can require multiple rounds, and then, you know, when we go to press the order can be even more challenging. And it's always a little bit hard to know in advance what you're getting yourself into until you're actually running the record. No, no two records run exactly the same, so um yeah, it's difficult to s there's some things you can see by looking at the stamper, but most of the time you're really flying blind until you actually start doing test pressings of a given record.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Yeah, that's that's that's that's actually what makes record making fun for me, but it's also very exasperating on a day-to-day basis. Um people people often ask me, you know, well, you got the greatest job in the world, and I go, Yeah, on a good day, it really is a lot of fun. Sure, sure. But there are times when you really wish, you know, the damn thing would just would would just get finished with without without problems. We we've talked a lot about quality on this podcast about the things that I do in cutting to optimize the quality of the groove and the level of the program material. And of course, we're we're subject to the whatever quality that is sent to us. Um but our but our job is to not introduce any other artifacts. And I that that's exactly what you said. That's my process as well. And for our listeners, um we we talk a lot about clicks and pops and ticks and all these sort of things. Can you break it down a little bit? What causes them?

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Well, there's a lot of different things, and and sometimes you don't you just don't know, you know, you you just you never get the opportunity to fully figure out exactly where one came from. Uh, I guess I should back up and say, you know, the way we view vinyl is it it's naturally an imperfect format. You know, we try to get records as perfect as they can be, but you're still within the limitations of a format that does have some natural tendencies to have imperfections. And it's becomes our QA folks' job to sort of um decide on what is something that is an issue, or what is something that's just not an issue, but a natural imperfection in a given record. Um fortunately, most of our QA folks have been with us for a really long time, so they have a pretty good handle on what sorts of things are non-passable versus passable. But it's hard to have a just a straight-line rule that applies to all records because you know, you could have a one-off tick in the middle of the most quiet, sparse, but has an important lyric in the middle of a track, and that could be the end of the world for that given record, or you could have the same level of tick in a really full loud rock record, and it's barely there unless you really are listening for it. And so in the latter, you know, we would probably go ahead and pass that record if there were no other problems, but in the former, we would probably go out of our way to figure out everything that could be done to either minimize or remove that tick. Um, as far as cause goes, you know, there's there's things that can be introduced in the pressing stage that cause noise. Rarely are they one-off ticks or pops. Uh, usually it's more about a uh a more sustained level of noise or or ticks, uh either related to molding issues like non-fill or stitching, um, which are both basically the the plastic, the vinyl itself is not perfectly molding into the shape of the grooves on each cycle, and that can introduce a variety of different noises. Umfill is probably the most common and probably the most identifiable by your listeners. Uh tends to be sort of crackly sounding. Um you can kind of see it on the face of the record in certain light. Uh stitching is a similar issue from a pressing perspective, but it sounds different. It's sort of like a zip type noise, and you actually can see it perpendicular to the grooves if you look in certain light on the face of the record. And um, those are the sorts of things that we are battling here to minimize or remove as altogether as much as possible on any given record. Uh the uh the outside edges of a record or the first tracks of a record tend to be the most susceptible to non-fill if a record is going to be susceptible to non-fill. Not all records are. Some records really run very well and you don't have to worry a whole lot about molding issues. But on more challenging records, if you're going to hear non-fill, most of the time you're going to hear it toward the outer edge of the record. Uh, stitching tends to happen farther in the record. Um, and there's some varying reasons for that, uh having to do with how records are made and how when they're being pressed and they started the biscuit, they're being pushed outward from the center of the molds. So essentially the edges of the record are getting the least amount of time being pressed, so to speak, whereas the middle part of the record is being pressed the longest. And there's adjustments that have to be made, both with regard to temperature in the different zones on the mold as well as cycle time, how long overall is each record being pressed, to sort of adjust for the various molding issues that can happen both on the inside and the outside of the record. Um, again, it there are many records. I would say probably at least half of the records that we do don't require a ton of adjustments to get right. But then there are plenty of records that you're you're really spending a lot of extra time uh figuring out what the best cycle times and what the best temperature zones are going to be on the mold to get it to sound right.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Yeah, that's that that's some really interesting stuff. Uh just how how detailed it is, even if you just extract one uh one uh issue there, the the temperature of the mold. You know, if we isolate everything else, so all the cutting and all the plating and all the other handling issues and the creation of that stamper, just just the actual uh temperature and cycle time and uh and and and how it uh I assume it really can come down to who's actually operating the press on any given day.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Well, yeah, and at least at our uh and every plant runs a little differently, but the way our plant works is um we have one QA person for every two presses, and they were working sort of as a team with the press operators. So uh, you know, particularly, I guess if we focus on when we're running test pressings is probably the best way to do it because when you're running test pressings, uh that requires the most finesse, and you're you're learning how each record that you run is is actually going to behave on the press. So there's a lot of communication back and forth between the press operators and the QA folks who are actually listening to the records and identifying where there may be issues that need to be addressed. Uh and then, you know, when you're running tests, if it's a challenging record, there could be a lot of running back and forth. There could even be some switching around running the tests on different machines to see if there's if if one particular record's having a lot of non-fill issues or it just has a lot of uh sometimes the the trimmers which trim the edges of flash off the records, sometimes those can introduce noise themselves. And when you're trying to isolate where exactly the problem's coming from, sometimes it's useful to switch it to another press and see if it behaves the same way. Most of the time it's not. Um sometimes it is, and then that becomes an even bigger challenge because you know it's it's exhibiting the exact same tendencies on both presses. Um sometimes then you have to go further up the chain and and check out the mother and see if maybe making another set of stampers will work because maybe there's something off about the weight of the stampers that you're using. And you know, it it can become a quite a tree with many branches depending on what variables there are, you know, and and how deep you're willing to look into the problem. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

The uh the stamper weight is an interesting issue. It's not to be confused with uh with the vinyl weight, which we'll talk about in a little bit uh longer. But when he's talking about uh the weight of the stamper, he means how much metal, how thick this and how heavy duty the stampers are, and you know, not only where are you worrying about uh uh issues of the stamper wearing out, but it's actually I assume there's issues with um how much of the you know vinyl has a tendency to stick to the particular stamper or how how well the stamper you know behaves in the uh in the uh in the press itself. While you were talking, I thought of a quick question that I was actually curious about. Um there's been different opinions um related to groove depth, like just overall groove depth on a record and how that affects um uh pressing, plating and pressing factors. Um there's one body of thought that uh a deep record's a good record. Um there's there's just a tiny bit of truth to that. Um but in fact a record is traditionally should be cut at a at a specified depth, at a average and uniform depth, where and the only reason it should go deep is if the music requires it to. But have you discovered any issues peculiar to ultra deep or ultra shallow grooves with regard to to playback quality?

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Um we have when there is some sort of an issue on the lathe that was used to cut. Uh so you know, width and depth are proportional to each other, as you know. So uh what we have found in a few cases where uh say somebody's having a suspension issue on their lathe, or perhaps they were cutting a lacquer that had a lot of waviness in the uh in the face of the lacquer and the suspension system on the lathe wasn't able to fully compensate for that. Um the when the grooves are either so deep that it's causing the vinyl to stick to the face of the stampers, that can cause one particular snapback type issue. Um we've also encountered where the grooves, the groove walls are essentially not strong enough, so to speak, and they get crushed under the pressure of the trimmer pad, which really the trimmer pad it has it doesn't really have a whole lot of pressure to it, and you have to keep in mind that once a record's going onto the trimmer, it's already run through the cooling cycle. So while the record is still warm to the touch, it's not supposed to still be uh changing in terms of the grooves, it's gone through the the cooling cycle inside the mold. And we've we've discovered in in those types of cases where there's probably some sort of uh uh either a lacquer issue or a cutting issue or a combination of the two, that uh the grooves essentially get crushed and it causes just unbearable noise in those sections of the record. And the way that we're able to kind of figure it out is we can play uh an untrimmed copy here. And if the untrimmed copy sounds great, but then the trimmed copies do not, well then we have to go figure out is it is it an issue with the trimmer pad, and if the trimmer pad's recently been changed, or you know, we ran a different record right before this one and it was fine, then we can start looking further up again and seeing you know what what's going on in the grooves of this particular record that's causing them to essentially be crushed um when the when the trimmer pad closes on it.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Wow. But in general, you don't have um if I'm reading you right, that's that's actually kind of good news for for producers and gutters that you know um shallow grooves or uh you know um smaller grooves that are needed to squeeze longer sides together and deeper grooves that are needed for bass representation and and um uh dance records and things with with lots of bottom end on them, deep and wide, you know, or act very active grooves don't particularly have a um um a quality control issue, into individual issues with particular a particular microgroove. Did I read you right on that?

SPEAKER_00 15:01

Uh yeah, I mean basically if if there's not a technical problem going on, um we're gonna have to adjust things on our end depending on on what type of record it is. If it's like a like you said, a dance record with a lot of deep grooves, it's gonna be a completely different type of cycle and temperature setting than a record like say like a 26-minute uh rock record. Um those are two records, we're gonna have to approach them completely differently, but we're probably not going to wind up having a major technical issue with any of them. Okay. Unless, you know, something went wrong in the course of the cut. Now, that being said, you know, the records that when you look at the face of the record and there's um you know not a lot of land left, it's it's full of grooves, uh usually those records are gonna run pretty well, and we're not gonna have a whole lot of molding issues. Uh they're gonna usually be I don't want to say easy to run because you know no records really easy to run, but you know, there they usually will have less tendencies to molding issues than the ones where you look at the face and there's you know just a lot of blank landscape there, or there they're you know, like the dance records that are cut really deep, you know. Um those can be a little bit more challenging from a molding perspective.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

Oh, good. Well, that's actually good to know. Um, I've suspected that, but we um we kind of cut sometimes without thinking too much about that because we don't have to. If it's a short side, um, you know, uh we're balancing the the client's desire to make it look good, like they don't want it to look like a really short side. If it's you know 12 minutes on the side of an LP, it would only look like it's about half full if we don't pat it out. But in fact, it would sound better and possibly even press better if we didn't pat it out to fill the side.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Well, right. And you know, and as you well know, the the whole game of putting out a record is just a whole system of compromises of you know, what are you going to do here to prevent this, but it's going to affect this, you know. So uh as a cutter, obviously you would prefer to cut things as far away from the center to, you know, keep the level there and prevent distortion, and that makes a lot of sense. But then to somebody who says, hey, I don't want my record looking like it's only half full, you know, then you kind of have to satisfy their desire at the expense of, you know, maybe losing a little bit of level or whatever it might be. Um, and then yeah, you know, thinking about it from a pressing perspective, you know, of we prefer when uh a record is cut with a fairly wide lead-in. And there's obviously reasons, uh, particularly on longer sides, why a cutting engineer would dislike that. Uh so it's yeah, all of these things just kind of come to play into oh, and and that was the other thing I was gonna mention, you know, when you're talking about a really long side, you know, I mentioned how from a pressing perspective, a lot of times they run pretty well. But the trade-off is, you know, maybe from the the plating side of things, those sorts of records might be prone to more ticks. Or, you know, the level on those records may be lower, so they're not hiding as many of the natural imperfections of the vinyl. Sometimes people use the loose term noise floor, you know. Maybe it's not hiding the noise floor of the record as much as it would if it were only an 18-minute side.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

Right. Right. Yeah, we're dealing with that on a on a pretty pretty regular basis. So um that that compromise, um, we uh I think I've said it before in um previous podcasts, that's it's pretty hard, hard fought in one territory to be able to add a DB, one one decibel to the level of the audio when when we cut it. Um and it's it doesn't sound like much, but it it it does really ultimately have uh an impact on the quality downstream. Sure. Um it just it it has the the sort of unintended uh effect of making the record sound quieter because the audio is just a little bit louder. We're always asked about pressing weight. I know you have an opinion on on kind of optimized weight for record from our perspective and a client's perspective. You know, 180 gram record has a marketing appeal sometimes that's uh desired. But what's what's your facility's uh opinion on that and um general recommendation for um best quality and for best economy?

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Well, yeah, I mean when someone's coming to me and asking, should I get 180 gram? I usually phrase it in terms of what is your fan base? You know, is your fan base more audiophile leaning? Then maybe you might want to consider 180 gram because that's probably what's going to be expected. Uh if not, then maybe you don't have to spend the extra money. You know, there there can be arguments made for some level of benefit to 180 gram. Um, but really the majority of the reason for 180 gram is marketing. How is the record being marketed? Um, you know, is it's obviously uh viewed as a deluxe upgrade. So if you're trying to sell the entire package as an extremely deluxe package of the record, then 180 gram probably makes sense. But for the vast, vast majority of people, from a sound quality perspective, it's not gonna matter because, like you know, when you're cutting the record, you don't cut it differently if it's gonna be 180 gram or standard weight. The grooves are the same. Um so you know what I've been told over the years is if you can argue one thing about the sound quality differences, perhaps on an extremely high-end playback system, it could be argued that the heavier record minimizes those micro vibrations at the point of the stylus and therefore improves playback. But you know, the majority of the listening public, I don't think, is set up on sophisticated enough systems to really note the difference between that and you know whether it's there's less micro vibrations at the stylus of a 140-gram record. Right. Um so it's it's it's like I don't want to say it's theoretical because it's probably not that far, but it's pretty close, you know. Um beyond that, you know, every record runs differently. So even when you're pressing a 180 gram record, um, there can be situations where if the if the record requires a longer cycle time, well that just means that there's more vinyl being squeezed out on the the flash is being squeezed out and trimmed off. So you may wind up with a 173 gram record. Still considered a 180 gram record. It was pretty good. Pressing a 180 gram press and or mold. But for sound quality purposes, it's actually a lighter record. And I think that that also goes to the argument of, you know, what is the benefit of a heavier record if, you know, taking that heavier record and pressing it lighter is actually making it sound better. You know, I don't know if there really is a huge benefit to even starting with the heavier weight.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

I'm not surprised at all by your answer because that's exactly the same for every factor in making records. It's like it's sort of great, but it depends. And it depends on which way you're looking at it, and depends on who's answering the question. Um Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

And at the end of the day, the goal is to you're gonna do whatever it takes to make that record sound as best as it can.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

Yeah. Yeah. I have a interesting um observation. Um, from my point of view, the the 180 gram records sometimes sound better. Um and it's for a very, uh very obvious, but very not so obvious, but very real reason. Um, it's because people care about people put more attention to the quality control and quality assurance all the way through the process because they know they're making a premium product 180 gram record. It's not so much the fact that it's pressed on an extra few grams, you know, extra, you know, 40 grams worth of vinyl, it's that it got better. We we chose we take we took more time choosing the master files. We took more time approving the um um the actual mastering. And then uh everyone got references and we you know proofed the cutting process to its full extent. Yeah. Um we sent a full set of process. I mean, I'm I'm going through a a long laundry list of quality control steps before it even gets depressing, um, all in the name of quality, but it the label for that quality is 180 gram. Something that I'm advocating for heavily is that we um try to convince um producers to put on the outside of the record uh some more information about who is involved in the making of the records. Uh of course, you and I uh both have would love people to know that our name is on these records that uh that MasterDisc and Gotta Groove were involved in making this record, because if you if you hear our product and compare it to records made in other places, um we think you'll notice that they sound better and that that they're more consistent and that more love and care and sweat and and uh and frustration went into making the darn thing. Sure. Um so it's really nice um when I see a small box on the back of the record that you can see before you purchase it where it was mastered, who mastered it, and where it was cut and where it was plated and where it was pressed, and uh and even packaged, um, because some sometimes the the premium packaging stuff even shows up at and matters. Sure. Um if a person if if a company like Master Disc or Got a Groove um is is i i wants to put their name on the back of the record, it it means that they that it stands for something. That means it stands usually stands for quality and that we're um we're trying extra hard to make it turn out good.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

Right.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

Virgin versus recycled vinyl. Um I I've heard it I've heard it claimed both ways, that there's some some benefits to recycled content because of the reheats. I've heard that uh recycled are noisier. Um I suspect it's all of the above.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

I I can only speak from the perspective of our plant and the PVC that we use here, and you know, that we may or may not have the same experience as someone using a different brand of PVC on completely different types of pressing machines. Um I I mean I will say that from uh uh molecular analysis perspective, there really should be no difference between recycled and virgin if you're talking about the same brand and same grade and same color of PVC. Uh I'll speak to the color in a minute, uh, because there is something to consider there. But when we're talking about black vinyl, same Bram, same grade, um perhaps same lot number, uh, you you're you shouldn't really hear a difference. And in our experience, we haven't found a difference between recycled and um and virgin, and it's extremely rare that we're running a hundred percent virgin. Um, most of the time, for really truly unexplainable reasons, a blend will run better from a molding perspective. Again, speaking about non-fill and stitching, um the only thing that we've ever been able to think of as a potential reason for that is perhaps the difference in shape and size of the pellets, the reground pellets versus the virgin pellets mixing together. Maybe that just makes it all melt together a little bit better inside the extruder. But you know, it's not like from a chemical standpoint nothing's changing, so um I don't know what else it could be. But I would say that yes, the majority of records that we've run on black vinyl, we find they do run better. And again, I'm not talking about like one-off ticks and pops or anything like that, but in terms of the noise floor, so to speak, uh, we have found they run better as a blend. Um, the few times we've run 100% virgin, it's because we've run out of any regrind to be able to mix into it. Or um every once in a while, if we're dealing with some specific issue on a particular press, uh usually something inside the extruder that we're trying to suss out, then we might run some virgin just to kind of eliminate the variable of those, you know, different size and shaped pellets from the regrind. Um, but other than that, black vinyl, in our experience, it just seems to mold better when it's a blend. Now, we do sell what's what we call random color, which is 100% regrind, and it's colors, and it's all different colors mixed together. Uh people love it from a visual perspective. They turn out insane, you get a wide variety of colors. But whenever somebody starts asking about sound quality, I I am very upfront with them that you know random color vinyl does tend to be noisy, and it's difficult to predict. When you use the word noisy, it's kind of like that blanket statement. It's it's not like every record's gonna be the same. You're gonna have some great sound of records with probably zero noise in there, or as close to zero as you can get on a record, and then you're gonna have some really noisy ones, and the reason for that is you know, you have all the different colors all mixing together, and all the different colors are from different formulas, different uh melt characteristics, and so you're gonna have some molding issues. There's no way around it. The the vinyl's not gonna mold perfectly, and as long as people know that in advance, I don't think they have a problem with it. And quite honestly, we've shipped, I mean, lots of random color records at this point, and I pay pretty close attention as much as I can to you know consumer feedback, not just our customers that buy the records from us, but I like to look online and see if I can find what the actual people buying the records are saying. And knock on wood, thankfully, I I've yet to see anyone complain about the random color. I think it's uh maybe it's a lowered expectation on all levels because people know it's random color, or maybe it's just, you know, it really doesn't sound that bad.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

Yeah, you know the the consumer experience is is all of it. It's the packaging, it's the way they feel about the record. Um, you know, the the fact that they're getting something that they open up and they first thing they say is say is, you know, OMG, this thing looks amazing. You know, you go into a listening situation with that kind of positive energy, a kind of positive attitude. Um they will enjoy it. They do enjoy it. And that's that's that's why I wanted to discuss colors because there's um um through the years, this issue of colors and there's relative uh colors and formats um and their impact on the final product, um, there's been a lot of opinions and a lot of opinions recycled. And and one of the things that is really characteristic of the uh record making um um industry, uh it's probably not unique to us at all, but um, once you develop an opinion, you're pretty much stick with that opinion for the rest of your life. Um unless you're like folks like Matt and I and some other people that I really really admire who measure stuff, you know, and keep rethinking things just to make sure that our assessments from two years ago or five years ago or twenty years ago are still valid. Um I had I owned picture discs uh back in the day as a kid that um sounded awful. I mean, not even as a kid, as a young adult. It just sounded absolutely atrocious. But uh a client of mine wanted to make one of his about 10 years ago or so. Oh 10, 15 years ago, and I did everything I could to discourage him, but they were convinced they were gonna do a limited edition and they're gonna make this picture disc, and it came back sounding great. And I was like, oh my gosh, what you know, what changed? Well, literally everything changed. The record wasn't even made the same way that the picture disc had been made before. But um, let's talk about um let um I I I like three or four categories. Do you have um do you steer people away from clear records, um clears and translucents? Are they worse than others or they sort of fall into the same category of it depends?

SPEAKER_00 31:31

You know, actually we find that the transparent colors sound pretty great most of the time. Um they have virtually no difference in most cases than you know, a lot of times we'll run a record uh release where there's a black version and then there's a color version. Yeah. And in the situations where we've run a transparent color, we don't find any difference between the transparent and the black in most cases. Um at least from the perspective of a consistent type of noise, like uh like a sustained noise floor or you know, something that you can quickly identify the clear version versus the black version. We've never found anything like that. Now, color vinyl in general, from a manufacturing perspective, tends not to run as consistently as black. So, you know, I I think that there are trade-offs because of that, especially, you know, for example, like trimming, for example, there's uh on a color record, there may be more trimmer noise on some copies than there would be on the black copies. Again, it's not something that's gonna be on every single record in the whole run. It's not something that sounds the same even on the copies that it is present, and it's usually something you'd really have to be looking for to find. But if you were trying to find a difference, there's subtle things like that. But at least in terms of one consistent sort of noise floor sort of thing, we haven't found a difference much at the time between transparent and black.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

Okay, cool. So the the variances are really more uh you would you would say are more related to the actual um subtle variations um in the manufacture of the of the non-black uh non-black pellets. That's interesting. Um we talked about blends and some of the issues that might happen with blends as the needle traverses from one composition uh vinyl to another one, there may be some transition noises. But in general, I haven't heard a lot of complaints about that either. I mean, generally the comment is holy, holy crap, these this looks great and uh and it's not and they like it, and um so that we haven't um heard complaints about that. Um do you um you have the random color, but do you do the um um the handmade or art, you know, kind of splatter colors as well?

SPEAKER_00 33:58

Sure. We do a lot of that, and um you know, most of the time the conversation I have with people if you know if they're really interested in sound quality is handmade records are going to have noises that non-handmade records do not. Um you're going to be going more for visual perspective than audio when you're doing a handmade record. And that again, it's not because the vinyl itself is noisier, it's because you have these different formulations of different colors being mixed together that don't all melt the same way. I I use the term melt very generally too. I mean, it's just the best term to use in this. But um, you know, that's what causes the noise on those records is that you know you're you're having molding inconsistencies on the face of the record due to all the different colors that are being mixed together. Um we find the same thing on opaque, not handmade records, but like opaque mixes, you know, like somebody wants a pastel blue, so you mix white and blue together. Um we find that those types of records have much more noise than if you just ran a straight-up blue record. Um and again, it it's not because the plastic itself is noisy, it's because of how it behaves in the molding process of making the record.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

So it's the white record, the white record would be relatively quiet, the dark blue record would be relatively quiet. When you mix them together, they are a little noisier. Is that kind of or you that's the trend?

SPEAKER_00 35:32

We we find that white actually is a noisier color overall. So even when you don't mix something in, um it's just again something to do with how the white vinyl, uh whatever the colorant is, it it tends to just cause a different sort of uh molding characteristic that can be noisier. But yes, uh we we do find that mixing colors together with white even exacerbates that even more, really.

SPEAKER_01 35:58

You know, traditionally the the darker the color, but you know, well from what I recalled years ago, the darker the color, the better. But I think it's really important that we um uh trust the opinions of people that are that are actually measuring this stuff, you know, today and not regurgitating opinions from you know from 30 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 36:14

Vinyls have changed a lot even in the 10 years or 11 years or so that we've been around. So I I can't imagine how much change has happened in the past 30 years and in the types of vinyls being used.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

Well, we know that um you know we're getting we're getting more and more concerns about uh reducing lead content and and the PVC. So that's that's having an impact. And um we've we've discussed uh um uh environmental impact uh on on um I'm not sure I've published the ones on environmental impact. Maybe you gotta wait for that one. But we've we've had some having some discussions about that with people who are trying to push that forward. At the moment, it's not uh it's not earth, earth shattering, uh um earth breaking kind of um kind of environmental impact. But you know, it's it's now we're in a time when when everybody wants to you know ask that question. You know, what's the what's the impact of a record? And um I usually answer that question some somewhere along the lines of well, the impact of uh of CDs um is a is a lot worse. The leftover and unused uh CDs is is a whole lot worse than than the fact that you know any records that um don't actually go into a landfill can can be recycled completely into making new records. Or furniture or or other things. Or uh chip bowls or um or um eyeglasses or all sorts of interesting things. Um Matt, this has been this has been fascinating. I really appreciate your opinion your um approach on this. Uh folks, I have mentioned before that there's a a large difference between sending uh your music to an independent mastering uh facility for for mastering than than it is uh the same as sending out your music to an unknown place where you're basically a mail order pressing where you send off your sound file and records come back. I hope this process of talking with with Matt has has illustrated how many different things and how many different ways that your project could run a skew if someone's not taking the time, stop the process and figure out why your particular record isn't sounding perfect and uh and how that person is willing to put their name on their work and really stand up for quality. So um a uh a silent round of applause for for Matt at Gotagroovs who who's doing it right, um, who is one of the companies that we recommend regularly. And uh, if you're thinking about making a record, uh their website at Gotta Groove Records um uh is uh is a great place to get some uh basic information started and make your decisions about colors and quantities and packaging issues and and all that sort of thing. So um uh can't recommend you guys enough. Um we always we have a long list of really happy clients um going for uh Matt I got a groove. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention when you call Got a Groove, you actually talk to Matt. Isn't that cool? So that's that is really different than setting your record um to someplace in the um uh overseas uh to have a consultant or a broker handle a project for you. So you're actually talking to the guy who's gonna make sure it's uh it turns out great. And um, and what I like about uh specif specifically my job and reason why we recommend Gutter Groove is because when I hear something that doesn't sound quite right, I can get on the phone with him. And I know that he's gonna talk to his QA folks, and we're gonna come up with a pretty reasonable and a pretty quick solution. And you know, we we trust each other's work and we recommend each other's work. And because of that, it's not about finger pointing, it's about, well, on this record, we got this kind of noise and we don't know why. You know, is that can we cut another side? Can we cut another part and see if it gets better? And and you know, you know, and I trust them. So um thanks, Matt.

SPEAKER_00 39:51

I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

You're welcome. And um, we'll sign off now. Hope you enjoyed this episode of Making Vinyl at Master Disc, and we'll see you next time. Thanks.