Murphy was never one to approach his work in an orthodox fashion, constantly inventing new and different ways to cut records, often with a cigar in his mouth. Locked grooves and inverted grooves, where the record would play from the inside out instead of the outside in, were common in Murphy’s work. After bootleg copies of Underground Resistance and Kevin Saunderson records surfaced, the inverted groove was a method Murphy used to thwart the problem. “That was something I didn’t know that you could do,” says Atkins. “I didn’t see any records like that until Ron’s [records].”

One of Murphy’s most famous locked groove experiments was on Jeff Mills’ The Rings of Saturn project. The two figured out that in order to create a perfect locked groove, a record must be cut at the exact speed of 133.3 beats per minute. Mills remembers the moment vividly: “In 1992, Ron and I were about to master the vinyl 12-inch EP and singles of X-102. I had thought about various ideas based on the actual formation and structure of Saturn’s rings, and asked him if we could make the grooves look like the rings. He asked me how much time I had that day… I said, ‘I’m free – let’s try.’ We weren’t aware that the BPMs needed to be 133.3, so it took a while to discover that, but once we did, we were both in amazement. I think we both knew that it was going to be a very special release.”

Double groove cuts were another trick of Murphy’s. “He would do all kinds of crazy stuff,” says Lenny Burden. “With the double groove cut, you’d put the needle down and it would play one track, but if you moved the needle slightly, it would play another track, so it was hard to figure out which track you were cueing up because you couldn’t really tell where you were starting a record. It was really interesting because no one else was doing it at that time.”

Aside from the NSC logo, it was also common to find verbiage on Murphy’s records. “He would inscribe stuff on the inside band,” recalls Atkins, “and we would send messages to each other like, ‘This is Detroit’ or ‘This is the world’s best electronic music.’” This personal touch made Detroit records unique, not only in sound, but in looks as well. “We would put handwritten notes saying some sort of mystic message,” adds Gillen, “like, ‘This is a message from another dimension.’” On a Kenny Larkin record for Plus 8, Acquaviva recalls inscribing the phrase, “Don’t step on the cracks of society, search them out and jump right in.”

Although Steve Martel, Murphy’s partner at National Sound Corporation passed away in 1994, Murphy continued to inscribe the NSC logo on every master record in Martel’s memory, turning the acronym into a stamp of distinction for Detroit techno. Following issues with Martel’s estate, Murphy purchased the record cutting equipment and moved his services further west in suburban Detroit, changing the company name to Sound Enterprises.