Last week, we introduced you to Cascade Record Pressing, Oregon’s first and only record pressing plant. We gave you some general tidbits about the backgrounds of the employees, some recent pressing activity, and how they came about landing here in the Pacific Northwest. However, we know you all are suckers for details, so this time around we invite you on an exclusive tour through their pressing processes, focusing on all the minutiae that we know you clamor for!

Lacquer Mastering & Cutting

The first step in getting a record made is mastering and lacquer cutting. Artists will work with Engineers to make sure their master is ideally suited for the vinyl format. Cascade works closely with, and recommends, Adam Gonsalves at Telegraph Mastering and Josh Bonati at Bonati Mastering for lacquer cutting.

Artists provide their mastering engineer with a high quality recording, a catalog number for the record, their speed preference and a track-list showing where the side splits.

According to Gonsalves, “Vinyl mastering means cutting master lacquer discs on a cutting lathe, and sending those lacquers to a plant for plating and manufacturing of vinyl records. Telegraph features a fully restored Scully lathe with a customized Westrex 1700 electronics system.”

In the following video, Bonati and Gonsalves walk you through the basics of this process and provide tips for making the best record possible:

Electroplating

The next step is electroplating. This process uses the master lacquers to create the A & B side metal stampers that will be affixed to presses.

Electroplating is also referred to as the creation of the metal stampers. Standard Vinyl describes electroplating as a “chemical process where a thin coat of silver is sprayed onto the lacquer master and occurs when the silver-coated lacquer is physically dipped into a nickel bath and ‘metallized’ or ‘plated’. Positively-charged metal ions are attracted to the negatively-charged silver-plated lacquer and are ‘reduced’ to metallic form upon it.”

Here is a short video from the Australian pressing plant, Zenth Records, which gives you a quick peak at what this process looks like:

When electroplating, a decision must be made to use either 2-step or 3-step electroplating. One set of stampers can press about 1,000 records before they start to wear out, destroying the master lacquers during the plating process. If more than 1,000 records will be pressed, more than one mother should be made and you should select 3-step electroplating. Some plants will use a stamper for pressing up to 1,500 records, but the quality of later pressings may start to decrease after about 1,000 pressings.

Here is a more in depth look at the electroplating process, as explained by Standard Vinyl:

The 2-step electroplating process involves the father being peeled

off the acetate and then itself being elctroplated again to create

the “mother”, which is in effect, the negative of the father plate.

Typically, the mother plates are shelved for future use, and the

father is used for stamping.

off the acetate and then itself being elctroplated again to create the “mother”, which is in effect, the negative of the father plate. Typically, the mother plates are shelved for future use, and the father is used for stamping. 3-step electroplating is just like 2-step electroplating, only the

“mother” — instead of being shelved — is electroplated to make more

stampers. 3-step electroplating is simply just another step to make

more parts. This is a good idea if you’re planning on making many

copies of your vinyl. One father can produce 10 mothers, and one

mother can produce 10 stampers. A single stamper can produce about

1000 records. If you do the math, you’ll figure out that the 2-step

process will yield about 11,000 records before a new lacquer needs to

be cut. The three step process can produce up to about 100,000 vinyl

records before you have to cut a new lacquer. 3-step electroplating

is in essence a better way to avoid having to cut a new lacquer and

assume that cost if you anticipate wearing out the original father

stamper by making many records.

Setup & Test Pressing

Each project scheduled to run on one of Cascade’s presses requires time and physical manipulation to get the project ready for manufacturing. Chief Operator, Dave Mendoza, operated presses at Gotta Groove Records pressing plant in Cleveland, Ohio prior to moving out to the Portland area to work at Cascade. They also hired Jeff Truhn, a former motorcycle mechanic with experience in hydraulic machines as their Maintenance Chief.

Standard setup for any test press involves affixing the stampers, getting vinyl pellets formed into the biscuits, and preparing labels.

Test presses are crucial to the overall process. It’s an artist’s or label’s final opportunity to evaluate how the record pressing will sound prior to the larger production run. Tests are completed in very small batches and require time and set up of a machine for just 5-10 test presses. The vinyl format has it’s nuances and idiosyncrasies, but other audio or physical anomalies might be detected during test evaluation.

Pressing

A vinyl biscuit, roughly half the area but 3 times the thickness of a finished disc, is slipped between the press. Steam that is approximately 300 degrees Fahrenheit (148 °C) is applied to further soften the vinyl before the jaws of the press close. Two thousand pounds per square inch is required to press a biscuit into a vinyl record!

The label is actually pressed into the record during this step as it doesn’t require any adhesive. Before labels are pressed into the vinyl, they are actually baked in a special oven so that they retain no moisture, otherwise bubbling may occur.

After pressing, the record must be properly cooled, trimmed, and then safely stored for final curing. Have you ever opened a brand new release to find the vinyl warped? This may be due to a vinyl plant trying to rush out an order before it has had proper time to cool and cure.

Quality Control

Once the vinyl is pressed, Cascade undertakes fastidious quality control. Pressings are randomly pulled for careful visual and audio inspection by a skilled and experienced vinyl technician.

Despite the time-intensive nature and detailed work that goes into vinyl pressing, the entire process is very delicate with no room for error. Cascade Record Pressing is on a mission to produce the highest quality records for discerning artists and labels, and their careful dedication means that 10-20 percent of all pressed records will not pass their inspection.

The records that don’t pass their quality control (QC), are reground and can be used in combination with fresh vinyl pellets and biscuits, in turn creating new records. Some audiophiles claim that having a certain amount of recycled vinyl mixed with new vinyl actually improves the audio quality of the record.

Printing & Packaging

Cascade doesn’t do printing in-house, so their customers need to arrange printing separately unless they want stock jackets and sleeves. Cascade does have a designated graphics person employed who can assist with custom printing layout and design, or they can recommend preferred printing partners. At Cascade, before vinyl records are packaged, they are stored on spindles.

Cascade will take care of the final packing of the vinyl in a sleeve and jacket along with any inserts and download cards. After assembling the associated parts, they can shrink wrap or poly-bag (thicker reusable dust cover with a resealable flap) the finished product. Records are then boxed up and ready to be shipped off… to eventually make it into your hands!

The delicate intricacies of pressing vinyl is a rich tradition of care and detail executed by highly skilled individuals, and has remained relatively unchanged for the past 40 years. While this blog post touches on some of the more in-depth practices that exist in order to get your records spinning on your turntables, perhaps we can delve even deeper into any singular process that you may be more curious about. For instance, do you wish to know about what goes into printing the jackets and inner sleeves? How about the run-out etchings — who inscribes those, and with what instrument? Are there certain pressing plants you would like to have more information on? Creating a vinyl record is a precise and intriguing process — what more would you like to know? While the mechanics remain essentially the same, the love of the art of vinyl pressing only grows, and we’re only happy to explore this passion with you!



