RMAF13: Deciphering "dead wax" numbers, letters, squiggles and stamps and why they matter
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- Опубликовано: 21 дек 2013
- Moderator: Michael Fremer, analogplanet.com editor, Stereophile senior contributing editor
Michael Fremer sheds light on the mysterious numbers, letters, logos and mastering stamps found on vinyl LPs from the "golden age" to today's modern LP pressings.
He will tell you what they mean and what they can and cannot tell you about the origin of the new and used records you buy in stores and online. Fun forensics for vinyl fanatics. 
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I understand most of this but using a chalkboard and writing these examples down would make everything clearer...masterclass by michael!
Love your stuff Michael, dont get tired in my ears from listening to you explain. :-D
Amazing presentation Mile
Dammit! I wanted to watch Logan but I just clicked on this and now I'm hooked. These revelations are so interesting, frustrating to know but illuminating.
You are insane Michael. Thanks for all this info
The main reason some companies did not make as hot or high volume cuttings was to preserve the cutting head coils from excessive heat which would eventually burn out the cutting head coils and they would have to be replaced at great expense. If a head burnt out durring cutting then they would have expensive replacement and downtime as they would have to recut the master .
Michael was a pro getting through this presentation and explained information well.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Did I say thank you? I have asked vloger's here on RUclips, who's content relates to vinyl specifically, if they could do a video explaining this exact subject. All I got was crickets chirping. So I had to travel back in time 8 years to find this video you posted. Did I say thank you?
This is a very intriguing video. I know I don't have to tell you but I'm going to share this with a Facebook vinyl community
Always informative!
Thanks for sharing. Very informative.
THANK YOU! A lot of info here, I wish I could remember it all. I remember seeing "Pecko Duck" and "porky prime" in the dead wax- and a few other notes as well. Never knew what they meant. To my shame I admit to dumping so many great LPs when CDs came out. What a miserable fool I was!
A porky prime cut is generally a sign of quality mastering and cutting, most prevalent in the 70's
Aha! But you are now in a position to reverse it! Get those LP's back.
In this day and age few have the patience to take in 50% of the information in this video. It can make your eyes glaze over--But--There’s some gems in this seminar. I find the history and the whole -Who’s who in the hey day of vinyl Engineering interesting.
That was a night & day difference in sound quality between those 2 Buffalo Springfield pressings.
Mr Fremer's knowledge of the Record industry is just mind boggling and his presentations are always interesting, but talk about getting into the tall weeds. To have to know this minute information to be able to purchase a decent sounding LP is discouraging. The quality control issues with vinyl manufacturing are so widespread no wonder digital has won the war. On the other hand it will be fun to check out the dead wax area for this information on my 2000 LP's.
Just recently got back into buying records after a 43 or so year layoff. I am now in the dreaded dead wax wormhole.
I hope you have a great magnifying glass
As someone whose life pretty much revolves around this hobby right now (and has more many years), I would say that we really like to torture ourselves.
When he was talking about Vanguard and said how they were originally done by RCA, and I knew he going to say how Columbia took over, I realized how much of a dork I am.
i bought all the early beatles records in the 60s in britain, all mono, and they still sound great
Extremely insightful and educational video, thanks.
Yash, next he'll be covering innovations in Denisovian spear technology, wot wot?
Rotary phones, due to make a big comeback....in the wacky land of FREMERVILLE @@Mrch33ky
Great video, very informative.
no it's not...it's useless verbage
cengeb What do you mean useless verbage? Verbiage, like wording? Or did you mean garbage?
You know what else is useless garbage? Your mom. You really seem to hate this video as most of the comments here are yours.
toddvj verbage
A made up word that is used by people who want to sound cool when talking about the way something is written. These people frequently use other big and/or made up words to impress people around them.
I didn't understand the verbage in the email communication I received from Sally. Near as I could tell, she was talking about an anomaly with the pop machine that allowed people to get free soda, but much to my chagrin it only vended for her, not me.
I love this video, Efrem is ALWAYS entertainment....he is a piece of clueless WORK.
pretty interesting stuff considering I'm a bit of a record collector, plus he gets some points cuz i think he was wearing an omega speedmaster watch, very nice ;)
Next you'll be complimenting his inseam because you are a schmuck and a phoney.
Interesting to hear about 'Columbia curve' & 'RCA curve', etc.
Great video that anyone who loves vinyl should see. The whole manufacturing process of a record is a kind of art. it's easily screwed up but if it is done properly with tender love and care, you will end up with a great product. Over here in Holland things were not different from what is told in this video. We had Phonogram that had a plant in Baarn. That plant put out quality stuff, no exeptions. Each and every record was perfectly centered and the least possible wobble. On the other side of the spectrum was Bovema. They pressed for EMI and it was a gamble if the record you just bought was playable or not, that bad some were. I have a copy of "Songs in the key of life" by Stevie Wonder. All copies were bad, and I mean bad. And today, even how many improvements are made over the years, there are still sub standard records are made. Which is a shame because the average record doesn't exactly come cheap. Same goes for some really bad equipment like ION and Crosley and the like of junk. But that is a different story. Regards, Willem.
Hi leyland9999, you know a lot about Dutch pressings i see.can you tell me a bit about the plant in Haarlem? It used to be a good one right? What is the name? It stil, or again, presses new issues i hear.
This man is a gem.
The sound of this video isnt cut hot enough, im getting a lot of mic hiss.
Not to mention the image is stretched to 16:9!
"Focusing on the quiet"... That's exactly what happened when c.d. was introduced; after being subjected to a decade of appalling paper-thin noisy pressings (stand up Warner Brothers!) it was a relief to hear favourite music without the accompanying rice crispies and warp wow; we were, indeed, hypnotised and seduced "by the quiet" of c.d. and, for quite a while, didn't realise exactly how poor the actual music reproduction was. This is my story. Forgive me, Micheal, I have sinned........
True about Japanese vinyl. I have a Beatles with I Feel Fine. They corrected for distortion and the IFF intro goes,
plink plinkity plink plink plink plink, plink plinkity... And NO bass!
Great lecture! A shame only so few people attended it...
It's useless verbal diarrhea....blah blah blah blah, but the AMAZING thing is, he get's somebody to pay him!!!! GENIUS
What's the antenna on the top of the tone arm pivot of that fancy turntable?
Cable from stylus.
It always cracks me up every time when these HIFI conventions have terrible sound quality on these videos. Great information though!
does anyone know what equipment is used here? Speakers, turntable..
WOW
Head spinning!
Very informative! Is there a way to contact you with questions?
The Dione Warwick song sounds like the theme to a TV show from the 1950's or something.
Anything from Burt Bacharach sounds like 'or something'!
i remember that video here, .... i love fremer ....... + i guess it is hard to get "someone" somewhere who can tell about pressings, first pressings, run out infos of JAZZ LABELS 50´s 60´s specially ....... i have no idea WHAT of the 5 versions at Dcogs is FIRST PRESS of that LP : Corky Hale - Modern Harp - Vol.17 ...... if someone know THE PERSON who knows JAZZ PRESSING detail details of more unknown labels .... let me know. THANX ...... andreas, jazz pianist
With all the drivel and finger pointing, the main topic has been lost. Michael is attempting to explain what the
encryptions in the dead wax area mean, based on information he has received from individuals that were or are in the LP recording business. He then offers his opinion on how these markings might indicate sound quality of the LP they are inscribed upon. Simply that.
Another topic is discussed in this forum, one that is quite fascinating and very worthy of discussion. That is Digital or Vinyl, which sounds better and why. I have recently offered some insight.
I encourage thoughtful responses.
With CD there is no need to read the secret scrolls...it's DIGITAL the first to the 100,000th is similar.....thus the beauty of DIGITAL
The first digital whether on CD, DVD, SACD is made from a master. Yes,
there is indeed a Master, made by a human being. This master is
different from the master created for vinyl, since the mastering
engineer wants to maximize the recording for that medium. From the
master CD, DVD, SACD, daughter copies are made and distributed to
manufacturing plants worldwide. Same process as vinyl. Digital media
don't put mastering info on the CD. Pity, since one cannot compare
mastering engineers. Each mastering engineer is different.
There's no difference in the process. Only the medium is different.
As you talk on your digital cell phone, taking pictures on your digital cell phone.....and you make You tube stuff shown as digital signals....if we used analogue to do stuff, we would still be communicating with a telegraph! And cars would have crank starters! Snap Crackle Pop, is not hi fidelity, it's DISTORTION! Your IMAGINATION is created in your brain, and guess what, signals in your brain are pules and closer to digital, than grinding a diamond through a piece of soft plastic, SNAP, Crackle POP. Diamonds are used to polish and wear down metal, guess what it does to PLASTIC! And they use Digital controlled machines to mfg everything now, are you from Planet Stupid, hey, that's what your site should be called Planet Stupid, not analog Planet
And as a person who makes a living with imagination and wurds, all CD's did not sound the SAME, they may have sounded SIMILAR, there is a difference....learn the meanings of words, ya big dope..look it up
The telegraph was digital. Go ahead. Argue.
Anyone know any tricks to make it easier to see the dead wax info?
I've always seen the symbols TI, TII, TIII & TIIII on records. Anyone notice this or know anything about it?
I've even seen little faces, stars, initials, silly messages, cartoons, and opinions, etc.
That means Terre Haute, IN
Is that true the Japanese pressings are "intentionally" remixed (pardon me if this is the precise terminology) so that the bass is lower in the mix? Is there more information on this or is this just a bit of hearsay mixed in with a dash of speculation coupled with a smidge' of "I know a guy who knows a guys who's cousin went to a Japanese record store one time and...." kind of thing? I agree that some Japanese pressings do not sound as good as other pressings of the same LP, but I wasn't aware that this "manipulation" was intentional. (It also doesn't explain why some clearly sound better) I just "assumed" (Rut Roe) that it was due to the fact that vinyl has a huge potential for flaws and inconsistencies. Any documentation of references resources on this topic would be greatly appreciated. Cheers!
My understanding is that most albums released in Japan are usually done with incredible care and precision in mastering. Look at CD's in Japan (still being released in 2019) and some of them are coveted over all other CD releases of the same title... mastering ;)
You'd have thought that at an audio festival "they" would have had a sound-check before starting the gig, rather than have Michael demonstrate how user friendly analog high fidelity gear is.
ps What did I do with my DustBug?
why is the sound so screwed up, for such an audio "expert" Damn this guy never ceases to underwhelm
JERRY! JERRY! JERRY!
If you care about good sound it's a good idea to look for a well pressed record. I have hundreds of albums and I notice the difference between a well pressed record and one that was not. Usually they were in a hurryto make more, thus the poor quality. Making haste makes waste!
What about Canadian vs US pressings of American bands ??? Would Canadians have copies of masters ??
Ya i wonder about this as well especially when it comes to Kiss records . I find Canadian ones sound great
IM from Jersey and you Sound like Your from Jersey ........Lol I commented before I watched the whole video and I was Right
The "AT" Stands for Atlantic and the "LW" is for Longwear Plating.He should know that!
And also, there was Audio Matrix which was used for metal Lacquer plates which was used for mother and master plates.
....:" I tell you something about the Numbers and signs on your Records and how to read them, and bytheway, i align a turntable... " lol.... awesome!
don't know if you recognize the name Freddy the Frog . Told me something about Red Label RCA . supposedly superior sound .
That was only for classical music which was the “Red Seal” series in which RCA Victor put out back in the Victor Talking Machine era in the 1900’s where they put out red label records for classical. The black label was for popular music. Those are of the two different label designs for both Victor and RCA Victor. Red was for classical “Red Seal”, and black was for popular music.
19:58 Buffalo Springfield Again
evolutionary transgression A great album!
Please mister be prepared before you start!
Enjoy the clicks pops and distortion if you must. I mean it's not like there are cleaner formats with wider dynamic range available. Next he'll be exclaiming the benefits of the Dumont System.
the digital domain has shedloads of distortion and suffers from a limited frequency response ;the steep filtering required by the sampling process leads to time smearing. analogue recording is potentially unlimited, digital is necessarily constrained
good LPs are stunning and don't click and pop. good retreival equip is not cheap. but I will never get to hear Oistrakh alive, and he sounds btter on vinyl than on cd.
This is mostly for people who like records for their own sake.
Wow, my mistake. I used to buy records just to listen to the music...
when you realise what you've been listening to is just a tiny part of the real thing...
Then he discovered Compact Disks and his eyes were opened. Thus sayeth the Lord.
Do whatever you are going to do and they will do whatever they are going to do.
That's still the point, but this is for the collectors who want the "definitive" pressing of an album or for those who just want to collect certain pressings from certain places. This stuff really does help you find the best sounding versions of albums. Albums like The Stranger from Billy Joel, if you look at the deadwax and see RL you KNOW it's a good cut because it was done by Robert Ludwig. You wouldn't know that if you just see the album and buy it and you may end up buying a flat sounding pressing because it was $2 cheaper and you couldn't tell the difference.
This was actually very interesting. I wonder if that is the case with Japanese records from the early and mid eighties though ...that they are using a digital line to cut....(hope I said that right). So my prized Japanese Kate Bush records are crap?!? Now I have to kill myself since she is my favorite musical artist. The one thing he left out about that era is if you sniff the record will you get a cocaine high...or is that the sleeve? Oh well, I enjoy Mr. Fremer's sincere passion and his intelligence....no sarcasm intended.
Japanese vinyl was quieter.
LSD does wonders for music. More than anything! Anyone out there agree?
6:00
56:40
29 men, one lady in the audience
and your point?
Well I can tell you, that one lady is worth all 29 of those morons. Perhaps even 30, but Mike has to be the exception of course.
No, you're right Kev, what was the point being made? Was the comment even necessary? Come to think of it, I don't even think mine was.
@@31cify What..? Why are they morons?
Displaying that gender differences are real given that this is an environment where literally anyone could buy a ticket and attend if they were interested in the topic. It has been shown time and time again that men like "things", the engineering, collecting, and categorization of inanimate physical objects, more than women.
44:42
Emphasis on the DEAD part...........and who jammed your head in the dry cleaning pants presser - a good spot for it, too.........
Eat weiners bruh bruh. This man is a legend
Legend? you need to raise your standards dude. Legend, now That's FUNNY!
when i bought my records brand new dead wax and wot was in it no one cared about so wot the point now
When records were big it was simply a method of listening to music. While it still is now, it's changed. People go to vinyl for a specific sound.
Because you were the equivalent of the mass consumer music listener today. Mp3s are fine for them. People who care about this kind of stuff are the same kind of people who care about the bit rate of digital music today.
you probably or hopefully have much better playback system than can retreive waaaay more music than equip 30 yrs ago. I am 67. On my 6th trtntbl. I am amazed at how great some LPs sound, and how bad others are. I also invested $6k in Widex Moment hearing aids, late 2021, have many prograrms, one is for home music listening and it its GREAT. I don't geek out on wax numbers, I just accumulated lot of vinyl and I clean them once and play them and some I keep and some I ditch.
Why isnt he wearing proper audiophile attire, one could mistake him for a professional
Who in the f'ing hell filmed and did the audio????...Geeez have another noise gate on?????
Expert of what?
The big record labels did a lousy job of quality control making LP in the 1960s and on. I think, no proof, just anecdotal, up until the pop music took off in the early 1960s that LP quality was ok. But once cars all had AM radio, and transistor radios became common, the LP took a dive down, being mixed and mastered for cheap playback systems. And there is no consistency. Rock n roll has great and has crap. Nowadays newly made quality vinyl is not a crapshoot, but when I put on an older, clean, not worn, LP, I never know until I hear it. James Taylor Original Flying Machine is a great piece of 1967 vinyl before he signed with Warner. Poco self titled is their 2nd album and sounds way better than Pickin Up The Pieces. Classical music LPs pressed in Italy are mostly great. They revere their opera so they press on good vinyl.
why not set the turn table up first next time ( looks very rude )
Thank God for CDs! I always knew vinyl sucked! The better records looked like they were punched
out of a sheet of more flexible plastic (like RCA) & shitty ones looked like they were made in a mold
of more brittle plastic & sounded brittle (like Columbia). I noticed this by the time I was 10 years old.
I could look at the edges in a stack of records & tell the difference right away.
AND THANK GOD FOR EQUALIZERS!!! ... RECORDING ENGINEERS & AUDIOPHILES BE DAMNED!!!
So these guys invite Michael to do a presentation, and they can't even setup a turntable with proper cables?
What a joke! Fortunately Fremer is a cool guy, otherwise he would just walk out
are you going to Rotary phone day next month?
Who gives a shit when it was made if it won't make it sound better, so who gives a s hit when , who , why , where? Getting a check for being a goofball, Win Win for fremer.
you have a severally LIMITED vocabulary, try getting a thesaurus..
28:22 he changes the wires from the TT, and now more mystical Bullshit....and he collects a check! WOW!!!!
always entertaining, what an imagination you got. Walt Disney would be JEALOUS!
look at all the wireless snap pop DIGITAL equipment for mics on the table, hey, and what is this being recorded on? 8mm FILM, nope, DIGITAL, DUH! Snap
That has nothing to do with his talk
That has nothing to do with his talk
That has nothing to do with his talk
Ta Ta Toothy and his Vinyl collection BOFF!
at least this record ain't warped!
interesting information but somewhat useless but interesting non the less... IMO very few Columbia recorded/mastered records were any good very very non consistent ... now lest talk about london very very consistent and realistic sounding records :)
not interesting, he is a dull, boring speaker, adrift in his mindless blather..
The closest thing to the original is the CD.
Not with the shitty mastering and dynamic range compression that is rampant in almost every CD release nowadays.
TheRinx87 That's still the original unless it was remastered. The best thing would be to not use compression and just try to make a rich, detailed recording and release it on 44.1/16 digital, which is perfection.
Fremer hears better sounding AC outlets, and how a demagnetized piece of PLASTIC sounds like....not MORTAL?
***** Wow, you're real smart aren't you? When you disagree with someone, you call them an "imbecile".
I'm really impressed by what a great audio expert you are!!!!!
All hail The Great Michael Fremer!!!!!!!!!!
Nobody can call someone an imbecile quite like him!!!!!!!!!!!!
But yes, within it's dynamic range, 16/44.1 is perfection because it exceeds the human ear in frequency response, noise, distortion, etc. So does 320 kbps MP3.
You exceed the human mind in silliness.
TV evangelists are jealous....a master of Bullshit! Like a politician, does it without laughing, a true EXPERT indeed .
WARPED records, what a 21st Century DREAM! TOOL!
Even if Micheal had said there was such a thing as a Columbia curve for vinyl records, I wouldn't have believed him. My original Columbia 360s sounds great and it simply makes no sense from a marketing perspective. Whoever came up with that joke should stop collecting and playing back LPs, because they have no clue what they're doing. I never bought into Japanese records hype either. In fact, I hate Sony/CBS with a burning passion!
Bad choice of Records Mike
Going back to prop airplanes, jets are so jet like! SkyKing was the only way to fly!
so you then know this guy did that for them, then later on, this did that for those other guys! What a TOOL!
FREMERITIS, is a horrible affliction
then one channel is DEAD...after he changes the wires, the guy is a marooon!
In the time snap you waste pop setting up a TT, you could have pop pop played 20 CD's!!! 2015, join it! DSD, ever hear of it, try it, snap pop, Ever want pop, snap want to move pop forward snap.
LOL... you made my day ^^ pop...
Working with a delicate cartridge, has a pass hanging down to get caught on it, rel pro, what a TOOL!!! The guy is a FRAUD
then we watch teh back of a chair! WOW, even can't get video done properly
Anybody ask Fremer what he has actually recorded, mfg'd, distributed? All he does is SPEAK to people who actually do things, Fremer is like a Yenta, gab gab gab, never actually doing anything of any merit...BUT, getting paid for it, what a great con....
Tom Port is this you? :P
Tom Port and Fremer perfect duo of cornballs! Selling rotary phones in 2015!
@cengeb
:
I am not a nightinggale! But i can hear if one sings, or if it`s a raven ;-)
You know what i mean lol ?
Mother ! hahahahahahahahahahahaha, he said MOTHER......first mother with 23rd Lacquer made from the 3rd acetate to the stamper, mother father, 3rd cousin in Y with a P for this versus X for that, R with an I in N.J. from H with a father in motherland
"say no more"
Disneyland and Buena Vista were the two Disney labels that made the mother and master stampers for their Disney releases during the 1960’s and 1970’s had writing on the stamper for example the “Cinderella” soundtrack has “DQ-1207A” and “DQ-1207B” written on dead wax, and the Audio Matix or SS-BR stamped. I thought it was pressed by other record pressing plants like All-Disc Records in New Jersey in the East Coast and the other pressing plant on the West Coast. All-Disc Records was a record plant where it was mastered and pressed for Disneyland, Buena Vista, Liberty, and United Artists labels.
They don't have plastic liners in the 60's...you have not an original!
there were many plastic inners in the 60s....troll
@@johnholmes912 you are wrong, paper...if you weren't there you are just making stuff up, I have all the original stuff from that time, no PLASTIC INNERS
@UCceBF-gydKC04OHqmP2xXdg he likely swapped them into those because they are more protective, dumbfuck
@@TheGoobsters Why are you calling Fremer names? Even though that is what he is
you forgot to mention Maude, and Hazel, amazing housekeepers, and they used to play records on their 56' era Magnavox console, amazing, nothing comes close to such greatness.... listen to how the levels change on this horrible video, shows what this guy knows about recording...a true success, at the art of saying a lot, yet saying nothing...hahahahahahahahahaha
now comes the excuse, the cable is wrong, what a goof ball! sounds horrible, cus you don't know what you are doing!