Mastering room

We transfer the audio from the master tape or high-resolution digital files to a groove using a cutting lathe in the mastering room. The audio is either cut into a lacquer, which has an acetate layer, or onto a copper plate - DMM (Direct Metal Mastering)

The engineer chooses lacquer or DMM, getting the most out of the supplied audio, or customers can indicate their wishes based on their sonic preferences.

For both the lacquer and the DMM, the cutting lathe etches a groove in the layer with a stylus (DMM with a diamond stylus, lacquer with a sapphire stylus). The stylus has two coils, positioned between two magnets. The audio signal is sent to the magnets, which causes both horizontal and vertical vibrations to the stylus.

The depth and width of the groove depends on the intensity of the audio material. Each lacquer or DMM disc is single sided so two sides must be cut for one vinyl record.

Galvanic

The next step is the plating or galvanic. In this step of the process, the stampers which we use to press the records are produced.

The lacquer with the groove is sprayed with silver, which forms a layer on the lacquer. Subsequently the lacquer with the silver layer is put into an electro-forming bath which bonds a nickel layer onto the silver. Once the nickel layer is separated  from the lacquer the master is ready. This master is called the negative (or father). As the DMM is already a metal plate, we do not need to spray it with silver, the nickel grows directly onto the copper layer.

From the father we make positives, which are then used to make stampers. The negative is put in the electro-forming bath, a nickel layer 'grows' on the negative.

After this step the two layers are separated from each other, leaving now not only the original negative but also a positive. The negative is a back-up copy which is archived.

From the positive, the stampers are produced, again in the same electro-forming bath. The stamper is a negative, each record needs two stampers, one for the A side and one for the B side.

In this way we are able to develop more than one set of stampers from the same lacquer or DMM. The stampers are used on the presses to actually press the grooves into the vinyl. We can press approximately 1000 to 1500 records with one set of stampers.

Press Floor

The stampers are heated by steam to approximately 180 degrees Celsius. The press closes and the stampers press the vinyl 'puck' under high pressure of 150 bar in 30 seconds into a record.

The vinyl is transported to the press in a small granulate or pellet form. Before it is placed between the stampers it is formed under high pressure and heat into a small 'puck' or 'biscuit'. The 'puck' is mechanically placed between the stampers with an A and a B label already on each side.

We press all formats, 7 inch, 10 inch and 12 inch vinyl

The record is taken out of the press mechanically, the edges are trimmed and the record is put mechanically into an inner sleeve and then left flat to cool down with a heavy, metal 'spacer' inserted after every 4 records to enhance the hardening and cooling down process.

Gluing and folding

The sleeves are folded in-house, on one of our Winkler & Dunnebier folding machines. We have four machines which can fold practically any sleeve for all formats. One of them is a gatefold machine, which folds a two-piece gatefold of 12” size.

Print

All our paper parts are printed in offset, on state of the art Heidelberg machines.

Packaging

The packaging is done at the finishing department where the records are mechanically sleeved in their outer sleeve (apart from 7" and 10" which are sleeved by hand) and packed into boxes for transportation.

Automatic stickering, shrink wrapping, unique foil numbering, adding inserts or packing boxsets also happens here.