![]() The focus tends to be getting the best cut possible and hoping it will sound good on all turntables. So what can be done to make sure that every new record works on every turntable? LaPorta said that playability on less expensive turntables likely isn’t a consideration during the cutting process. “It’s hard to gauge during the mastering process how it will sound on all different qualities of turntables.” “It’s a very tricky thing,” said LaPorta. He said it comes down to maintaining the integrity of the approved masters while also not making it unplayable in the vinyl medium. He said that ends up changing the sound a bit, and that some people will think that it gives the music more clarity but the artist may feel like it’s less exciting. ![]() Then when it comes time for vinyl, he said he might scale back a decibel or two on the limiter and do a different print for vinyl so he ends up with something more dynamic. “If someone is mixing hot and then they give it to me to master, my first goal is to achieve something as good or better than the mix,” LaPorta said. You can’t really go backwards from that,” he said, since the artist is likely very accustomed to a more dynamic range. “These days people mix so hot that it kind of puts us in a box. LaPorta said hot mixes can sometimes lead to hot cuts. It’s less noticeable and those can survive on different quality turntables easier than newer stuff where people have pressed the material so hard against the ceiling that, even on hi-fi turntables, it can lead to not the greatest results,” LaPorta said. Joe LaPorta, senior mastering engineer at Sterling Sound, said that older records were often not cut as loud as new vinyl and so older records tend to play on less expensive turntables with fewer issues. This problem is almost exclusively caused by new vinyl, it should be noted. That can sometimes cause skipping or problems with vocal sibilance on less expensive record players. In an increasingly more audiophile world, where many high-end turntables are better equipped to handle lower frequencies, he said the tendency is to maintain as much dynamic range as possible. For instance, Gray said that it wasn’t uncommon the roll off the bottom at around 40 Hz or even 50 Hz to prevent skipping on less-expensive turntables. ![]() Gray said that back in the day, when vinyl was still the predominant audio format, it wasn’t uncommon to use techniques to make it easier to play on cheaper record players. He added that cutting vinyl from a master that was done for digital, meaning it’s heavily compressed, can cause irregularities in the grooves. “It’s the shallowness of the groove that generally will cause skipping problems,” Gray said. Kevin Gray, mastering engineer and owner at Cohearent, said that when you cut a record hot - whether it’s a long side or a very high level - the groove has to be shallower to fit the amount of material on the disc. This is probably the most common issue with new vinyl releases: this problem affected some people who signed up for Vinyl Me, Please’s Demon Days pressing, in fact. The complexity of the groove can cause skipping on less expensive turntables or turntables that aren’t set up properly. Warwick said this means the engineer is pushing the threshold for cutting the grooves and making a very dynamic cut with a lot of range. When a record is mastered and/or cut with the best possible sound in mind, it’s sometimes described as a hot cut. “The variable that is proving hardest to predict, given the vinyl revival’s effect on the booming turntable market, is the variances between turntables themselves, and how different mastering can make some records almost unplayable on different turntable models.” It’s a question that affects all parts of the vinyl business: How do you master a record so that it can play both on a $10,000 set up, and a $65, all-in-one Black Friday set up? And how do you account for people who have their turntables improperly set-up? But ultimately, the variable that is proving hardest to predict, given the vinyl revival’s effect on the booming turntable market, is the variances between turntables themselves, and how different mastering can make some records almost unplayable on different turntable models. There are dozens of ways that a record’s quality could be affected, to the point where before needle meets wax, a labyrinthine series of choices and variables have already come into play that can affect the playback in big and little ways. That a “puck” of plastic can be turned into something that plays music via subtleties in ridges is a miraculous thing, all things considered. If you look at Discogs reviews, or Amazon reviews, or, even Vinyl Me, Please reviews of certain new record releases, you’ll sometimes find a common complaint: “This record doesn’t play right on my turntable.
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