Is home-etching of vinyl records possible in any manner?

February 15, 2013 4:45 PM

I have a very clear memory of part of an interview in the film Hype! wherein a member of.. some band.. I can't remember. And frankly, my mind might be fabricating this whole memory for want of such a thing to exist.. but he was talking about pressing vinyl LP's at home, recording them OVER other records that were bought from a store. Then taking the sleeves and pasting new art over the old.. I remember a clip where he seems to operating some sort of home version of a vinyl lathe. The record looking smooth and blank up until the point of the needle, where you see grooves being made as the record spins past.Then taking the sleeves and pasting new art over the old.. I remember a clip where he seems to operating some sort of home version of a vinyl lathe. The record looking smooth and blank up until the point of the needle, where you see grooves being made as the record spins past..

Is this memory.. even a memory? I'm aware of one or two things you can buy to etch an acetate, but nothing of vinyl. Aside from an old device that was used to record 78's at home, I have never heard of anything like this. Does it exist? CAN it exist? Just.. as a thought experiment.. if money was no object, could such a piece of equipment be prototyped until a working version came out of the hard work? It seems that if there were a means to simply record vinyl OVER old vinyl like any old cassette tape that it would be used like crazy these days.. Which makes me think my memory either isn't a memory, or he was talking about something that never existed.. or something..

Is this memory.. even a memory? I'm aware of one or two things you can buy to etch an acetate, but nothing of vinyl. Aside from an old device that was used to record 78's at home, I have never heard of anything like this.

Does it exist? CAN it exist? Just.. as a thought experiment.. if money was no object, could such a piece of equipment be prototyped until a working version came out of the hard work? It seems that if there were a means to simply record vinyl OVER old vinyl like any old cassette tape that it would be used like crazy these days.. Which makes me think my memory either isn't a memory, or he was talking about something that never existed.. or something..

posted by mediocre to media & arts (13 answers total)

Ack! The first two paragraphs got switched.. if a mod could correct that it would be nifty..
posted by mediocre at 4:46 PM on February 15

[Think I fixed it, hit us at the contact form if not. ]
posted by restless_nomad at 5:04 PM on February 15

The Secret Society of Lathe Trolls: A forum devoted to record-cutting deviants, renegades, professionals & experimenters — All credit to Slap*Happy, who posted this amazing link in a question last year. If it's possible, they know / there is probably already a post on how.
posted by Lorin at 5:07 PM on February 15 [5 favorites]

This doesn't seem practical to me. The grooves on a record are not etched or cut on the vinyl--they are cut into a lacquer disk that then has nickel electrically deposited on its surface, and this master metal disk is pressed onto the vinyl disks with 100 tons of force to make the records. Here's a really good video of how records are made. There would be nothing much left of a vinyl record after you lathed off the current recording.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 5:18 PM on February 15 [2 favorites]

(FWIW, acetate discs, a.k.a. "dubplates," are cut directly and can be played on a record player.)
posted by Now there are two. There are two _______. at 5:24 PM on February 15

I can't speak to your specific memory, but as you already know, lathe cut records are a thing. More than that, many field recorders of the old days (1950s-1960s) used acetate cutting machines that were portable and worked in the field. The Witmark Demos by Bob Dylan are a an example of commercial demos cut directly to acetate disc rather than to tape.

The big question here is whether there is enough wax on a commercial record these days to cut something else on top. I would say that except for "collector" releases (160-180g vinyl) there is not. But older, studier vinyl records I could see having enough wax to cut another groove. I have no idea whether this would actually work given the limitations of cutters and records.

You might want to search YouTube for "lathe cut records." I have toyed with making a post about them, but basically, you can easily cut a playable record without too much fuss, right in your own living room. They don't sound great, but you can cut a record on a yogurt lid.
posted by OmieWise at 5:30 PM on February 15

I have a similarly vague memory that might be partly imagination, but in my memory/imagination, the vinyl record is melted smooth. So I guess it would be more like casting a new black using an old record as recycled material.
I'd think it would be enough of a hassle/bother that few would bother.
posted by anonymisc at 6:07 PM on February 15

This was found when looking at the sidebar of some "lathe cut records" videos that OmieWise recommended.. It would appear that there was SOME manner of consumer level home record etcher.. probably an impossible find, however..
posted by mediocre at 7:08 PM on February 15

I have one of these portable lathes, somewhere--a Rek-o-kut. I never managed to find blank records, but I wasn't enterprising enough to try melting a commercial release (I don't think the material is the same, so it might not even work). The sound quality I was able to achieve as an amateur engineer was...not awesome.
posted by pullayup at 7:35 PM on February 15

I checked (smelled) one of my home-cut records--definitely acetate rather than vinyl.
posted by pullayup at 8:06 PM on February 15

FWIW, in my 1st grade choir class (1969 or so), we went to a studio and sang...I saw some sort of "record-player" device with a tone-arm making a recording live. I assume it was acetate that was later used to make vinyl LPs.
posted by Exchequer at 9:49 PM on February 15

I used to work with vanity presses in Nashville making custom records for various people and organizations.

Actually, most cutting masters are aluminum or glass discs, with a thin coating of lacquer, which is melted/cut by the heated stylus of the cutting head of the lathe. Common sizes still in use today (and available for commercial purchase) are 10" and 14" cutting discs, which make 45RPM and 33 & 1/3 RPM LP vinyl record finished products. Cut lacquer masters can be "played back" a limited number of times with ordinary playback phono cartridges/styli, but they are mechanically much softer than commercial vinyl pressings, and the sound fidelity degrades quickly within a few playback cycles.

Cutting masters are usually sent out directly from cutting to be electroplated and perhaps duplicated into one or more production stampers, which will be the "dies" for stamping out finished two sided vinyl records. There are usually 2 cutting masters and at least 2 stampers required for each commercial record, to make the "A" and "B" sides of the record.

As expensive as cutting masters may seem ($20 to $25 per master), they're cheap compared to the finished stampers, which, with their electroplating, and ancillary machine work to make them "press ready," will typically cost around $1000 per side. So, a vanity press in Nashville typically charges upwards of $5000 to make masters, stampers, and deliver a small quantity (say 1000 copies) of a vinyl LP pressing in plain paper jackets.
posted by paulsc at 3:55 AM on February 16 [2 favorites]

My friend has a lathe. He once recorded my band while we were playing a show, cutting records onto plastic dinner plates, live, with each record covering about 6 minutes of our show. As each one was cut he would throw it to the audience and then start cutting a new plate.

I heard some of the plates, later on. They sounded terrible. I mean, so did we, but shit it was fun.

So the sum of the story is that if you can cut onto a dinner plate, it'd be a piece of cake to cut onto an already existing LP.
posted by special agent conrad uno at 9:03 AM on February 16