TylerSavage wrote:The problem is you need to play it on a gramophone, ideally one made in the Czech Republic.Ha! That's it!

TomWanderer wrote:Hi there!So you are getting the exact same (disappointing) results on 4 different record players?When you say 'vinyl master' are you referring to a reference lacquer or something your mastering engineer made for you to approve before the master went to the pressing plant? The second. Digital master optimized for vinyl.TomWanderer wrote: ¦When you say it sounds almost right when you record it off of the turntable...that is confusing. It makes it seem like there are problems with your stereo. It's confusing indeed. I was wandering if this could be some weird frequency/resonation problem. I haven't experienced something like this before.TomWanderer wrote:If I were you I would take the test press to a bunch of places and play it looking for the specific problems you mentioned, try it at record stores, people's houses, whatever just to be sure it isn't a problem with your stereo. If the problems remain, insist on changing plants. Especially if you have a reference lacquer to use for an A/B comparison, and the reference plays fine and the test press has all the problems. It will be a pain in the ass to change companies, but it will be better than having lots of copies of a record that you feel bad about.We did cross check it on five Systems now. Same result everywhere. If they insist that nothing is wrong we will need to switch to a different company, which is a pity because our label works with them for 12 years and they never had a problem like this.

Hey y'all,my band ran into a weird problem this week. We received the rest pressings for the vinyl of our new record and there are a couple of problems with it.When started automatically the record jumps directly into the song “ like 10-15 seconds in “ 9 out of 10 times We have a couple of quieter tracks. There is one piece composed of clarinet, saxophone and some ambient synths. On the test pressings the clarinet sounds weirdly fluttery like there where a tremolo on it or something. The thing is: when recorded directly to hard disk from the record player it sounds almost normal. But when listened to on the speakers it sounds flattery and broken 4 out of 4 times on different turntables.On other parts there are exaggerated noises that where not audible on the vinyl master at all. Very loudly.The pressing plant is GZ in Czech Republic. We submitted our concerns and got the following feedback:This is a gramophone problem, not the record. We tried to play our sample on our turntable and the automation works normally. Plates are OK from this point of view. There is no noticeable vibration on our gramophones “ this defect occurs very often due wrongly set-up playback parameters. Did the customer tried another turntable? We do not notice any major problems and the customer cannot compare the digital sound with the mechanical sound. The claim is not accepted. Did any of you have a similar experience with their vinyl production? Could there possibly be a problem with anything besides a faulty cut? We will try to convince them to listen to the problem more closely. Right now i am pretty disappointed because we might have to switch the pressing plant which would mean no vinyl before our first batch of shows starts in a couple of weeks.

blckrbbn wrote:when recorded directly to hard disk from the record player it sounds almost normal. But when listened to on the speakers it sounds flattery and broken 4 out of 4 times on different turntables.This is just a hunch, but: when you're recording to hard disk directly from the record player, is the sound coming out of the speakers and sounding fluttery at the exact same time? Or are you disconnecting the record player from the stereo (or otherwise disabling audible playback) to test the hard-disk version?

Ugh, that sucks! Unfortunately a digital master optimized for vinyl is not the same thing as a reference lacquer. You're hearing the music being reproduced on a record for the first time with the test pressing. Most mastering engineers know the procedures and tricks to get a record to track correctly, but if you're experiencing fluttering and stuff like that, on a bunch of different record players, then it's not tracking correctly. If you had a reference lacquer, you would know for certain weather the problem was on their end (in the stampers they made or something) or an inherent issue in the recording that won't track right. Does your engineer still have the files? You could ask him or her to recommend someone to do a flat cut of the master for you so that you've got it on a reference lacquer and then determine if the flaws are truly on the part of the pressing plant. If the same flaws show up on the lacquer, then you know that the issue is in the mix/master and you can bring it to the attention of your engineer to fix and ultimately keep working with your trusted record pressing plant.

Hi there!So you are getting the exact same (disappointing) results on 4 different record players?When you say 'vinyl master' are you referring to a reference lacquer or something your mastering engineer made for you to approve before the master went to the pressing plant? If your reference lacquer plays problem free and your test pressing has all these issues, then there is something wrong with your test press. When you say it sounds almost right when you record it off of the turntable...that is confusing. It makes it seem like there are problems with your stereo. If I were you I would take the test press to a bunch of places and play it looking for the specific problems you mentioned, try it at record stores, people's houses, whatever just to be sure it isn't a problem with your stereo. If the problems remain, insist on changing plants. Especially if you have a reference lacquer to use for an A/B comparison, and the reference plays fine and the test press has all the problems. It will be a pain in the ass to change companies, but it will be better than having lots of copies of a record that you feel bad about.

The problem is you need to play it on a gramophone, ideally one made in the Czech Republic.

TomWanderer wrote: ¦Does your engineer still have the files? You could ask him or her to recommend someone to do a flat cut of the master for you so that you've got it on a reference lacquer and then determine if the flaws are truly on the part of the pressing plant. If the same flaws show up on the lacquer, then you know that the issue is in the mix/master and you can bring it to the attention of your engineer to fix and ultimately keep working with your trusted record pressing plant.That is great advice, thank you!

brephophagist wrote:blckrbbn wrote:when recorded directly to hard disk from the record player it sounds almost normal. But when listened to on the speakers it sounds flattery and broken 4 out of 4 times on different turntables.This is just a hunch, but: when you're recording to hard disk directly from the record player, is the sound coming out of the speakers and sounding fluttery at the exact same time? Or are you disconnecting the record player from the stereo (or otherwise disabling audible playback) to test the hard-disk version?There was no sound coming from the speakers when we recorded it. We got a second copy from the first batch of test pressings and we all have the feeling that the symptoms almost get worse with each spin. We were now able to capture the weird sound on a hard disk recording and i hope the pressing plant is able to verify/validate our findings.

blckrbbn wrote:TomWanderer wrote: ¦Does your engineer still have the files? You could ask him or her to recommend someone to do a flat cut of the master for you so that you've got it on a reference lacquer and then determine if the flaws are truly on the part of the pressing plant. If the same flaws show up on the lacquer, then you know that the issue is in the mix/master and you can bring it to the attention of your engineer to fix and ultimately keep working with your trusted record pressing plant.That is great advice, thank you!No problem! Good luck.