Ready for pressing
The pressing machines for the records used at MY45 are all from the seventies. It is still a challenge to get hold of such machines, because when the big record labels went bankrupt one after the other, many of them were disposed of as scrap metal. And the machines that have survived the times in one way or another are mostly in a pitiful, run-down condition. But this is not at all apparent from the three presses that work at MY45. If anything, they look brand new. No wonder, because after Sudau joined the company in 2015, the company initially invested 90 percent of its working hours not in pressing plates, but in repairing and overhauling the machines. At that time, the number of employees increased in one fell swoop from two to ten people. A fourth press is currently being refurbished and will go into operation at the beginning of 2021. One of the presses has even been upgraded with a Simatic control system, transforming it digitally. "This has quite significant advantages over the old-fashioned relay circuits of the time," Sudau smiles. "Above all, the press now recognizes better when something is wrong thanks to additional sensors, and is thus more likely to be left unattended for a few minutes."
The pressure plates on which the stampers are mounted are heated by steam before the pressing process. At the rear of the press is the reservoir for the PVC granules - almost any color is possible here these days, although with a classic black PVC the stamper lasts much longer than with colored plastic, with over 1,500 records.
Sophisticated choreography
Before the pressing process begins, a device brings the record labels, which of course have to be inserted with the correct sides, into the correct position. The extruder meters the PVC between the printing plates. The molds close and, after a few seconds, a thin edge of plastic slowly emerges from the side. Invisible to the observer, the steam heating switches off soon afterwards; instead, the plates are now cooled with water. Without anyone having to pick up the record, the superfluous edge is cut off and in another movement the record falls gently onto a spindle. Every ten records, the employees place a cooling plate between them to counteract distortion. Freshly pressed records rest for two days at MY45 until they can be packaged and shipped.
From film to pressing tool
Before a record can be pressed, a pressing mold, the so-called stamper, must be produced from the sound recording in several steps. This is subjected to very high stresses, as it must withstand 110 tons of pressure and 140 degrees Celsius in the press.
After the mastercut is finished, the electroplating part begins. The sound recording is pretreated in three panning baths. Dieter carefully slides the black sound carriers into the trays in a concentrated manner. The first one contains an alkaline cleaner, RBS 35, for non-corrosive materials, which can be rinsed off without leaving any traces. This is followed by saponin as a rinse aid. The sensitizing solution, a nickel fluoride-hydrochloric acid mixture, is the final step. It is critical for the subsequent silvering process and is therefore prepared daily. The swiveling device for the baths was developed in-house. Between each bath, the mastercuts go on a pickup device into a large tub and Dieter thoroughly rinses them with a Gardena shower - using desalinated water. There's no timer running, but the rinse times seem almost constant. "I've got the feel of it by now," he grins. Things get spectacular when it comes to silver plating. Dieter hangs the black disc on a rotating plate in the silvering booth. Then he takes the somewhat bizarre-looking two-nozzled gun and sprays slowly from the edge inward. The spray is colorless, then suddenly after a few seconds the color of the mastercut turns from black to shiny silver from the outside to the inside. After rinsing with desalinated water, a shiny silver gem hangs in the spray chamber that could easily be hung on the wall as a silver record.
The big difference is that the bandwidth of frequencies of a record is larger than that of digital formats. The further a medium goes from an audio CD towards compressed formats, the more tones are de facto lost. That's why a high-quality record sounds very different and much more natural than a CD or, for example, an MP3 format can.
"Actually, the goal of any sound carrier is to make the reproduction sound like it does in reality. But that only works really well with an analog medium like the vinyl record," Sudau says, showing himself in his element. "With digitalization, many intermediate tones are lost. That's why we have customers, especially in the jazz and classical fields, who insist on a completely analog recording chain. It's a bit like comparing an Ultra HD TV picture to a moderate-resolution online video. You can tell what it's about in both cases - but those are all similarities."
Despite Corona times, production at MY45 is running at full steam as the holiday season approaches and vinyl is still - or more likely again - a popular gift.