If the player does not have a special audio output, use the headphone jack. To do this, you will need a cable with a mini-jack interface (3.5 mm). Connect the other end of the wire to the microphone jack on the computer sound card. As a rule, a mini-jack interface is also used.

Prepare the player for playback. Turn it on, put on the desired vinyl record. Place the turntable needle on the very first track of the record.

Choose one of the applications to record audio. Examples include Sound Forge, Audacity, Adobe Audition, etc. Launch the program and create new project. Make a test recording. To do this, click on the appropriate button in the application. It is usually indicated by a red circle or the inscription Record. After this, start playing the record on the playback device. Watch the monitor that shows the sound level in the app. Adjust the volume as necessary to ensure that the sound recorded from the record is not too quiet or too loud.

After a minute or two, stop recording. Click the play button in the app. It is usually indicated by a green arrow or Play. Listen to the recorded material. If you are satisfied with the quality of the recording, start recording the entire record. If not, adjust the sound properly.

Delete the recorded track in the application. Place the needle at the beginning of the record. Click the record button in the program and start playback on the player. Wait until everything is recorded. After that, save the audio file using the “File” -> “Save” menu.

Video on the topic

Recently, a successful choice of hobby can affect a person’s life. So, a love of music can turn into a fairly profitable profession. DJs are so popular today that sales of vinyl records are constantly increasing.

You will need

• - vinyl records;
• - special equipment(vinyl players, consoles, mixers, etc.).

Instructions

Define your style. Before you can play vinyl, you need to purchase it. But buying the first records you come across will not lead to anything good, so first decide what style you want. After that, find the best performers in this area on the Internet.

Go to or shop . Records are popular among a certain circle of people, so their sales are limited. You will have to find a store that has a selection of , and you will be able to buy the latest releases as soon as they are released. Or shop online, which will make it easier for you to search for a particular record in several stores.

Learn to operate the equipment. Perfect option- ask a DJ friend to conduct a short training course. If there are no such people among your social circle, contact a DJing school (details can be found on the website http://first-dj.ru/course.html). You need to learn the basics - crossfading, adjusting channel levels on the mixer, and turning pitch on the turntables.

Try mixing tracks. To do this, place the needle approximately in the middle of the track. You want a clean bit in that spot. Go back to the part of the track where the beat is just starting to come in, listen to both tracks playing at the same time, and adjust the pitch.

Make a few scratches (the ability to make them pleasing to the ear comes gradually) at the entry point of the beat. Scratching is done to the beat of the playing track. Adjust the beats of both tracks (playing on speakers and headphones) and release it audible only to you with a slight push. Both tracks will start playing simultaneously.

Listen to the mixing of the tracks. Once you're sure they're actually perfectly aligned, move the cosfader toward the center. If you need to correct a lagging track, just push the record with your hand (or brake the second one). The vinyl game is based on these actions, but it will take more than one month to master them successfully. Over time, you will be able to adjust tracks directly from vinyl, experience will give you the opportunity to experiment with sound and tuning.

Video on the topic

Helpful advice

Don't rush into purchasing expensive DJ equipment. First, learn how to play someone else's, get some experience and decide if you really want to turn it into your profession.

From the late 19th century through much of the 20th, vinyl records were a popular, inexpensive and accessible medium for distributing audio recordings until they were superseded by digital discs.

Vinyl disc and its reproduction

A vinyl record is an analogue audio storage medium in the form of a disc, on one or both sides of which there is a “track” (a continuous groove), the depth and width of which varies depending on the sound wave. Such records are played in old-style gramophones, as well as in more modern electric players and electrophones.

The player's needle, moving along the surface of the record, vibrates and an electrical signal is generated. This signal is amplified by an amplifier and reproduced by speakers, resulting in audio material recorded in the studio being heard.

Material composition

The polymer called vinyl is a vinyl chloride/vinyl acetate copolymer. In the industry, this polymer is often called “vinyl resin.” It was the first material from which records were made to be played on the gramophone.

The American company Carbide and Carbon first received a patent for its use as a material for releasing records in 1933. This is how the vinyl recording industry began. The vinyl chloride/vinyl acetate copolymer, however, is not the only component of the material, since a plate made only from it would be transparent, short-lived, would give loud noise, as well as crackling noise from static electricity.

Therefore, the composition also includes other components, for example, carnauba wax and calcium stearate have been used in the production of records since the 1930s and to this day. Otherwise, the composition has been changed several times over the decades in order to improve quality. Thus, the composition of the material for making a record includes 95% vinyl resin and various additives determined by the manufacturer. Additives mean stabilizers, pigments, antistatic agents, plasticizers, internal and external lubricants.

Vinyl today

The production of mass-produced hot-pressed records peaked in the 1970s. At the end of the 20th century, digital discs replaced vinyl records. They are still used, but today they are mainly used by DJs, lovers of antiquity and connoisseurs of the specific warm and lively sound that vinyl discs provide. This compensates them for such disadvantages as the small number of tracks on the side of the record and its rapid wear, susceptibility to humidity and temperature changes.

Vinyl lovers actively purchase records via the Internet and at auctions. Individual collectible pieces can cost a fortune.

Until a couple of years ago, vinyl releases were mainly made by independent small labels and alternative artists to the mainstream. Today, Jack White and the Black Keys are the first to announce record releases, and even pop stars like Taylor Swift and Beyoncé also want to hear how their music sounds under the needle. And they all want to be pressed in Nashville - the largest vinyl factory in the USA.

“It's a metal matrix,” says Jay Millar, examining the dazzling silver disk in the machine room of the United Record Pressing plant in suburban Nashville, Tennessee. “That’s where it all starts.”

Fifty years ago, this plant produced the first single in the United States by The Beatles, and then in the 70s and 80s, hundreds of hit records on 33 and 45 revolutions from the Motown recording studio, famous for its signature sound. Today, the old presses show no sign of stopping, churning out hissing, buzzing records that are seeing a resurgence in sales. Nashville claims to be the vinyl capital of the world as the city's music industry struggles to meet the growing demand for vinyl records.

United Record Pressing is the largest vinyl pressing company in the United States. By the way, it is located not far from Third Man Records - an independent label founded by Jack White, who recently managed to release modern times.

Nashville claims to be the vinyl capital of the world

Next year the company plans to install 16 new presses, which will increase daily production volumes to 60 thousand records. Jay Millar did not specify where exactly they managed to find these machines - the production of machines for working with vinyl records closed in the eighties, and the competition for the remaining production capacity is enormous - because the demand for vinyl is growing rapidly. The last few metal master presses (the stamps used to make vinyl records) were bought at an auction held by the Church of Scientology, whose followers sincerely believed that The best way preserve the speeches of his guru Ron Hubbard for posterity - record them on 33⅓ records.

Left: blanks for printing a vinyl record, right - the record itself (in this case by Creedence Clearwater Revival)

Scientologists are not the only ones who have decided to bring vinyl back to life. After years of audio format wars that have seen overall physical media sales halve, consumers appear to have made up their minds. Demand for CDs and MP3 downloads is down, while sales of streaming audio and vinyl are up.

We now have a convenient digital option and high quality vinyl

“We now have the convenience of digital and high-quality vinyl,” says Millar. “Our production runs 24 hours a day, six days a week, but we still can’t keep up with growing demand.” As of mid-June 2014, vinyl sales in the United States were up 40% year-on-year. Turnover is likely to reach 6 million records this year. It is worth noting that in 2007 only about 1 million vinyl media were sold.

The master disk is placed in galvanic bath to make its opposite - “mother” (matrix)

Analog audiophiles like Jack White and the Black Keys have long been producing their music in Nashville. However, for some time now, stars of the pop scene who previously were not particularly fond of vinyl, such as Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, have also joined this company. The demand from musicians is so great that the wait time for a batch of discs to be produced has increased to 12 weeks. Record labels do not announce a vinyl release date until the pressing of their particular release begins.

The printing process of a two-color version of Jack White's The Lazaretto record

The top seller this year was Jack White's album The Lazaretto, which sold 40 thousand records in its first week. This is a recognized record - not a single vinyl release has sold so well since 1991. By the way, sales of this album are still ongoing, and, according to statistics, they amount to 2000 per week. In the Third Man Records studio located at the entrance to the United Record Pressing factory, Neil Young recently recorded the album A Letter Home. There's a vinyl cutting machine from King Records in Cincinnati, donated by James Brown; glass cabinet with a dancing monkey toy. One half of the studio is painted red, the other half yellow. Girls in signature yellow and black colors move between the rooms of Third Records. The corridors are decorated with stuffed animals, one of which resembles a yak.

Third Man Records slogan: “Your record player is not dead”

“It's actually tar,” said Ben Swank. He and Ben Blackwell are the heads of Third Man Records. They came up with the slogan "Your record player is not dead" and offered a direct subscription service that included monthly delivery of all new vinyl releases. Since White's move from his native Detroit to Nashville in 2007, the label has released about 300 records, mostly singles. “Jack puts out more Americana, and Ben and I put out more rock 'n' roll and punk. We mainly replicate forty-fives. We try to be spontaneous: did you get the master? Let's release him! " - Swank comments.

The Black Keys of Dan Auerbach and Brendan Benson had already worked at the studio. Ben Swank believes Nashville, with its historical ties to country music, is becoming a new hotspot for musicians. “The local community is the mother of pop music too,” he says. - We are not running away from modern technologies. We just think using a ribbon microphone or analog tape is much more romantic. On the other hand, it’s harder to work this way - and this, on the contrary, is good, because it adds value to the final result.”

Using a ribbon microphone or analog tape is much more romantic

Nashville's success may also be due to the city's innate conservatism. Country music, for example, is still recorded in the classic eight-track format - recording studios working with musicians on this equipment today seem like relics that have survived nuclear war. "We're in a really cool place," Swank adds. “People still crave individuality.”

Radon record print, album No Idea benefit for Quinn Clower

But there is little concern that the analogue renaissance is only temporary. "Everything comes back, but one day it's gone forever," says VH1 director Bill Flanagan. - If it's just nostalgia or a high-end hipster thing, will it disappear in the next 10 years? This resurgence may be the last gasp of a dying culture before the cloud [audio streaming services] consumes everything.”

If vinyl is a high-end hipster thing, will it disappear in the next 10 years?

At the same time, the demand for vinyl continues unabated. Every year on the third Saturday of April, Record Store Day is held - a huge number of people gather to release their release. They swear, try to jump the line and accuse each other of wanting to sabotage. Production is a tight end, and it's great that big artists are seeing strong sales of vinyl releases. The physical limitations of the record (two sides are approximately 20 minutes each) force a return to a format lost in the era of 70-minute CDs and the endless iTunes format. Chris Mara, who founded the analog studio Welcome in 1979, says that if an artist wants to create music in album format, he has to go back a step.

Vinyl record print of Sarah Jaffe, album Don"t Disconnect

Mara’s side business - restoring 24-track analog tape recorders - has never been idle: “People come to me to make a recording with the most in a difficult way. They want to tell themselves and their fans - this is our music, our product. We hit every note on this track."

Vinyl will live on

The question arises: can vinyl stay in the market and keep pace with high technology? Jay Millar thinks that the introduction of high technologies into the technical process is possible - master disks, machines, varnishes, etc. “The revival has happened. We are moving to a new stage. Vinyl isn't going away. Demand may level off at some point and stop growing so quickly. But here it is not so much a matter of form as of content. Vinyl will live on,” he concludes.

P.S. If you would like to visit the United Record Pressing factory, you can do so if you find yourself in Nashville. The company conducts tours weekly on Fridays, details.

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Vinyl Revival 4. How Records Are Made

According to the Association of Phonographic Industry (IFPI), in the seven months of this year, the production of vinyl records increased by 125% compared to the previous year. A significant part of the vinyl produced comes from the European Union and the USA, where not only old production facilities operate, but also new factories are opened. American and Japanese companies are also increasing vinyl production, while there are no more record factories left in Russia. Find out how records are made in this short review.

The production of a vinyl record begins with the production of a master disc. For this purpose, the factory uses aluminum substrates.

Such a blank is placed in a special machine, which covers each substrate with the required layer of varnish - the output is a varnish disk.

Mastering is carried out as follows - the original recording is played in reverse on a mixing console connected to the cutting machine.

Then comes the time of the so-called “varnish cutting”. On a vinyl machine, a vibrating etching needle engraves the varnish.

The etched varnish is then plated and used to make stamping plates. The plating is usually a thin layer of silver or nickel.

Tracks on a metal plate are cut using this machine

After making the matrix, all excess metal is cut off

The manufactured “heavy” disc is kept by the manufacturer for decades, and often all subsequent reissues are made from it, since master discs wear out quickly (aluminum, after all).

After the varnish has cooled on the matrix, it is separated from the metal plate

The finished matrices are washed special composition

In production, paternal and maternal discs are distinguished. That is, there is a master disk, there is a copy of it - the heavy father's disk, plus a copy of the father's - the mother's disk (made by sputtering silver onto the father's disk). The mother disk can play on the player. If the mother's disk breaks during printing, another copy is made from the father's disk. As a rule, one such matrix is ​​designed for 1500-2000 records.

In the center of the plate using special machine knocks out serial number records and, if necessary, text

Once the record is ready for printing, it's time to turn the vinyl.

It is delivered in the form of small balls, which are poured into an extruder - a press that heats and extrudes vinyl.

The output is “vinyl noodles”

The extruder itself looks like a medium-sized machine

The vinyl noodles then go into a furnace machine, which melts this “semi-finished product.”

At the same time, many factories operate machines that cannot be stopped. A break in production - and all the insides of the oven will become clogged with pieces of vinyl like this

In parallel with the production of vinyl, stickers are also printed on records. A special press cuts them out of the stack.

The stickers are placed on both sides, and the vinyl mass is fed under the press. Few seconds maximum pressure(more than 100 tons) and the record is almost ready.

Now you need to trim the edges using a trimmer. Previously, simpler models that required human intervention were used.

The process is now largely automated.

The finished vinyl record is left to cool in special containers.

In general, such production turns out to be quite expensive. The smallest factories agree to print records with a circulation of at least 250 copies. This is mainly explained high cost metal matrices and the accuracy of work on etching tracks (all measurements are carried out using special microscopes). According to manufacturers, today's production capacity is clearly not enough to achieve at least 200% of the cost of a record compared to the golden era of vinyl.

At the same time, the growing demand for records leaves both producers and music lovers with some reason for cautious optimism.

While many users have already thrown their records into the trash and their turntables have been shoved into the closet, those are still alive and growing. Although the number of stores selling gramophone records has noticeably decreased even here in Russia (while CDs can be found in almost every shop selling industrial goods), the world's leading companies continue to produce and improve vinyl disc players - gramophone records.

To obtain records with stereophonic information, two channels of it are recorded on two sides of a V-shaped groove. The highest chic is considered to be direct recording at the beginning of the creation of the original, without the use of auxiliary studio tape recorders. Alas, such records are very rare.

To play records, a double pickup with one needle is used - the components of its vibrations from the two inclined walls of the groove are mechanically transmitted to two systems for converting mechanical vibrations into electrical ones. The needle has a U-shaped end with a small radius of curvature and is located inside the V-shaped groove of the record without touching its bottom. Therefore, only changes in the groove profile are transmitted to the needle. The needle is made of a hard, low-wear material - usually corundum or diamond. In more or less high-quality players, only diamond needles are used with a service life of up to 500-1000 hours.

The reasons for the long life of gramophone records are not only that many music lovers and simply music lovers have accumulated entire collections of these products, but many find that the sound of a played record is softer, more natural and warmer than that of digital systems. And one cannot but agree with this. Even the inherent noise of records has become so commonplace that designers of CD players are forced to create a faint noise during pauses.

A gramophone record (usually just a record) is an analogue carrier of sound information - a disk, on one or both sides of which a continuous spiral groove (track) is applied by one method or another, the shape of which is modulated by a sound wave.
To “play” (reproduce sound) gramophone records, devices specially designed for this purpose are used: gramophones, gramophones, and later on – electric players and electrophones.
When moving along a record track, the player's needle begins to vibrate (since the shape of the track is uneven in the plane of the record along its radius and perpendicular to the direction of movement of the needle, and depends on the recorded signal). When vibrated, the piezoelectric material or electromagnetic coil of the pickup produces an electrical signal, which is amplified by the amplifier and then played back by the speaker(s), reproducing the sound recorded in the recording studio.
The words "record" and "record" are shorthand for "gramophone record" and "gramophone record", although gramophones themselves have not been widely used for a long time. IN late XIX and throughout the 20th century, the gramophone record was (until it was replaced in the mid-1990s by the compact disc) the most popular means of distributing audio recordings, inexpensive and accessible.
The main advantage of the gramophone record was the convenience of mass replication by hot pressing; in addition, gramophone records are not subject to the action of electric and magnetic fields. The disadvantages of a gramophone record are its susceptibility to temperature changes and humidity, mechanical damage(appearance of scratches), as well as inevitable wear and tear due to constant use (decrease and loss of audio performance). In addition, phonograph records provide less dynamic range than more modern formats storage of sound recordings.
Hard plates Various sizes of gramophone records: 30 cm (45 rpm), 25 cm (78 rpm) and 17.5 cm (45 rpm). The central “apple” of the latter can be broken off to obtain a hole with a diameter of 38.24 mm for automatic record players. The term “hard” itself in relation to gramophone records is rarely used, because usually gramophone records, unless specified, mean just that. Early gramophone records are most often called “shellac” (based on the material they are made of), or “gramophone” (based on the common device for playing them). Shellac plates are thick (up to 3 mm), heavy (up to 220 g) and fragile. Before playing such records on relatively modern electrophones, you need to make sure that their tonearm is equipped with a replaceable head or a rotary stylus marked “78”, and that the player’s disk can rotate at the appropriate speed. Gramophone records are not necessarily made of shellac - as technology developed, they began to be made of synthetic resins and plastics. In the USSR in 1950, 78 rpm records made of polyvinyl chloride appeared; they were marked “PVC” and “Shellac-free.” The last “breakable” shellac record was released at the Aprelevsky plant in 1971.
But usually vinyl records mean later ones, designed for playback on electric players, not mechanical gramophones, and at a rotation speed of no higher than 45 rpm.
Flexible plates There are rare supplement records that were included in computer magazines in the late 1970s and on which computer programs were recorded (later, before the widespread distribution of floppy disks, compact cassettes were used for these purposes). This standard of records was called Floppy-ROM; such a flexible record could hold up to 4 KB of data at a rotation speed of 33⅓ rpm. Flexible records are also recorded on old x-rays.
Flexible postcard plates were also previously produced. Such souvenirs were sent by mail and contained, in addition to notes, handwritten congratulations. They met two different types:
Consisting of a flexible rectangular or round shape with a one-sided recording, attached to a printing base card with a hole in the center. Like flexible records, they had a limited operating frequency range and playing time;
The tracks of the record were printed on a varnish layer covering a photograph or postcard. The sound quality was even lower than on flexible gramophone records (and postcards based on them); such records could not be stored for a long time due to warping and drying out of the varnish. But such records could be recorded by the sender himself: there were recorders, one of which can be seen in action in the film “Carnival Night.”
Souvenir and decorative plates“Sound souvenir” - a photo card with a recording. They were made in the presence of the customer in small semi-makeshift recording studios in resort towns of the USSR. The usual color of gramophone records is black, but multi-colored ones are also available. There are also gramophone records where, under a transparent layer with tracks, there is a paint layer that repeats the design of the envelope or replaces the information on it (as a rule, these are expensive collector's editions). Decorative plates can be square, hexagonal, in the form of a disk for circular saw, in the form of animals, birds, etc.
Handicraft records. "Music on the ribs" Recording on X-ray film
In the 1950s and 1960s in the USSR, underground recording studios recorded musical works, which for ideological reasons were prohibited from being distributed by the Melodiya company, on large-format X-ray films. This is where the expression “Jazz on the bones” came from (also, such “homemade” recordings were commonly called “ribs” or “records on ribs”). In those years, recordings of many Western singers and musical groups (for example, The Beatles) could only be heard on such underground records. Due to the drying of the film emulsion, such plates curled over time and were generally short-lived.
This original method of sound recording is reflected in art, for example, in Viktor Tsoi’s song “Once You Were a Beatnik” there are the words: “You were ready to give your soul for rock and roll, extracted from a photograph of someone else’s diaphragm.” Also in the song “My Old Blues” by the leader of the Moscow acoustic group “Bedlam” (late 1990s - 2002) Viktor Klyuev there are the words: “The record ‘on the bones’ is still intact, but you can’t understand individual phrases.” The process of recording “on the bones” itself was demonstrated in the 2008 film “Hipsters” (original title: “Boogie on the Bones”). As soon as affordable tape recorders became available for sale, homemade recording practically disappeared.
Recording formats
Monaural records Historically, records with monophonic recording (one sound channel) were the first to appear. The vast majority of these records had a transverse, or Berliner, recording, in which the pickup needle oscillates left and right. However, at the dawn of the recording era, records were also released with deep (“Edisonian”) recording, where the needle moved up and down. Some gramophones had the ability to rotate the head with a membrane by 90°, which allowed them to play both types of records. The first mass-produced monophonic records had a rotation speed of 78 rpm, then records appeared at speeds of 45 and 33⅓ rpm (for music) and 16⅔ and 8½ rpm (for speech). Monophonic records produced in the USSR were marked with a triangle or square sign. On early records and turntables, the rotation speed was written inside geometric figure. Sometimes only the rotation speed was indicated, without markings.
Stereo records In monophonic records, the profiles of the left and right walls of the V-shaped sound track do not differ, but in stereophonic records (two sound channels, for the right and left ears), the right wall of the track is modulated by the signal of the first channel, and the left wall by the signal of the second channel. The stereophonic pickup head has two sensitive elements (piezocrystals or electromagnetic coils), located at an angle of 45° to the surface of the record (and at 90° to each other) and connected to the stylus by so-called pushers. Mechanical vibrations that the stylus perceives from the left or right wall of the sound track excite an electrical signal in the corresponding audio channel player. This scheme was theoretically substantiated by the English engineer Alan Blumlein back in 1931, but it received practical implementation only in 1958. It was then that the first modern stereo records were first demonstrated at the London Recording Equipment Exhibition.
Stereo players can also play monophonic recordings, in which case they perceive them as two identical channels.
In early experiments on recording a stereo signal onto one track, they tried to combine more traditional transverse and depth recording: one channel was formed based on horizontal vibrations of the stylus, and the other based on vertical vibrations. But with this recording format, the quality of one channel was significantly inferior to the quality of the other, and it was quickly abandoned.
Most stereo records are recorded at 33⅓ rpm with a track width of 55 µm. Previously (especially in a number of countries outside the USSR), records with a rotation speed of 45 rpm were widely produced. They were especially popular in the USA compact options, intended for use in jukeboxes with automatic change or selection of records. They were also suitable for playback on home players. To record speech programs, records were produced with a rotation speed of 8⅓ rpm and a playing time of up to one and a half hours on one side. Stereo records are available in three diameters: 175, 250 and 300 mm, which provides average duration sounding of one side (at 33⅓ rpm) 7-8, 13-15 and 20-24 minutes. The duration of the sound depends on the cutting density. A tightly cut record can hold up to 30 minutes of music on one side, but the stylus on such records can jump and be generally unstable. Also, records with compacted recording wear out faster due to narrower groove walls.
Quadrophonic records Quadraphonic records contain information about four (two front and two rear) audio channels, which allows you to convey the volume of a musical work. This format gained some, rather limited, distribution in the 1970s. The number of albums released in this format was very small (for example, a quad version of the famous 1973 album by the rock group Pink Floyd “Dark Side of the Moon” was released), and their circulation was limited - this was due to the need to use rare and expensive special players and amplifiers for 4 channels. By the 1980s, this direction was curtailed. In the USSR, the first and only experiment in mastering four-channel sound took place in 1980, when an album by the group “Yabloko” was recorded and released under the name “Country-folk-rock group “Yabloko”” (KA90-14435-6). The record cost more than a regular one - 6 rubles (a giant stereo record with pop music then cost 2 rubles 15 kopecks, released under a foreign license - slightly more expensive), and the total circulation was 18,000 copies.
Manufacturing Using special equipment, sound is converted into mechanical vibrations of a cutter (usually sapphire), which cuts concentric sound tracks onto a layer of material. At the dawn of recording, tracks were cut on wax, later on phonographic foil coated with nitrocellulose, and later phonographic foil was replaced by copper foil. In the late 70s, Teldec developed DMM (Direct Metal Mastering) technology, according to which tracks are formed on the thinnest layer amorphous copper covering a perfectly flat steel substrate. This made it possible to significantly increase the accuracy of reproduction of the recorded signal, which led to a noticeable improvement in the sound quality of phonographic recordings. This technology is still used today. From the disk obtained in this way, using galvanoplasty in several successive stages, one obtains required amount nickel copies with both positive and negative display of the mechanical soundtrack. Manufactured at last stage negative copies that serve as the basis in the process of pressing vinyl records are called matrices; All intermediate nickel copies are usually called originals.
The production of originals and matrices is carried out in the galvanic workshop. Electrochemical processes are carried out in multi-chamber galvanic installations with automatic stepwise regulation of electric current and nickel build-up time.
Mold parts are manufactured on CNC machines and undergo high-temperature soldering in vacuum ovens according to special technology. The molds themselves ensure high uniformity of the temperature field on the forming surfaces, low inertia of the temperature regime, and therefore high productivity. A single mold can produce tens of thousands of records. The material for making a modern gramophone record is a special mixture based on a copolymer of vinyl chloride and vinyl acetate (polyvinyl chloride) with various additives necessary to give the plastic the necessary mechanical and temperature properties. High quality mixing of powdery components is achieved using two-stage mixers with hot and cold mixing.
In the press shop, a heated portion of vinyl with labels already glued on top and bottom is fed into the press, which, under pressure of up to 100 atm, spreads between the two halves of the mold and, after cooling, forms a finished gramophone record. Next, the disc edges are trimmed, inspected, and packaged. The first gramophone record produced after installing nickel dies on the press, and then each specially selected one from the circulation, are carefully checked for dimensional characteristics and listened to in specially equipped sound booths. To avoid warping, all pressed records undergo the required temperature exposure, and before packaging in an envelope appearance Each gramophone record is checked additionally.
Playback Playing vinyl records has a number of features related to both the physical nature of this medium and technical features reproduction of vinyl sound and its amplification. For example, mandatory element for electrophones with a magnetic pickup head is a phono stage.
Story The most primitive prototype of a gramophone record can be considered music box, which uses a metal disc with a deep spiral groove to pre-record the melody. In certain places of the groove, pinpoint depressions are made - pits, the location of which corresponds to the melody. When the disk rotates, driven by a clock spring mechanism, a special metal needle slides along the groove and “reads” the sequence of applied dots. The needle is attached to a membrane, which makes a sound every time the needle hits a groove.
The oldest gramophone record in the world is now considered to be a sound recording that was made in 1860. Researchers from the recording history group First Sounds discovered it on March 1, 2008, in a Paris archive and were able to play an audio recording of a folk song made by French inventor Edouard Leon Scott de Martinville using a device he called a “phonautograph” in 1860. It is 10 seconds long and is an excerpt from a French folk song. The phonautograph scratched sound tracks on a piece of paper blackened by smoke from an oil lamp.
In 1877, the French scientist Charles Cros was the first to scientifically substantiate the principles of recording sound on a drum (or disk) and its subsequent playback. In the same year, namely in the middle of 1877, the young American inventor Thomas Edison invented and patented a phonograph device in which sound is recorded on a cylindrical roller wrapped in tin foil (or paper tape, covered with a layer of wax) using a needle (cutter) connected to the membrane; the needle draws a helical groove of variable depth on the surface of the foil. His wax roller phonograph was not widely used due to the difficulty of copying the recording, the rapid wear of the rollers, and poor playback quality.
In 1887 American engineer Jewish origin Emil Berliner proposed using a disk-shaped medium for recording. While working on his idea, Berliner first built and tested Charles Cros' device, proposed 20 years earlier, using a zinc plate instead of a chrome plate. Emil Berliner replaced the rollers with disks - metal matrices from which copies could be made. With their help, gramophone records were pressed. One matrix made it possible to print an entire circulation - at least 500 records, which significantly reduced production costs and, accordingly, the cost of production. This was the main advantage of Emil Berliner's gramophone records compared to Edison's wax rollers, which could not be mass-produced. Unlike Edison's phonograph, Berliner developed a special device to record sound - a recorder, and to reproduce sound he created another - a gramophone, for which a patent was received on September 26, 1887. Instead of Edison's depth recording, Berliner used transverse recording, in which the needle left a sinuous trace of constant depth. In the 20th century, the membrane was replaced by microphones that convert sound vibrations in electrical and electronic amplifiers.
In 1892, a method was developed for galvanic replication of a zinc disk from a positive, as well as a technology for pressing ebonite records using a steel printing matrix. But ebonite was quite expensive and was soon replaced by a composite mass based on shellac, a wax-like substance produced by tropical insects from the family of lac bugs that live in South-East Asia. The plates became of better quality and cheaper, and therefore more accessible, but their main drawback was their low mechanical strength - they resembled glass in their fragility. Shellac records were produced until the middle of the 20th century, until they were replaced by even cheaper ones - made of polyvinyl chloride (“vinyl”). One of the first real gramophone records was a record released in 1897 by Victor in the USA.

We already know that the bulk of the material of a long-playing record is a copolymer of vinyl chloride and vinyl acetate, “vinyl resin” in professional terminology.

The founder of the entire vinyl recording industry, a patent for the use of vinyl resin as a material for the production of records, was received by the American company Carbide and Carbon (Union Carbide) on October 31, 1933, and the following compositions were given as examples in the patent:

100 parts vinyl resin
60 parts barite (natural barium sulfate mineral)
40 pieces of rotten stone (tripol, soft, loose rock)
1 part carnauba wax (carnauba is a type of Brazilian palm tree)
1 part calcium stearate
1 part lime

100 parts vinyl resin
87 parts cotton flock
8 parts fiber talc
1 part carnauba wax
1 part calcium stearate and lime

Vinyl resin in these compositions means a copolymer of vinyl chloride and vinyl acetate in a ratio of 80:20, but the patent prudently covers any copolymers of vinyl halides and vinyl esters of aliphatic acids with a content of the former of 70% or higher.

As you can see, the first recipes for compositions for the production of vinyl records make one think of witchcraft: rotten stone + carnauba wax + dried toad = eternal youth. The reason is simple: polymer chemistry was in its infancy and natural materials were cheaper than synthetic ones. However, in some ways the pioneers hit the bull’s eye - for example, calcium stearate and carnauba wax are still used in records. But fillers, on the contrary, have not been used for a long time: quality requirements are now incomparably higher and completely exclude the possibility of their use.

Of course, over the almost century-long history of vinyl record production, many compositions have been tried in search of optimal quality, or to reduce the cost of production, and sometimes for patent reasons.

Thus, DECCA used an original composition based on a copolymer of vinyl chloride and vinylidene, producing it in its native UK in order to circumvent the Union Carbide patent and save money by refusing to import “real” vinyl resin. This happened in the late 1940s - 1950s, and then the patent expired and such tricks lost their relevance.

To produce “correct” records, vinyl resin with a vinyl acetate content of 12-15% is usually used.

The record contains about 95% vinyl resin and a number of additives, the exact composition and proportions of which are the secret of the record manufacturer, because it is they who ultimately determine the quality of the product. The resin itself also already contains a small amount of additives, about a couple of percent.

The purpose of additives is to overcome a number of difficulties of a chemical and technological nature, namely:

• Vinyl resin degrades when exposed to heat and ultraviolet light.
• Air oxygen initiates a number of degradation processes in the polymer
• Mixing heated resin, pressing records and all other stages of physical processing require significant effort to overcome internal friction in the material, which is energy-consuming and is accompanied by significant heat generation, then see the first point.
• The vinyl resin sticks to the stamps.
• Vinyl resin is not flexible enough to perfectly fill the relief of stamps.
• Vinyl resin is easily electrified, and the accumulated surface charges, in turn, attract dust particles.

Depending on the functions they perform, additives are divided into:

• Stabilizers
• Internal lubricants
• External lubricants
• Plasticizers
• Antistatic agents
• Pigments

Elevated temperature and ultraviolet radiation promote the splitting of polymer molecules: PVC releases a chlorine radical, which then forms hydrogen chloride, PVA - acetic acid, and double bonds are formed in the remaining molecules. Ultraviolet light (and neutrons) break C-C bonds, resulting in the formation of smaller molecules. In addition to deteriorating the physical properties of the material, double bonds are also formed. The presence of unsaturated bonds leads to the formation of cross-linking through oxygen atoms, which degrades the properties of the material; light catalyzes this process. The reaction of an oxygen molecule with a polymer usually results in a chain reaction involving free radicals. A polymer, interacting with oxygen in the air, can lose a hydrogen atom to form a free radical, which then reacts with another oxygen molecule to form a peroxy-free radical. This, in turn, reacts with a new element of the polymer chain to form hydroperoxide and the next free radical. Thus, the initial reaction with oxygen starts a chain of multiplying reactions. The peroxides produced during the process can be broken down to form aldehydes, ketones, acids and alcohols, resulting in a softer material with a lower average molecular weight. The presence of ozone is a source of oxygen in an even more active form. Inhibitors and antioxidants are used to interrupt the chain of oxidative reactions.

The presence of initially existing acetate groups, as well as other groups susceptible to hydrolysis, formed as a result of oxidative processes, makes it possible to interact with water - hydrolysis, which over time negatively affects the strength of the material.

X-rays, gamma rays, electron beams and the aforementioned neutron radiation also cause degradation of vinyl resin.

There is also such a factor as microbiological damage - fungi and bacteria eat even synthetic plastics. This is not as theoretical a threat as it may seem: polyvinyl acetate has poor resistance to microbial attack. Polyvinyl chloride is also not flawless; specialized literature defines its microbiological resistance as “good, questionable,” that is, its resistance has at least not been sufficiently studied, which, of course, is surprising for the world’s most important plastic with a century-old history.

Stabilizers added to the mixture to increase the vinyl's resistance to high temperature(primarily during the pressing process) both to ultraviolet radiation and to slow down oxidative processes. Their action is to bind or absorb HCl, bind free radicals, react at double bonds, and neutralize substances that can catalyze undesirable reactions.

The most popular stabilizers are metal salts of higher fatty acids: lead stearate, barium, calcium, zinc, and magnesium stearates. Despite attempts to abandon the use of toxic lead, a full replacement has never been found. Lead compounds have an excellent ability to bind unstable chlorine to form chloride. The remaining stearates listed are used either as additives to lead stearate or if special qualities are required that do not allow the use of lead compounds, such as transparency. A number of other substances also have a stabilizing effect: sulfate, phosphate, orthosilicate, carbonate, lead phthalate, tin compounds, salts of alkali metals and weak acids, for example, sodium and potassium citrates, sodium organophosphates, alkaline earth metal phthalates (US Patent 3351577) and almost any alkaline earth salts of fatty acids having from 6 to 21 carbon atoms. In total, there are five groups of stabilizers in PVC chemistry: metal salts, organometals, organophosphites, epoxy substances, and antioxidant polyols.

Stabilizers do not stop the decomposition of polyvinyl chloride; they bind the resulting hydrogen chloride, which can greatly accelerate the degradation of the material by catalyzing oxidation reactions along the unsaturated bonds of the polymer formed as a result of the elimination of HCl. In addition, by contacting technological process with iron-containing structures, hydrogen halide leads to the formation of iron halides, which are even stronger oxidation catalysts than hydrogen chloride itself.

Stabilizers - antioxidants reduce the intensity and depth of oxidative reactions.
There are also substances that are not stabilizers themselves, but together can react with the spent form of the antioxidant, restoring it and thereby prolonging its effectiveness. For example, combinations of Carbon Black (carbon) with thiols, disulfides, and sulfur can act as such synergists.

The amount of stabilizer in the plate material suggests that the PVC will be stable for at least several decades. Elevated temperatures and access to ultraviolet light accelerate the consumption of stabilizers, which neutralize the products of the slow but inevitable process of decomposition of polyvinyl chloride.

Lubricants provide internal and external lubrication. Internal lubrication reduces friction between individual polymer chains, which reduces the viscosity of the molten vinyl resin and reduces heat generation during processing. Ideally, internal lubrication should only manifest itself under material processing conditions (elevated temperature and pressure) and should not affect the quality of the final product under normal operating conditions. This distinguishes it from plasticizer additives, which give PVC flexibility and plasticity at room temperature. Excess internal lubrication will lead to slower adhesion of particles into a single mass, while lack of lubrication will lead to a loose surface and degradation of the product due to excess heat generation during processing.

External lubrication reduces external friction and prevents sticking to equipment and dies.
Its incompatibility with the product should be so high that during processing it constantly strives to reach the surface of the lubricated material, where it is actually needed. If there is an excess of external lubricant, it will be impossible to obtain a homogeneous mass of material; if there is a deficiency, the material will be too sticky, which will interfere with its normal processing.

Typically, salts of fatty acids are used as internal lubricants, most often stearates, stearyl alcohol, monoglycerides of fatty acids, triglycerides obtained from natural fats and oils (US Patent 3778465), etc.

Waxes are used as external lubricants: natural carnauba and synthetic, salts of aliphatic carboxylic acids containing about 30 carbon atoms.

Most lubricants implement, to one degree or another, both functions - both external and internal. A concomitant effect of using lubricants is improved pigment distribution and improved part quality.

In the production of records, lead stearate is widely used as a lubricant, which simultaneously functions as a stabilizer.

As plasticizer a non-volatile solvent inert to the vinyl resin, synthetic or natural, may be used. In the plates the proportion of plasticizer is insignificant, but PVC curtains in your bathroom can contain up to 50% plasticizer.

Antistatic agents may be part of the plate material and can be applied to the surface of the finished product. Their task is to prevent the settling of dust and microparticles that are constantly present in the air and on the surface of the envelope with which the record is in contact.

Nitrogen-containing antistatic agents are usually used as an antistatic agent, for example commercial antistatic agents Catanac 609 (N-(3"-dodecyloxy-. 2"-hydroxypropyl)-N,N-bis(2-hydroxyethyl)methylammonium methanesulfate), Catanac SN (Stearamidopropyl-dimethyl -β-hydroxyethyl ammonium nitrate) or a mixture of zinc or calcium salts of fatty acids (these substances also have a stabilizing and lubricating effect) with ethoxylated tertiary amines. The proportion of antistatic agent can be 1-2%. The commercial antistatic agents mentioned are extremely effective: plates of material containing Catanac SN are almost completely free of surface charge.

There are also all sorts of exotic proprietary antistatic post-processing techniques such as irradiating the surface of records with ultraviolet light (the same, which is very harmful to records), but I doubt that they have ever been used in real mass production: such procedures are expensive and inconvenient, and the effect disappears over time .

The black color of the plate is given by soot, carbon black, called Carbon Black in the industry.
This pigment, which is at the same time both a stabilizer and an antistatic agent, combines many useful functions: increases the strength of the plate, protects the material from exposure to light, binds free radicals formed during oxidative processes, can be combined with certain substances (see above), promoting the restoration of antioxidants, can act as an absorbent and, since it conducts electricity, contributes to the dispersal of electrostatic charges.

If you haven't noticed the impressive list of functions that carbon performs, I'll add separately that records containing Carbon Black are better in quality than records without it: transparent, colored, pictorial disks. This is the unequivocal opinion of record industry professionals. Just accept this as an axiom. I am talking about this because I have come across arguments on the topic that plates containing conductive carbon supposedly induce inductive interference when rotating, which means the plate should not be black. I have not measured what they induce, and I strongly suspect that no one has ever measured this for the simple reason that these hypothetical interferences are beyond the sensitivity of modern instruments, and therefore I propose to write off these torsion fields of sound reproduction in the archive of unconfirmed hypotheses, remaining with time-tested facts - there are three things in the world that cannot be improved: a piano, a Kalashnikov assault rifle and a vinyl record. And this record is black.

With this, I propose to consider this detailed review of the chemistry of long-playing records, the first and only one not only on the Russian-language Internet, but also on the English-language Internet, as complete.

To maintain the intrigue, I will repeat: “long-lasting”, because singles are made entirely from... But man, we agreed to maintain the intrigue!

Article published 2010-07-28
The author of the articles or translator is Dmitry Shumakov, unless otherwise indicated. When quoting, please include a link to the record store websiteBe the first to comment!