Acetates for DJ use, DIY? Total beginner here...

[Recordhound]

Hi everyone, my name is Andrew and I was totally stoked to stumble upon this website, after reading and watching a lot of random stuff on the topic of DIY records.

I've been spending way too much money on records (old ones) to play as a DJ, and while the public seem quite interested in the novelty of seeing a DJ using actual vinyl, the reality is that I'm in competition with laptop DJs who can download brand new music, and I'm severely limiting myself by playing only old music. Even on "oldschool" night, sooner or later the younger people ask for some current music. If I'm playing all vinyl, I've got to make an excuse or just say "maybe later"...I do a lot of all-digital gigs too so it's no problem on those occasions, but I'm really getting into the vinyl thing again so I need to fill that gap!

Is it feasible, for a not-too-large investment, for me to build a machine for cutting my own acetates, of a quality suitable for playing at clubs and parties? I think acetate would be the way to go, rather than vinyl, mainly for cost reasons.

The amount of material on this site is kind of overwhelming -- although its definitely interesting, and I'd like to read it all, can somebody please help me to narrow it down?

What do I need to read? Are there any simple, proven methods, or blueprints, given that I currently have no cutting equipment? I do have a pair of SL-1200 MK2s though...I assume they have adequate torque for the job!


Thanks in advance!

[opcode66]

Wow, where to start?

Ok, you can cut records at home. You need the gear to do it. Can you build it yourself? I don't know. It would require a lot of know how both in fabrication and design as well as electrical engineering. Can you purchase gear to cut records? Absolutely. What's your price range? That determines what level you'll be cutting at.

Low price = suitcase style cutter or transcription turntable with overhead. Mono cuts. Frequency range of about 100 cycles per second (cps or hz) to 10K cps. Fixed pitch which means less time on a side and a lot less if cutting at higher volumes since you have to pick an lpi that will avoid overcuts (grooves that run over each other). $500 to $3000 You will likely need to purchase pieces separately and cobble together a working system. You will also likely have to get your own amp or track down and restore and old tub amp. This is for the entry level or novice cutter. You can cut into lacquers or plastic. But plastic won't sound great, just ok. And mono. And, you can't go too loud or you will blow your cutterhead.

Medium price = stereo cutterhead possibly with feedback. Vinylium Kingston Dubplate Cutter $10,000 or Vinyl Recorder $6000 are your two options. They both rely on using a standard turntable for the platter and drive motor. Personally I strongly disagree with using a Technics turntable to cut records with. They don't standardly have enough torque. You must modify them (which I argue makes them less accurate but that's a whole other thread) by changing out a couple of components on the board inside. Or, you could find other turntables with higher torque. They both have variable groove spacing but Vinylium's is superior. Full frequency range. This is for the middle level cutter. This is for the dj. This will cut into plastic blanks. This is not for cutting lacquer discs. You can cut very loud. You get discs with some background noise. There is no way to obtain 0 background noise in plastic as of right now. The best you can do is minimize it.

High price = stereo cutterhead with feedback. highly specialized amps (possibly over engineered). Variable groove spacing dependent on a preview signal input. Fantastically engineered and designed lathe bodies and motors with isolation, etc. Full frequency range. Neumann VMS70 or VMS80. Scully. Westrex. Farichild. Etc. $25000 to $35000 These are for professional mastering studios. You can cut lacquers. You can cut master lacquers for plating and pressing. You can cut plastic discs. You will achieve the highest possible audio fidelity in your cuts. Lacquers are 0 background noise. Plastic you can minimize to very low levels. This is for audio professionals. You need prior knowledge of mastering and audio engineering before you can understand how to cut well (and safely) with this level of lathe. You can easily fuck things up. And, those repairs are expensive and time consuming. This is what most commercial records are cut on.

Any one of these systems would require some amount of study on your end before you could get good cuts. Even if you purchased a working machine. It isn't like you put a disc down and hit a red record button.... It is technical. It is complicated. It is a process rife with pitfalls and blunders. Mistakes are costly at any level (even down to the cost of blanks with is $11 for 12" reference dubs (lacquer) or $5 to $8 for quality plastic).

Or, you can go the easy route. Not learn all this stuff. Not track down gear. Not spend all your spare loot on gear. Not fall into this rabbit hole and get caught up in this web. And, simply have any one of us cutters do some dj cuts for you. I specialize in them. http://www.deepgroovesmastering.com Contact me, I can give you a deal.

[Steve E.]

One of the best places to start is Not Here, but on the wiki set up by our main man piaptk:

http://lathetrolls.pbworks.com/w/page/22959575/The%20Secret%20Society%20of%20Lathe%20Trolls

then, search and ask away!

[Recordhound]

Thanks, guys, I'll do a lot more reading before i hit you wth any more questions.

Btw, I mostly want to cut discs of other people's music; I asked one cutting company and they said they wouldn't do it for copyright reasons. Even though I'm only talking about ONE copy for personal/DJ use. I know it's not gonna be cheap - unless I get lucky - so I'll go slow and see what I can come up with. Thanks again!

[JayDC]

just get an old presto or rek-o-cut machine, their mono but so are most club systems... you can get pretty good at it after a while... it's still like 8 or 9 dollars for a plate, so it's really only worth it if you produce.. you can easily wire your stereo head shell's to output mono...

[opcode66]

No need to rewire anything. A mono groove will still make both electromagnetic coils produce voltage on both channels in a stereo cartridge. Therefore a mono cut record will be heard on both left and right channels equally.

As stated above, presto's can produce a playable disc. It all has to do with your standards. If you are ok with 100hz to 10khz range and low volume then that is a way to go. If want loud and full then this avenue will not make you happy.

Loudness is an issue when you are playing a set of various media (records and cd or digital). If most of the music you are playing is recorded loudly then when you want to play your cut you have to jack the channel gain. Sometimes that isn't enough. So, now you have to lower the channel gain of the channel currently playing while simultaneously raising the gain of the main output of the mixing board. Now, you extended the gain of the channel for playing a low volume disc without people noticing the energy dropping. And, you have to remember to undo that change later.

Or you just deal with the fact that there will be a distinct difference in volume level at that point in your set while playing. A final note is that yes, gain fixes the issue. But, only sort of. Because these discs have surface noise, if you have to raise the gain so much to account for grooves that are not very active (low volume), the end result is overamplification of the background noise. So, by the time the track itself is loud enough, the noise is even louder.

[markrob]

No need to rewire anything. A mono groove will still make both electromagnetic coils produce voltage on both channels in a stereo cartridge. Therefore a mono cut record will be heard on both left and right channels equally.

Hi,

This is true, but it is better to sum the L&R channels to mono rather than leave the signal path stereo. You can do this at the head shell as was suggested or if you mixer supports it, do it via pan pots or a mono/stereo switch. If you already run a mono PA system, then it's not needed. Summing to mono is better because the noise level is lower in this configuration. The reason is that by summing, you hear only the L+R info (lateral) and not the L-R info (vertical). Since there is no vertical info to be found on a mono cut, you don't want the pickup to respond to it. I think there are still some specialty pickups available that are mono only and these could be a good option as well.

Mark

[Angus McCarthy]

I still re-wire my stereo head when I have to transcribe a hi-fi or 78 disc. It saves a lot of grief when trying to filter out unwanted noise.

[JayDC]

yeah, when you play a mono cut record in a stereo configuration, you tend to hear noise coming from the side walls of the groove.. you're better off summing to mono as easily as you can..

[opcode66]

How would summing to mono magically reduce background noise present in the both mono signals before summing? There is no out of phase information. So, no additive or subtractive affects here. Just a summing of two voltages. But, somehow that reduces background noise? Um, no.

I do understand that would make a stronger mono signal that could then be amplified with less his from pre-amp/amp after gaining. But, that is entirely different than bg noise from the grooves.

[jjgolden]

A mono recording played back with a stereo cartridge = Mono audio with stereo (out of phase) surface noise.
By summing to mono ( on playback) the surface noise is less apparent, as it is now masked by the audio.

Is that what you were referring to JayDC?

[JayDC]

A mono recording played back with a stereo cartridge = Mono audio with stereo (out of phase) surface noise.
By summing to mono ( on playback) the surface noise is less apparent, as it is now masked by the audio.

Is that what you were referring to JayDC?

yes sir..

[markrob]

How would summing to mono magically reduce background noise present in the both mono signals before summing? There is no out of phase information. So, no additive or subtractive affects here. Just a summing of two voltages. But, somehow that reduces background noise? Um, no.

I do understand that would make a stronger mono signal that could then be amplified with less his from pre-amp/amp after gaining. But, that is entirely different than bg noise from the grooves.

Its not magic, it removes any vertical signal present due to surface irregularites on the disk. If the recording is cut laterally, there is no vertical infomation present on the disk. Not responding to that results in a better S/N. We are not talking about preamp thermal noise here. Consider that on many better recievers, there is a mono switch provided. It's there because of the need to playback older mono recordings. They would not have put that there if it made no difference. On my 1970's Marantz 2250 here in the shop, there is a mono button. It makes a big difference when I play my old mono 50's LP's.

Mark

[Techie]

It may not be magic, but when playing 78 shellacs it sure seems like magic. Surface noise cancels itself out - even more noticeable than with mono LPs only because there is more surface noise to deal with. If anyone plays 78s without the mono option, try it and hear the difference. Nothing subtle about it.

[opcode66]

Ok. So, vertical motion due to surface noise would be out of phase on L and R therefore when summed it cancels itself out. That I understand. Thanks. Not having a lot of mono cuts around I really never thought about it.

I can say from experience that I have yet to see a club that was actually wired for actual stereo. Every dj mixing board that you're likely to find in a club has a mono/stereo switch and it is set to mono.

[JayDC]

pioneer stopped putting mono switches on their top tier club mixers after the DJM-500, and none of the current rane battle mixers that are popular with the serato crowd have them either.. that's why i just bring a set of wired mono head shells with me, stanton 500al's and 680hp's do little damage to acetate if you balance them correctly... sound techs are lazy, and from my experience even though the system is mono, they do some dumb S#@$ like just tap into the left channel instead of summing l and r to make mono.. this actually can make you sound like crap if you don't sum it before sending the signal to the mixer..

[opcode66]

pioneer stopped putting mono switches on their top tier club mixers after the DJM-500

That is simply not true. The DJM-700 is a later mixing board.

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/DJ/Mixers/DJM-700

Click on the Specification tab. Click on Master tab. It specifies that it in fact has a stereo/mono switch.

Same as the 900... Etc...

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/DJ/Mixers/DJM-900nexus

[JayDC]

the 700 isn't considered a top tier club mixer, and i have yet to see a 900 in service.. the 800 which is standard at this point, at least from my experience, does not..

[opcode66]

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/DJ/Mixers/DJM-800

Specifications->Master->Stereo/Mono switch is checked.

Same for the 1000, 2000, etc. They all have this switch.

You started referencing the 500. If that is the refernce point for "top tier" then the 700 and 900 are simply updated editions of the 500. I.e. a 4 channel with seperate eq's and an effects bus.

Besides, Pioneer isn't considered top tier to begin with. All of their lines, even the high end ones, are considered to be mid grade.

[JayDC]

right but the 500 was in service prior to 2000... and if the 800 has a mono switch it's on the back, and if the mixer is installed you have no access to it.. i've played on the 800 for a couple years now and never noticed the switch.. better safe than sorry, just wire your playing out head shells mono..



if pioneer is not the standard, what is?

rane mp-44's used to be around and sound awesome, but they have gone the way of the urei..