I think all sorts of strange stuff took place with cutting guys in the
60's, 70's and at th end of the LP era. Stan Ricker had some quite
original stuff in his Mobile Fidelity cuts of the 70's. In earlier
times, too much fanciful stuff was frowned on but every cutter had his
"maker's mark" that he would inscribe. At Fine Sound in the 50's, most
cuts would just have the catalog number stamped in the dead wax like
early Mercury MG series. Same for Verve, Kapp and Grand Award cut
there. This might have been a practice my father picked up at Reeves
in the late 40's or Majestic before that. When Fine Recording opened
up, George Piros was dealing with more lathes and more cutter heads
-- certain combinations preferred by certain producers -- so he
started a code of "PXX" with XX being a number representing a lathe
and cutter head. He would hand-scribe his mark plus the catalog number
and side a or b into the dead wax. John Johnson would scribe JJ. Once
dedicated mastering houses sprung up, you'd see a stamp imprint of,
for instance, "Mastered by MasterDisc". I'm not sure if guys at the
pressing plant would further scribe the dead wax to indicate a
replacement part or later replacement master. I would imagine a major
label's mastering department, like Columbia, would some pretty complex
codes to follow in the interest of uniformity.
Bob, how many cutters were there at Motown and what was your system?
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message ----- From: "Frank Wylie" <sfwylie@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2007 6:53 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] LP pressing question
Roger and Allison Kulp wrote:
Bob,
Dead wax is the term for the area in between the label.and the end
of the runoff groove.Actually non-promo test pressings get out there
quite a bit.I own several dozen.At least 100 or so,including one of
"A Christmas Gift to You From Philles Records".The oldest one I have
seen,is an early Columbia test pressing of an uncredited recording
of "Casey Jones",that I was able to date to about 1906.I sold it on
eBay last year.This had a blank white label,with the title written
in pencil,and the label usually found on the backs of Columbia of
this period.
Roger
Apropos of nothing; I remember as a teen discovering cryptic
messages inscribed in the "dead wax" (thanks for a new term!) area of
LPs I purchased. They must have been cut into the masters and most
messages were in the (for lack of a better term) retrace area that
parks the needle at the end of the record.
Can't even remember which albums had these strange tags on the
retrace; anyone else know of this practice and any history behind it?
Thanks.
--
S. Frank Wylie
Independent Motion Picture Specialist
Dayton, Ohio