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