Have you ever wondered how vinyl records are made, and what makes them appear in a plethora of colors and patterns, turning your record collection into a veritable treasure trove? Today, we'll explore the processes behind the pressing of vinyl records.
Vinyl records already possess a unique, nostalgic character. There's something special about playing your favorite album on a turntable and having a personal music collection in your living room. Among vinyl enthusiasts, colored vinyl has become a trend: often, limited or exclusive releases are available in stunning, colorful designs, further enhancing your collection. But how is such a vinyl made?
The Basics of Vinyl Manufacturing:
Before we dive into what makes our vinyls colorful, let's briefly cover the basic process to give you the necessary background knowledge. Initially, a mastering lacquer is created, usually by a cutting studio. Even at this stage, the maximum volume and perfect frequency spectrum of the final vinyl are determined.
The cutting studio then cuts the grooves into the mastering lacquer, which contains all the necessary information. This process is far more complicated than we can cover here, and since we want to focus on colored vinyls, we'll keep this brief.
The lacquer is then taken to a pressing plant, where it undergoes several complex processes to create a negative, essentially a mold for pressing the final records. Once this stamper is adjusted, it is mounted in the press machine. A separate stamper is needed for each side of the record.
Getting Hot: Each vinyl record is made from a synthetic PVC granulate, formed into small discs referred to affectionately as "vinyl cakes" by professionals. These discs must be heated to at least 80 degrees Celsius and are then hot-placed into the pressing machine. There, the pressing stamper is heated by steam to about 180 degrees Celsius, which liquefies the PVC mass. Over 100 tons of pressure are then applied, pressing the crucial grooves into the vinyl. Labels are added at this stage, and voila! Our vinyl is complete.
How Does the Color Get into Colored Vinyl?
As you might guess, since colored vinyls are made from the same PVC mass, it simply needs to be dyed the appropriate colors. Initially, the mass is clear and transparent, but it can be turned any desired color with special powders.
However, the process for creating a colored vinyl differs slightly: the base material is different and becomes more fluid when heated, so it doesn’t need to be heated as much. Yet, each record must be carefully monitored to ensure the mass fills all the grooves evenly. This requires more effort and finesse than pressing a standard black record. If you've ever wondered why the release of a colored vinyl is planned a few weeks later than the standard edition: the pressing process just takes longer and is a bit more complex.
Now, there are various vinyl designs that a colored record can have. Classics are single-color, where the mass is simply dyed one color.
Splattered vinyls are particularly popular. After choosing a base color, the vinyl cakes are dipped into granulate of the desired color. This creates the unique, little speckles and stripes during pressing, meaning each Splattered vinyl is unique.
Marbled vinyls, which offer a chic, marbled surface of different colors, are another favorite. Here, different granulates are mixed together before the vinyl cake is melted, resulting in the marble patterns. Again, each record is unique!
You might also know Split vinyls, where differently colored vinyl cakes are pressed side by side, creating a natural color gradient. There are many more crazy designs available, like printing whole images on records or deviating from the typical circular shape. Now you know how the most important designs are made!
Do Colored Vinyls Have Worse Sound?
First things first: The sound quality of a vinyl doesn't solely depend on its color. Other factors are more crucial, starting from the process of making the stamper to how the record is handled by its owner or the quality of the turntable used.
However, as we've learned, extra care must be taken during the production of colored vinyls to avoid pressing errors. Even the smallest imperfections on the record can lead to a deterioration in sound quality. For instance, small metal particles can mix into the PVC mass, negatively affecting sound quality. Color powders mixed into the mass can also increase the likelihood of pressing errors.
Since the PVC mass for black color also needs to be specially mixed, one might think that production errors could occur just as frequently. However, black vinyls are produced much more frequently, so most pressing machines are specifically calibrated for them, reducing the error rate. Experts believe that clear vinyls are actually the least prone to errors. Nevertheless, the color particles added to the clear mass are constantly optimized to reduce the likelihood of errors during production.
In short: colored vinyls are potentially more susceptible to production errors that could lower sound quality. However, it's not accurate to say that ALL colored vinyls are inherently worse than their single-color or clear counterparts. As all processes in the production of records—from the color particles to the pressing machine—are continually optimized, it's quite unlikely to receive a colored record that is significantly inferior to a black vinyl. Or have you had different experiences?
Expand Your Record Collection!
All the colored vinyls you've seen in this post are available for purchase or pre-order in our shop. And that's just the beginning, as you can discover many more colored records. Overall, more than 3,000 different media items are waiting for you, including Vinyls, CDs, DVDs, and even cassettes. So take a look through the shop if you'd like to have your favorite album as a physical copy at home.
