New vinyl's noisy little secret


I may be wrong, but it seems to me that the current crop of vinyl formulations just have higher noise levels than LPs made years ago. A case in point--I stumbled upon an old, original copy of Henry Mancini's 1962 soundtrack to the movie "Hatari" in my collection a few days ago (I had never even played it), and was astonished at its deathly quiet playback. Simply no surface noise. What gives? OK, you may make fun of this black-label RCA pressing (LSP-2559) for its content musically (though it's actually pretty fun), but it sure reminded me what we are missing with new releases--super high quality vinyl with very low surface noise. Even the occasional mechanical clicks from scratches seemed subdued. Most of my (expensive!) new vinyl comes replete with very onerous surface noise. Is it just impossible to make this old-generation type of vinyl currently?
kipdent
Zenblaster
y.s:
>>> Aren't records mastered on metallic plates?<<<

Well, firstly mastering was/is done on tape.
Digital mastering on tape also, and later on with digital, on hard drives, on digital master consoles etc. etc.

I guess what you are referring to is the DMM process (Direct Metal Master) which came pretty much at the end of the vinyl process --- and was supposed to cut out a lot of the 'normal' vinyl processing i.e. to create superior quality LPs (the price reflected this too).

Normal processing was cutting a 'lacquer' (disk) from the tape master by applying RIAA when the cutting lathe produced/cut it.

From the lacquer was produced a 'father' from which was produced a mother (all by electro-plating) from this 'mother' were then produced the stampers of numerous generations.

I hope I got most this right. So I think your idea of 78s! being produced with metal masters seems a bit off.

As you can see a lot of delicate manual work went/goes into the 'normal' process with plenty of opportunity to screw it up. Also the 'father 'pulled' from the 'lacquer' needed to get some hand 'cleaning' (under the microscope picking out residue etc.) followed by polishing also a labour intensive job and rather delicate.

DMM has/had its own issues, and cost was not the least to say. But it did produce a superior product just by looking at it. Those disks are/were also usually a LOT more quite in terms of groove noise.

I'm sure e.g. Atmasphere may be able to correct or corroborate the above.
Greetings,
Axel
There are many new recording with bad quality as well. How many of you have a clean copy of Pop Pop or Just a Little Lovin?
It's the quality of the vinyl used today, virgin is evermore expensive and ever harder to source. Plus, I think they should leave the pressing longer in the stamper to allow the poorer quality vinyl a chance to flow longer.
Ducatirider wrote:

"How many of you have a clean copy of Pop Pop or Just a Little Lovin? "

Exactly! I always thought the name "Pop Pop" was a little more than ironic. Terrible pressing.
Thank you Axel for the great explanation. I found out about 78 rpm metallic masters from the NY Times article this past Sunday. Paramount Records in Wis. evidentley used these back in the 20's and 30's for their Blues artists. They have never found these original metal masters, some saying they were melted down for the war effort, others thinking disgruntled workers threw them into an adjascent river after the factories closing (divers have even scoured the bottom of the riverbed looking for them)
Check out the article (there is a link posted on the music threads)