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heard plenty of bad things about pirates press and nothing good about them.
black vinyl sounding better than color or picture is true.
white vinyl is the worst sounding color of them all.
180g vinyl is a joke.
should've hit up rainbo or palomino for getting your stuff pressed.

Care to elaborate, gut?

Non-black vinyl has a tendency to pick up more higher noise levels and more pops than black vinyl. all the white vinyl i've owned has had some weird grainy dust over it, these were new sealed records. But it's not really noticeable unless you have some crazy expensive hi-fi system, but even with a regular set up you'll still hear the pops and the bad quality of a pic disc.

As for pirates press, from what i understand they laser cut all the records, which makes the money spent on mastering a complete waste because your final product will just sound like an mp3. I've read a handful of stories about people paying for their invoices in full and then 3-4 years down the line being sent a bill saying they still owe somewhere around $400. People being misquote on shipping and when they get the bill it ends up being triple what the quote was for.

rot gut wrote: should've hit up rainbo or palomino for getting your stuff pressed.

Rainbo's quality control is non-existent. I wouldn't go there...

krlpuretone wrote:

rot gut wrote: should've hit up rainbo or palomino for getting your stuff pressed.

Rainbo's quality control is non-existent. I wouldn't go there...

can you elaborate please? rainbo seems promising, since we wanna do a super small run on this. most places are a minimum of 500 or so records.

bewatersound wrote:

krlpuretone wrote:

rot gut wrote: should've hit up rainbo or palomino for getting your stuff pressed.

Rainbo's quality control is non-existent. I wouldn't go there...

can you elaborate please? rainbo seems promising, since we wanna do a super small run on this. most places are a minimum of 500 or so records.

did you check out palomino? they would probably be a company you'd be into, the prices are really good.

palomino looks sweet. thanks man

... Palomino from the first page:

D.o.S. wrote:Also, Conky used these guys for the Deadhand 7":
http://www.dosado.com/pressinghome.htm

D.o.S. wrote:... Palomino from the first page:

D.o.S. wrote:Also, Conky used these guys for the Deadhand 7":
http://www.dosado.com/pressinghome.htm

don't know how i missed this!

My understanding is that color vinyl requires additives, whereas black vinyl is purer PVC and therefore more accurate/better quality reproduction when the grooves are pressed. Just parroting something I've heard though.

Back in the day, you would rarely (or never) spin your colored vinyl, picture discs etc. It's more for collector scum than listening pleasure. I'm out of touch with what the kids are doing now though.

I can't actually tell the difference, but my ears aren't golden.

I've never known anybody with black and colored vinyl versions of the same disc, that we could A/B listen. In my experience, people usually buy one version or the other, not both.

There's lots of bad-sounding black vinyl too (I had a Kiss album that sounded lousy, and the disc was super floppy). If your color vinyl sounds bad, is it just a bad pressing or is it because it was pressed on colored ummm wax?

i decided to do a quick search on this one since it was my half-memory of a potential quality discrepancy between black and coloured vinyl that dragged this genie out of the bottle. it was a sort of urban myth (pre internet days) when i first heard it from serious record collector nuts.
anyway, found these bits on first google results page:

"Although our coloured vinyl has a very high quality standard, it might occur that some types of audio pressed on other than black vinyl, are more susceptible to a higher noise level and/or clicks in the lead-in and lead-out grooves or on quiet parts of the recording."
http://www.recordindustry.com/vinyl/colored-vinyl

""Carbon black" is the pigmenting compound added to PVC (which is generally a translucent clear color before any pigment added) that makes it look black. It is a homogenizing agent which helps reduce surface noise to a good extent. Other colored pigments generally aren't nearly as good as carbon black in doing this. Colored vinyl runs are a p.i.t.a. for any pressing plant, as it requires cleaning out the extruder of the press before and after the run, meaning more downtime."
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/masteri ... black.html

i never had audiophile grade gear as i spent all my money on records and guitar kit so i can't comment. but had lots of coloured vinyl and pic discs. most annoying thing i remember wasn't the sound quality but not being able to see the tracks (white vinyl and pic discs were a curse) which may be a bigger reason people remember the audio quality degenerated quickly. all that scuffing around blindly trying to hit the right inbetween groove. don't miss it.
actually found my old 7" pic disc of tubeway army's 'are friends electric' in my mum's attic a few weeks ago. scratched to hell but kept because it looked good. i suppose that's one advantage they have over regular black vinyl. when you can't play them you can nail them to the wall as decoration.

Yep, clear vinyl is the purest form. Black has pigment added. Recycled vs. new (virgin) vinyl will make a discernible difference), with virgin being better/quieter.

Colored vinyl and picture discs are two different things, soundwise. Picture discs are always noisy. Always.

If you are going to do colored vinyl, I'd suggest a clear with a color....the only color that I've found to be persistently noisy/prone to tracking problems/warp prone is white.

Rainbo is known for non (incomplete) fill problems and edge warps; many people who collect Beatles stuff went with the Euro pressings of the reissues because of Rainbo's issues.

Of course, it's always a question of price vs. quality. Is it worth an extra dollar to press at a good plant? In my mind, definitely, because you are going to minimize problems that cost you money = defects and returns.

I don't have any experience with/know anyone who pressed at Palomino.

Who do you guys recommend for hot dance cuts in the USA? Did you master yourself or have the house master it for vinyl?