The Secret Society of Lathe Trolls

Steve E. · Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 3:18 am Post subject: Xray records

yeah!!

http://www.kk.org/streetuse/archives/2006/08/jazz_on_bones_xray_sound_recor.php

I wonder what's a good source to get xrays for cutting now....I'll bet old ones get thrown in the garbage after a certain amount of time.

Self-lather · Joined: 27 Jun 2007 Posts: 48 Location: Atlanta, Ga

I don't know, but I would love to cut some of these. They are rad! Any luck finding any?

-Thomas

grooveguy · Joined: 22 Jun 2006 Posts: 40

You know, this was offered in the Hugo Gernsback paperback book, "Hints and Kinks," from the late 1940s or early 1950s, I think. I wonder if X-Ray film from that era was different stuff, because I tried cutting a modern X-Ray film and it was pure noise.

blight · Joined: 19 Jul 2006 Posts: 48

Don't you think those xray images were pressed not cut?

Self-lather · Joined: 27 Jun 2007 Posts: 48 Location: Atlanta, Ga

I'm pretty sure those were cut records, but who knows. I bet it wouldn't be hard to fake an xray discs by printing the image on transparencies. The images are pretty easy to come by on the internet.

-Thomas

JayDC · Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 11:45 pm Post subject:

if you read the article you will find out that the x-ray disc where made by music pirates, selling illegally imported music to a country that at the time was against western culture.

Neeto thing was that the x-ray disc's deteriorated after a couple plays, this must have worked well for the pirates..

I suppose the motivation was because the soviet government controlled the record presses, so the pirates had to find another way..

Steve E. · Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2007 9:06 am Post subject:

cuttercollector · Joined: 11 Jun 2006 Posts: 259 Location: San Jose, CA

Just adding to the speculation here but in thinking about it, it would involve much more equipment and power etc. to press anything. It would be hard to imagine an underground record pressing plant. If they were to get it done through the back door of the state owned plants, why X rays? Also the images are clearly visable like a picture disc - that's what makes them cool!
I don't think you could press in the grooves without destroying the image unless you inveted another pressing process. I don't know how those little flexi discs or sound sheets start life. Perhaps there is a process to press into already flat plastic sheet but they would have had to plate or get something strong enough to make a stamper somehow.
It all sounds too hard to keep hidden. I bet they were individually cut.

cuttercollector · Joined: 11 Jun 2006 Posts: 259 Location: San Jose, CA

Hmmm-
"they were made on machines designed to make phonocards"

I wonder what these machines were, if they were legal to have in the Soviet Union for some other reason and does that mean something like the coin operated cutting machines for recording voice letters etc. that existed in public places in the US, small portable disc cutters, or something for manufacturing, "pressing" if you will, an earlier thin cardboard card stock version of flexible cheap records?
What is a "phonocard"?
Once you know that, you could determine how they were mastered and pressed or whether they were one off individually cut.
The problem with wll the articles I saw was they were much more concerned with the socio-political and/or musical aspects of the records than the technicalities of precisely how they were made. So the person writing might have no idea of exactly how a record is made or how it works and was just reporting facts as they uncovered them from other sources

Steve E. · Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 6:50 pm Post subject: Re: pressed or cut?