Frequently Asked Questions about Vinyl Production

At Purple Media Vinyl Pressing Plant, we believe clarity is key to creating high-quality records. To assist with your project planning, we’ve gathered the most common queries we receive from our clients. Please review our Vinyl Production FAQ below. For personalized support or specific quotes, contact us anytime at info@cdvdmaker.com.

FAQ#1: What is the difference between a record jacket, a disco/euro jacket or sleeve? How about insert, liner notes, and lyric sheet?

Answer: Here’s a handy glossary that explains the terminology for the various print and packaging types used in the vinyl world.

-Sleeve: this is the protective thing that we put the vinyl record into. Most of the time, this is made of plain paper or printed paper (printed inner sleeve) but it can also be a paper sleeve lined with a protective HDPE material (poly-lined sleeve), a clear HDPE bag or a number of combinations on the theme. We want you to use a HDPE or poly-lined sleeve because they’re nice to your records and if you treat records right, records will treat you right.

-Disco / Euro Jacket: Used primarily for 7” and 12” singles, this is similar to a (regular) Jacket but doesn’t have a side spine and the record goes directly inside without a protective sleeve. You don’t need a spine at the disco. These are usually printed on lighter weight paperboard than a jacket and can also be used as a Printed Inner Jacket instead of a sleeve.

-Jacket: this is the outer packaging that all the cool stuff (records, inserts, locks of your lead singer’s hair) get packaged inside of. A jacket can be a single pocket jobber or a multi pocket (two, three, FOUR?) gatefold style guy. We refer to anything that has a pocket and a side spine as a jacket. Jackets are usually made of thick paperboard material.

-Printed Insert: Anything printed onto paper that is going inside your jacket is called a printed insert. This could be a 12” x 12” lyric sheet (also referred to as liner notes), a multi-paged booklet or a folded insert or poster or the flyers from your shows you’ve collected since 1994 that you want us to put in the records. All inserts meant to fit inside a record jacket have to be (or folded down to be) slightly smaller than the pocket opening. So, for a 7”, inserts should be 7” or less and for a 12”, 12” or less. It’s math. If you are making a thick booklet or are having a large poster folded down to size, the extra girth may require you to make the finished size smaller so everything fits inside the pocket. For extra girthy (there’s that word again) inserts, you may also need to order a jacket with a wider spine than standard. Whatever your girth (again) needs, we have you covered.

FAQ#2: I have one of those cheap suitcase turntables and my records keep skipping and generally sound terrible. What gives?

Answer: We feel your pain. Unfortunately, those turntables are made from the cheapest parts possible in order to sell at that impossibly low price point. These turntables tend to skip because:

they don’t have an Anti-Skate mechanism to ensure that the needle is centered in the groove and to prevent it from being pulled into the center or back towards the outer ring of the record. Without this important feature, the needle is free to pull or push onto the sidewalls of the record groove causing unwanted wear and tear of your records, poor sound playback and skipping as it swings to and fro. A quality turntable with Anti-Skate keeps the needle centered in the groove as it surfs through your music.

the speakers are built into the unit and the sound can vibrate the platter causing the needle to jump out of the groove and skip, especially as the bass is loud and thumpy.

the platter is undersized. Most turntables have a platter that is the size of the record so it will support the outer circumference. Without a full sized platter, the outer ring of the record will bend and flex and exaggerate any slight warps a record may have, causing skips and other sound quality issues.

The motor that turns the platter is cheap and thus varies the speed of the record causing continuous tones to sound like they are modulating up and down – this may not cause skips but it sure makes the music sound terrible.

Many of these cheap turntables use a heavyweight ceramic cartridge with a tracking force of about 4.5 grams (this is how much weight the needle needs to effectively track the record groove.) Most standard moving magnet cartridges require a tracking force of between .75-1.5g. Cheap turntables that require 3-4 times the tracking force will wear the hell out of your record grooves.

FAQ#3: Why my records are not loud enough?

Answer: Generally there are 3 main reasons:

-Side length: If there are no problems mentioned above, you can fit almost everything regarding to attached timetable (depends on genre/dynamics also). Fitting more material are straightway related with volume loss and lower signal-to-noisefloor ratio.

-Overcompressed material: that is a real struggle for cutterhead to clear transfer masters when they doesn’t contain dynamics. Please bypass your hardworking compressors/limiters. More dynamics included in masters = easier to transfer it clear and loud.

-Sibilances: high frequencies are easiest to overdrive. De-esser should reduce much harder than in digital medium. The biggest risk are at vocals, trumpets or synths based on saw sine. Please also be aware of that when it’s closer to the label – loss of high frequencies and risk of sibilance distortion also increases. We hardly suggest to put the most agressive songs on beginning of side and lower the impact of music towards label.