Recording To Vinyl - All Analog
 

I'm recording a record of all original music that will have a final output as a vinyl record. The goal is to record an all analog vinyl LP. Here's my question to anyone who can answer:

From a general sense, is there anything specific I need to do from the recording/mixing/mastering process to make it sound better on vinyl?

I hope that makes sense. I'm not sure if there is a mixing element that needs to be considered to make it sound as good as it can on the final vinyl output.

I have a buddy with a reel-to-reel but he isn't really an audio engineer or anything. He is very much into recording bands live and recording in general but he's not an expert or anything, really just a hobbyist. This whole process will be just a fun creative exercise that will be done relatively cheap and easy. For instance, I will be doing 80% of it solo guitar with vocals. A song or 2 will have bass and/or a lead guitar layer but that's about it.

All analog ? interesting sounds like a fun project goal.
I really do not have any suggestions for doing anything different per se.
How many tracks is your buddies Reel to Reel ? (i.e that will determine the ability to overdub any bass or lead guitar)

As I understand it (but I am no expert) the process that was used in pre digital days the SOP was
for multitrack tape recording was Tape then back to tape for any over dubs (limited by the number of tracks on the tape). Then mix to final 2 channel mix , then possibly to mastering engineer (if you going to use one and if you can find one that uses tape) then to Glass Master then to cutting the LP/s

If you aren't familiar with the project, do see if you can locate and watch PBS's American Epic, showing the actual recording of present day artists direct to disc:

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/american-epic/

The headlines are:

1. De-ess your vocals.
2. Make sure there are no wacky phase issues in the low end, and try to keep the low-low end (kick and bass) centered. Probably a non-issue in your case.
3. Keep the side lengths under 22:00. Under 20 is even better.
4. Use a "real" mastering engineer and make sure they know you're doing vinyl.
5. If you can, have your parts cut by an independent, not by the plant. I can give you a few names in a PM if you like.
6. Start investigating pressing plants now. For short-run indie folks like us, turnaround time can be as long as 6 months.

Thanks for the cliff notes. I've been reading a lot of the same stuff.

As far as De-essing goes, how exactly is that accomplished?
And regarding #5 - what do you mean by 'parts cut'. I'd definitely take some names from you.

I think I'm going with this place: https://www.furnacemfg.com

Assuming you're on a DAW, you do it with a de-esser plugin, which is basically a narrow-band limiter. If, by "all analog," you mean the full monty, there are a few analog de-essers available. The Orban's inexpensive and works fine. Usually only the vocals need it, but once in a while something like a crash cymbal or a hi-hat can also stand a touch.

"Parts" are the lacquer discs that are cut by the lathe. Used to be that mastering and parts-cutting were one process, but these days most mastering engineers don't have lathes.

I steer people to Kevin Gray (cohearent.com) and I recently had a client get great results from Welcome to 1979 in Nashville.

I had no idea that mastering and cutting had been separated. As I understood the workflow the mastering engineer would observe the action of the cutting head through a microscope and make sonic adjustments based on what he saw.

Perhaps that was only necessary for the outer edges of the performance envelope - squeezing maximum time onto the disc or getting maximum level without causing groove jumps.

Fran

Most mastering engineers these days don't have a lathe. The job description has changed to the point where it's now, "make it sound great and make it really loud." It comes in as a tape or a file, and leaves as a "better" tape or file.

And yes, with disc-cutting there can be microscope work involved. The engineer might play through the master tape and identify potential trouble spots. He or she will then do a test cut of that area onto a lacquer, ballparking the spot on the disc where that bit of music would actually land, and then play it on a turntable and/or take a look under the 'scope to see if adjustments are called for. Since every moment of the music is going to be in a different place on the disc, the engineer can do several of these tests on the same lacquer. So it's not like they're burning through a whole stack of them to get one good one.

Full monty for sure. I’ll look into that analog de-esser. Thanks!