Indian Vinyl Pressing - My thoughts

[rcathik]

Hi Everybody,

I have started collecting Indian Pressed Vinyl Records from Amazon.in .
I own a handful of Old pressed vinyl records from Tamil record manufacturing companies (INRECO, ECHO etc) and from the world (Predominantly from the US and UK).

The quality of Audio from those old pressings are so good, and i personally feel that the latest pressed records can use some improvement in sound quality. I was hoping that with recent improvement in Mastering Techniques, the latest pressed vinyls should be of excellent quality - but i personally felt that i am wrong.

The question is - Do you feel the same ? else its just me

Thanks,
Karthik.

P.S - the above thread is purely a personal observation & comment, not created to demean or discourage our nascent vinyl manufacturing market.

 

[arj]

I agree eg I have both Lamhe and Music from the Valley in the old and new pressing and the quality in the old vinyl is so much more apparent.

 

[Bhaskar Jyoti Talapatra]

Hi Everybody,

I have started collecting Indian Pressed Vinyl Records from Amazon.in .
I own a handful of Old pressed vinyl records from Tamil record manufacturing companies (INRECO, ECHO etc) and from the world (Predominantly from the US and UK).

The quality of Audio from those old pressings are so good, and i personally feel that the latest pressed records can use some improvement in sound quality. I was hoping that with recent improvement in Mastering Techniques, the latest pressed vinyls should be of excellent quality - but i personally felt that i am wrong.

The question is - Do you feel the same ? else its just me

Thanks,
Karthik.

P.S - the above thread is purely a personal observation & comment, not created to demean or discourage our nascent vinyl manufacturing market.

Hello
Karthik
I have also the same feelings as yours. The old vinyls are very nice to listen to while the newly pressed ones aren't as good as that of the older. Though I don't have many newly pressed vinyls , a few that I have aren't as attractive as the old vinyls. The reason is probably the digital source for making those new vinyls. New vinyls are to some extent hit and miss kinds of a thing. For example I bought a vinyl of the Hindi movie Sholay and I was disappointed. I have 7" superseven EP of that movie spinning at 33 1/3 RPM and it is better than this new LP of 180 gms. I have however some good newly pressed vinyls though I can't say whether the older versions of those are better than the new ones.
Regards

 

[Naturelover]

This has been discussed a few time before.
The new pressings do not sound good because most of the original master recordings are no longer available.

 

[Deleted member 15865]

Suggest you watch the award-winning documentary ‘Celluloid Man’ on PK Nair, India’s legendary film archivist - thanks to whom negatives and positives of some of the oldest Indian films have been archived. It’s a painstaking job that finds almost no support in a country that prides itself on its past, but doesn’t preserve its history (a statement from the film).

One hoped someone at HMV would have done such a job with the audio master tapes - but alas - they are gone.

 

[Bhaskar Jyoti Talapatra]

Almost all the radio stations in our country have a large collections of vinyls and spools. There was a time when AIR used to release cassette tapes and CDs of the maestroes. The AIR can help any record company to release fresh vinyls of the older recording. Then only we can have old recordings on new vinyls and those will remain for ever. Just my thought.
Regards

 

[prem]

No more vinyls will be pressed by any label anymore in India. It’s all over. There might be a few guys pressing one or two titles occasionally. That’s about it. Prices of titles like DDLJ, DTPH, and a host of other titles from mid 90s to 2019 pressed on vinyl will hit the roof top. Soon they will all be selling 3-4000 and upwards. So stock whatever you want.

 

[rcathik]

Suggest you watch the award-winning documentary ‘Celluloid Man’ on PK Nair, India’s legendary film archivist - thanks to whom negatives and positives of some of the oldest Indian films have been archived. It’s a painstaking job that finds almost no support in a country that prides itself on its past, but doesn’t preserve its history (a statement from the film).

One hoped someone at HMV would have done such a job with the audio master tapes - but alas - they are gone.

Sure Sachin - will defo watch it.

Thanks,
Karthik.

 

[rcathik]

Almost all the radio stations in our country have a large collections of vinyls and spools. There was a time when AIR used to release cassette tapes and CDs of the maestroes. The AIR can help any record company to release fresh vinyls of the older recording. Then only we can have old recordings on new vinyls and those will remain for ever. Just my thought.
Regards

Hi Bhaskar,

Never knew that they released tapes and CD's. It would be awesome it they take some initiative to release some of the records they have.

Thanks,
Karthik.

 

[rcathik]

No more vinyls will be pressed by any label anymore in India. It’s all over. There might be a few guys pressing one or two titles occasionally. That’s about it. Prices of titles like DDLJ, DTPH, and a host of other titles from mid 90s to 2019 pressed on vinyl will hit the roof top. Soon they will all be selling 3-4000 and upwards. So stock whatever you want.

Sure Prem.
The sad part is, i am collecting them just for the heck of having a album art, and not for hearing them.

 

[skroderider]

Hi Bhaskar,

Never knew that they released tapes and CD's. It would be awesome it they take some initiative to release some of the records they have.

Thanks,
Karthik.

I hope they do - beyond the few that they have released long ago.
I also suspect the ones who can actually make this happen lack the vision for doing something like this.

 

[Deleted member 15865]

Putting Bhaskar’s and Prem’s comments together, one hopes the AIR stations at least rip those vinyls and spools onto hi-res (at least 24/96) digital before they get damaged. They should get the right technical expertise in doing this. If they instead sell the rights to someone like Universal etc., the resultant digital files may get poorly mastered like the old Hindi film songs have been.

 

[Amity619]

Hi Everybody,

I have started collecting Indian Pressed Vinyl Records from Amazon.in .
I own a handful of Old pressed vinyl records from Tamil record manufacturing companies (INRECO, ECHO etc) and from the world (Predominantly from the US and UK).

The quality of Audio from those old pressings are so good, and i personally feel that the latest pressed records can use some improvement in sound quality. I was hoping that with recent improvement in Mastering Techniques, the latest pressed vinyls should be of excellent quality - but i personally felt that i am wrong.

The question is - Do you feel the same ? else its just me

Thanks,
Karthik.

P.S - the above thread is purely a personal observation & comment, not created to demean or discourage our nascent vinyl manufacturing market.

I feel like we lost something precious for awhile when CDs came and took over back in the 80s and personally I never noticed the whole big difference because the new vinyl's and the new high-end record players of the 70s 80s ie Pioneer, et al, were at their zenith in performance quality and remarkability. And from letting the whole vinyl thing more or less just die out then bring them back to production so many years later, well, the only thing I can equate as an analogy is the moon program when they everyone decided some 40 years later let's build another rocket and go to the moon nobody remembered how to build a rocket like it or to match the Saturn V cuz many of the thousands old day engineers were gone, 1000s of blueprints files memos data of all sorts either misplaced or gone. So it's kinda the same with the vinyl records the industry let it lapse so many years and now they probably can't get the audio as right again because lots has been lost on how to. Just sayin ...

 

[DilipPune]

New vinyls are digitally remastered. While old Indian pressings made by gramophone company of India have a better sound quality. Pure analogue.

 

[Naturelover]

No more vinyls will be pressed by any label anymore in India. It’s all over. There might be a few guys pressing one or two titles occasionally. That’s about it. Prices of titles like DDLJ, DTPH, and a host of other titles from mid 90s to 2019 pressed on vinyl will hit the roof top. Soon they will all be selling 3-4000 and upwards. So stock whatever you want.

Prophetic. Though, add another zero to your prophesy in a few cases

 

[Lizard King]

Prophetic. Though, add another zero to your prophesy in a few cases

True. Now vinyls are retailing at 4000 in India. A 100% jump in 2 years.

 

[vmscbe1974]

I have been following up with a friend of mine for coming up with a new vinyl for Tamil films. The market is limited and the cost including remastering the digital source for vinyl and pressing 500 lps, the selling price can be within the cap of Rs.2500 which include royalty and other marketing expenses with a margin of 20 percent on MRP . More volume less cost . Production time minimum 3 to 6 months .

 

[ramkumar31]

I have been following up with a friend of mine for coming up with a new vinyl for Tamil films. The market is limited and the cost including remastering the digital source for vinyl and pressing 500 lps, the selling price can be within the cap of Rs.2500 which include royalty and other marketing expenses with a margin of 20 percent on MRP . More volume less cost . Production time minimum 3 to 6 months .

Hi , I am looking to buy Tamil vinyl of Illayaraja songs, Could you please guide where can i get this in Tamil nadu / chennai. I am newbie into this vinyl records.

 

[bhooshaniyer]

No more vinyls will be pressed by any label anymore in India. It’s all over. There might be a few guys pressing one or two titles occasionally. That’s about it. Prices of titles like DDLJ, DTPH, and a host of other titles from mid 90s to 2019 pressed on vinyl will hit the roof top. Soon they will all be selling 3-4000 and upwards. So stock whatever you want.

*15-20000.

Fixed it.

New vinyls are digitally remastered. While old Indian pressings made by gramophone company of India have a better sound quality. Pure analogue.

No remastering, kemastering and all that. Just cut copy paste from cd wav ripped with some eq if they are in good mood.

 

[hifimaddy]

I recently started collecting LP's. I have seen this thread already and am a bit confused. The new vinyls are not as good sound quality as the good old days, as you guys are discussing in these preview threads. Is it only in India or also in western vinyls?

I am seeing remastered western albums on eBay. Is that digitally remastered? or mastered from original tapes? Should I consider buying those?

When I have read many articles online, what I understood is that digital recordings were started in the early 70's, so it's not about the digital to analogue. Maybe what we experienced today is the poor build LPs. Maybe I misunderstood this concept.