Skip to main contentEvery LP you have ever heard was first cut on one of about a thousand machines. Vinyl lathes are some of the rarest and most valued pieces of mastering equipment in the world. They make the original master copies of all music that will ever be pressed to vinyl.
Designed before the concept of planned obsolescence, they are made to last forever.
There are only about 80 left in North America, one of which is owned by Fred Cole of Dead Moon, used only for his own records.
But one of the others belongs to Portland's Adam Gonsalves, at his Telegraph Mastering studio, and he had to spend nearly two years rebuilding it after it was found in serious disrepair in California. He now uses it to cut and master records for everyone from Peter Buck to Sufjan Stevens.
Telegraph Mastering operates out of a renovated garage that is designed to be perfectly acoustically balanced and isolated, behind his house in SE Portland. From the outside, Telegraph looks like a bare-bones garage, except that it's just got a regular-sized door. Inside, art and science meet, as Adam places the final human hands on songs before they hit the pressing plant.
We paid him a visit while he was cutting a record, and talked to him about the process, and this fascinating piece of equipment that will, hopefully, outlive us all.
WWeek 2015