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A view of the record press shop during the 1930`s showing manual presses producing 78 rpm shellac discs
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Vinyl Factory Australia`s 2 superbly reconditioned EMI Type 1400 record presses and brand new steam bolier.
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Our fully automatic Type 1400 record presses bear the EMI engineering heritage. These 2 presses are literally the best in the world.
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The Pedigree of a Press.A perspective by Roy Matthews: Engineering and Manufacturing Director Vinyl Factory Group.
The EMI Automatic vinyl record press has its roots firmly set in the 1960’s / 70’s the heyday of vinyl and, some would say, of all recorded music.
It was the boom in record sales that gave the impetus to efforts at automating the pressing process and the 1400 press was brought into being to help cope with the phenomenal demands for records generated by The Beatles and all the many other exciting artists of that era.
It therefore had to be able quickly to perform to a very high standard, which it did, but in order to fully appreciate the pedigree of the 1400 it is necessary to understand something about EMI itself.
One of EMI’s strengths was its huge classical catalogue and servicing this to the required quality standards stretched the processing properties of vinyl to the limits. This meant that presses had not only to achieve high reliability and productivity levels but to do so with the highest possible quality standards.
Of all the major music companies of the time EMI was unique in its commitment to local manufacturing which meant that it had pressing factories in some 26 countries spread around the globe. All of these had been equipped with presses designed and built by EMI in the UK and the resulting experience provided the company with a team of very knowledgeable engineers and designers highly specialised in record manufacturing. Engineering centres also existed in Cologne and Los Angeles and there was regular interchange between the centres. In addition it was standard practise in EMI for all factory engineers to be consulted about new technology.
In order to extract the maximum benefit from this wide range of experience and knowledge a design group was set up under the chairmanship of Roy Matthews who was at the time Director of the UK manufacturing and engineering operations.
Design criteria included: reliability when worked continuously round the clock, mechanical simplicity, independent control of the moulding cycle and good thermal control of the pvc feedstock.
The group which included senior engineers from USA, Germany, France and UK considered a number of proprietary presses as well as prototypes from both USA and Germany. These were installed in an evaluation unit at Hayes and worked under production conditions and the resulting performance data formed a basis for the design of the 1400. The prototype machine met or surpassed all its targets and as icing on the cake it was coupled with a specially made version of the very superior Werner and Fleiderer compounder/extruder. One of these feeds each press with vinyl at exactly the correct temperature and viscosity.
The result is a press that made high quality vinyl in many countries including: Australia, Greece, India, Japan, Brazil, Sweden, France, Holland and Spain.
If proof is in the lasting then the 1400 press needs no further testimony than can be found today in the UK and Australian operations of Vinyl Factory Limited where it continues to produce high quality vinyl pressings for a surprisingly healthy market.
The History of EMI manufacturing/ Vinyl Factory
In 1907, at Hayes in Middlesex, a small rural community on the edge of London, a foundation stone was laid for a fledgling music business known as The Gramophone Company Limited. The founders of the Company were pioneers in the then new technology of disc records and fortunately were forward thinking enough to secure a very large site as within two decades it had become a World renowned centre for recorded music. Best known for the ‘Dog and Trumpet’ trademark, the Company had merged with its rival, Columbia, to form Electric and Musical Industries –EMI.
In its heyday the Hayes works had over 12,000 employees and made everything from gramophone needles to finely veneered radiogram cabinets as well as the records themselves.
Hayes became the administrative and technical centre of an international corporation with a presence in over 30 countries at least 25 of which had their own record factories. These initially made shellac 78rpm records and with the introduction of the 33rpm and 45rpm formats in the 1950’s they were adapted to process the relatively new vinyl material.
The explosion onto the music scene of groups such as The Rolling Stones and The Beatles created a boom in record sales that threatened to outstrip production capacity and EMI engineers began to develop a whole new range of production methods and equipment. Automation was seen as the only solution and the design office and workshops at Hayes, in collaboration with engineers from other EMI territories, began serious development of materials, processes and machines.
The result was a range of equipment covering the whole manufacturing cycle for receipt of the master lacquer to the final sleeveing. Research, development and refinement continued for the next three decades with the benefits of continual feedback from the many newly equipped plants.
It is the fruits of that huge investment in experience, knowledge and resources that the Vinyl Factory Group have inherited and now continues at our Portalspace Records plant in Hayes, UK and now at the new Vinyl Factory Australia plant in Sydney, NSW. 'All our machinery carries the EMI pedigree and we our especially proud of our unique type 1400 presses’.
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