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Help Needed On Mother/stampers
Topic Started: Jul 25 2016, 11:35 AM (765 Views)
gzzsbj
Level 2
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Hi, everyone. Can any of you learned people explain how to read the mother number (the one a t 9 0'clock) when one number is positioned above the the other?

E.g. if there is a number '1' and immediately below it, say a '4', is that read as Mother number 14, or something else? Always confused me! I've also got some with three numbers.

Cheers

Richard
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servi
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It's a sub-master. "1 4" would mean the 4th mother of a sub-master made from the first mother. I think it works as follows: a mother is a positive from which a negative sub-master can be generated if quality allows it. The negative sub-master then can be used to generate new mothers. He process was used frequently and may have had the advantage that the original master does not need to be used.
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gzzsbj
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Thanks, Servi, its a bit clearer now. I wasn't aware of any 'sub-masters' being produced. So if I have a record with 1 , 4 GDD, is the number 1 the sub master, 4 the Mother, and GDD the Stamper created from that Mother? Therefore Mother number 4 and stamper number 100 from that Mother? Have I got that right?
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servi
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gzzsbj,Jul 25 2016
01:25 PM
Thanks, Servi, its a bit clearer now. I wasn't aware of any 'sub-masters' being produced. So if I have a record with 1 , 4 GDD, is the number 1 the sub master, 4 the Mother, and GDD the Stamper created from that Mother? Therefore Mother number 4 and stamper number 100 from that Mother? Have I got that right?

Number 1 is the mother from which the submaster was made. From that submaster they subsequently made mother 4, which then was used to make stamper 100. The fact that a submaster was used is apparent from the two digit mother code.
Stamper numbering was not related to mother numbers, i.e. the stampers did NOT start at G for every mother. There only ever was one stamper G. At least that is the case for most LPs, not sure if there are exceptions.

Mother 1 (positive) --> submaster (negative) --> mother 4 (positive) --> stamper GDD (negative) --> LP
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servi
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This website explains it really well and has fine illustrations: http://www.fabbeatlesaddict.com/article-ma...s-vinyl-record/
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gzzsbj
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Thanks again, Servi, those illustrations and explanations were really interesting. I can see from my own collection that not many pressings actually had sub-masters made as most just have one Mother number at three o'Clock.
As a matter of interest, does anyone know how many individual records on average were pressed from one particular stamper?
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muffmasterh
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gzzsbj,Jul 25 2016
07:37 PM
Thanks again, Servi, those illustrations and explanations were really interesting. I can see from my own collection that not many pressings actually had sub-masters made as most just have one Mother number at three o'Clock.
As a matter of interest, does anyone know how many individual records on average were pressed from one particular stamper?

thats opening up a can of worms lol

it used to be thought 300, Frank estimates more like 1500 i think. personally i think the truth is probably between the two, it all depends on how many stampers were not used or were faulty and discarded and thats something we can only guess at.
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gzzsbj
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Hmmm.. so, if I use an average of about a thousand records from a stamper i'm probably near the mark?
Did they produce lots of stampers from a mother and use them as and when needed so as not to stop production, or just make a new one when it was needed?
I'm getting this rush of Mother / Stamper knowledge from a site i came across from a Google search...WWW.Beatlebay.Co.uk
It only lists Please Please Me (Mono and Stereo)but goes into great detail. I get the impression from the site that certain Mother/Stamper numbers were 'allocated' to one pressing machine. How many pressing machines were at Hayes, and were some allocated to solely pressing Beatle records?
So much info to gather!!
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muffmasterh
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gzzsbj,Jul 26 2016
07:46 AM
Hmmm.. so, if I use an average of about a thousand records from a stamper i'm probably near the mark?
Did they produce lots of stampers from a mother and use them as and when needed so as not to stop production, or just make a new one when it was needed?
I'm getting this rush of Mother / Stamper knowledge from a site i came across from a Google search...WWW.Beatlebay.Co.uk
It only lists Please Please Me (Mono and Stereo)but goes into great detail. I get the impression from the site that certain Mother/Stamper numbers were 'allocated' to one pressing machine. How many pressing machines were at Hayes, and were some allocated to solely pressing Beatle records?
So much info to gather!!

yes probably near the mark

i do not know how many stamping machines there were but i suspect it must be hundreds, and clearly yes some were allocated for certain types of pressings, we see this on some later demo's and re-issue ep's from the early 70's, there seems to be one press stuck in the corner somewhere for specific use for this, specific but not exclusively this machine only.

They would almost certainly produce maybe 100's of stampers for a likely high demand disc like any Beatles record and 45's for any top artist, and they would then be pressing from all these stampers simultaneously.

Some people have in mind one stamping machine for each record, thats nonsense, thats why a 1G could have been pressed at the exact same time as a 3 GPR in case of a mono Beatles album or any stereo after the WA, they had them all going like the clappers !!!
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Jae
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Uxbridge had 112 presses in 1972 up to 120 in 1977, of which 76 were the new automatic 1400 presses (row 3 in the pressing room). The first five 1400 presses on the even side of row three were dedicated to classical records. These presses had enhanced lighting and other special enhancements to improve the identification of pressing faults (apparently a whopping 1 in 5 Classical records were rejects).

Here's a photo of row 3, including the presses dedicated to classical titles...

Posted Image
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gzzsbj
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Thanks, everyone. This is great!
So, as Henry alludes, a 1G was not necessarily a day one pressing, especially the Mono's. That's exploded one myth of mine!
I can picture the scene: first day of pressing a new Beatles record. Everybody arrives in work, grabs a side 1 and 2 Stamper from the pile prepared earlier, bolts it to the press, and presses 'go'! Pure luck if the 1G was on the top.
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namralos
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That's right.
Also keep in mind that if a stamper was not worn out, it might have been visually inspected and set aside for reuse later. One might find a copy of a record with 2 GOO on one side and 1G on the other!

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servi
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Still that may be an exception Frank. I am not sure about other LPs, but with regard to Sgt Pepper EMI worked very chronologically when it comes to stamper numbers of side 1 and side 2. See some graphs about stampers for the mono and stereo Pepper below and here: http://z10.invisionfree.com/BeatlesCollect...?showtopic=2790. But you are rigt, some stampers on side 1 and 2 a very far apart (maybe due to reuse as you said). And it could be different for other LPs or singles, someone should so a graph on those....
Side 1 and side 2 stampers correlate very well in general (judged from the linear correlation coefficient in the graphs). The outliers may actually represent misread stampers (some were from left to right, others diagonally or vertically).
Mothers and stampers do NOT correlate, which is probably explained by the fact that EMI made several stampers at once from different mothers (but each stamper number as unique, i.e. If they made. 2GRR then a 1GRR does no exist. GRR was only used once in the whole process).

Mono pressing:
Posted Image

Stereo pressing:
Posted Image
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servi
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Another urban myth is that 1G stampers sound better or are "closest to the original master". That's nonsense. The 1500th record pressed by the 1G stamper may not sound as good as the first one pressed from the 1R stamper (if the human ear can distinguish this anyway).
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muffmasterh
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servi,Jul 26 2016
03:27 PM
Another urban myth is that 1G stampers sound better or are "closest to the original master". That's nonsense. The 1500th record pressed by the 1G stamper may not sound as good as the first one pressed from the 1R stamper (if the human ear can distinguish this anyway).

agreed as well as the so called " hot stampers " people get excited about

love those graphs, reminds me of the main sequence graph

also as you can see, the stereo's correlate even better than the mono's probably because there were a lot fewer of them and why original stereo's are much scarcer.
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