SCULLY DUBPLATE MACHINE UPGRADE

What sort of labels and artists have you worked with? It’s growing fast though, as new customers are always coming to me, and things are expanding at a steady pace. Local artists in Peckham found out what I was up to, and got in touch. The dubplate business just sort of happened. If I don’t sell five, I am only the cost of five blanks down (and the cost of my time, but seeing as the label is a labour of love, my time is not a cost). If I want to release a field recording, I can cut five and sell five. Only cutting what I sell, and as such having zero commercial thought in my head when choosing music to release. I bought the machine so I could run a small record label where I could hand cut each record. It wasn’t my original idea to cut for other people. How big is the whole operation? Are you busy all-year round? I master in the box, using good quality plugins and spend a lot of time isolating problem frequencies and getting the tonal balance right for the cutting head. So for me, the whole ‘analog warmth’ discussion is not important when mastering for vinyl. It’s amazing that it sounds even half good, let alone as lovely as vinyl actually sounds. All of the tiny movements when you zoom into the vertical axis on the wav file, that information, 20Hz to 20Khz, all that tiny movement, mapped out in something no thicker than a human hair. In short, the process of cutting to vinyl is basically scratching a groove the diameter of a human hair into a piece of plastic. As I mentioned, the speakers I have built have been designed to be as transparent as possible. When mastering for vinyl, for me the most important thing is the monitoring. The cutting lathe uses a Technics 1210 for the motor and is hand built in the south of Germany. £15K a pair!Ĭan you tell us a little more about the machinery and the process of mastering and pressing? Nothing is 100% but these speakers are leagues better than most people will have on their home studios. I have a custom built pair of ATC based speakers which I designed and built myself with some help from ATC and these offer enough clarity that I can affect subtle changes knowing that what I am hearing is the true signal with no real distortion to the sound. Included in the service for the dub is a basic vinyl master, if needed though I also offer a more detailed mastering service. I need to move into a bigger space before I can do that.ĭo your services extend beyond the dubplate?

SCULLY DUBPLATE MACHINE UPGRADE

I intend to upgrade to a full pressing plant, as I can in theory cut lacquer mothers on the lathe but that’s a little further down the line. With a properly weighted needle the end result is pretty much as durable as a regular pressed record. At the moment we cut ‘everlasting dubplates’ meaning dubplates cut straight into PVC with a heated diamond cutting needle. Well, currently we aren’t a pressing plant as such.

What’s the story behind the plant, what were your motivations in setting it up? In the run up to their inauguration we spoke to Dominic to find out a little more on the whole operation.

It has inconspicuously placed itself inside the Peckham musical fabric and, crucially, in a fashion very much in keeping with the diacritical and independent feel the scene radiates.Ī label was Dominic’s real dream however and is set to officially launch this Saturday at Rye Wax. If you’ve ever found yourself within Canavan’s Peckham Pool Club, grooving at one of its fortnightly Rhythm Section nights, it’s likely you’ll have been witness to one of these special dubplates being spun.ĭominic Jones’ uncouth bedroom foundry is growing in reputation, cutting for customers like Bradley Zero, Henry Wu, Medlar, FYI Chris and Octo Champ. On becoming wise to what was initially believed to be a small-scale vinyl pressing plant, we were pleasantly surprised to find not only an even smaller bedroom dubplate service but the home of a key component in the growing South London music landscape. label head invites us inside his bedroom vinyl manufacturing haven ahead of their weekend launch party.

Scully dubplate machine