Congratulations! You have moved into the next phase of your record pressing project. Your test pressings have been shipped (or sent to you digitally).
If you are unfamiliar, test pressings are a physical proof of your record prior to production. This helps us to ensure that the stampers (the metal negatives of the master that we place on the press to make your record) contain the correct program material.
Why do we send multiple copies? You will receive multiple copies of your test pressing to demonstrate consistency across the pressings. Vinyl records are a beautiful, living format! Each pressing is unique to itself and contains its own characteristics. If you hear an issue on one copy, without finding it on others, that is likely a pressing anomaly, or surface noise. If you find the same issue across all copies, please pass those notes along to us and we will look into the problem.
At Physical Music Products, we pride ourselves on our quality control practices. Each test pressing goes through our 3-step Quality Control System prior to leaving our facility.
Step 1: Human listening to hear anomalies in the pressings, which no computer processing can detect.
Step 2: Recorded audio analysis to measure distortion, stereo image, frequency discrepancies, and peak and RMS levels. You may be receiving these recordings as part of your proofing process.
Step 3: Visual inspection of every record, as well as inspection of the packaging assembly to ensure printings are correct. We provide a written report and archive the project when finished.
Test presses that leave our facility have our 3-step stamp of approval. This means that we have not identified any pressing or plating issues from our perspective, but we need your ears to ensure the program material is correct. Once we have your approval, we will be ready to move forward into final production.
Please make sure that your turntable is properly calibrated before listening. If you are unsure on how to do this, we are here to support you! For more information, please visit our detailed FAQ here: https://www.physicalmusicproducts.com/detailed-faq
If you are a beginner to the vinyl process and have specific questions we haven't yet answered, please feel free to add to our database of questions at https://tinystereo.com/no-stupid-vinyl-questions
We are available for any questions or concerns you may have by phone. Also, remember, if you are happy with your test pressings, please submit in writing your approval as soon as possible and we can get right into production!
