Gadgetory

there's an experience about playing a record there you know dropping that needle down on to the record taking it out of the jacket stuff mainly kids and when I say kids under 30 who have discovered this new thing called the records you so rainbow started in 1939 by a gentleman by the name of Jack Brown I joined rainbow in 1971 we didn't get into conventional record-pressing until the 50s that's pretty much the process hasn't changed much at all matter of fact some of our equipment out there the record presses are 40 to 43 years old and some of our other equipment goes back to the 50s and 60s it got pretty soft you know of course CDs came in in the mid to late 80s pretty much wiped out vinyl on the retail side so once you got it out of retail stores and of course our production went down we kept our vinyl equipment knock on wood and there was during the 90s it was very very slow I mean it was maybe we were making seven ten thousand records a week in the early 2000s has started to increase a bit and then towards two thousand eight nine ten it was increasing some more and then 2011 we saw tremendous 10 11 we thought a big increase the current pressing the vinyl hasn't changed a whole heck of a lot the first step in making a record is to cut a lacquer we do not do that here it's either done in the studio or we order it for customers once that lacquer is cut it goes into a plating tank it's an electroplating process and we spray it with silver to make it conductive electricity and then it'll go in and we'll make a negative off of the lacquer which is a positive and then we'll put that negative back in the plating tank and that negative is now a nickel plate and we'll put it back in the plating tank and we will make a positive off of that which is called a mother and then that mother is used for future negatives which are the stampers that will then be prepared to go on the press and that's what presses the record then the record of course is a positive our average day is about 23,000 records and we run 24 hours a day five days a week I love the manufacturing process of it um I'm more of a mechanical guy and so I like the mechanics of it I like seen you know a swing arm go in and deliver the vinyl and it trim off and then just to produce that piece and then to play it and how great they sound is what I enjoy I think vinyl will be around a long time in the 80s I said I think vinyl will be around longer than CDs I never expected vinyl to have the resurgence that it did you know it certainly didn't have a crystal ball but I there was always the audiophile guys who loved vinyl and I always thought there'd be some vinyl market but no I never had the expectations of what's happened the last five six you