How to listen to a test Pressing

In Vinyl Record pressing, the first chance you have to listen to your record is as a Test pressing. Most commonly, a pressing plant will issue 4-5 test pressings for you to vet before proceeding with a full production run.

By approving your Test Pressings you are approving the completed lacquer master created by the cutting engineer, the metal plates created by a galvanic company or the electroplating department in the plant itself. It will also give you an actual pressing by the plant your project is running at. Your Test Presses are made with the same stampers as the final run, so your completed goods will sound exactly the same.

It was formerly a standard practice (and occasionally now subject to your cutting engineer) that a test acetate would be provided prior to electroplating and your Test Pressing being created. This would give a frame of reference between the work done by your cutting engineer and subsequent work by the plating department and plant. Due to the additional expenses of test acetates, it is more common that the test pressing will be your first opportunity to appraise the work to date. You can request a test acetate from your cutting engineer or service provider; prices generally vary between $100-$180.

So, what are we looking for and how do we approve our Test Pressing?

First and foremost, it is important that you listen to your Test Pressing on a quality turntable with a calibrated tone arm and a clean needle. The most common complaints with Vinyl Record Pressings often stem from a poorly designed or calibrated turntable. If in doubt, take your Test Pressings on an outing to your nearest high-fi store, they’ll delight at the chance to playback your records while showing you systems for sale.

Skips and (unintentional) Locked Grooves. 

Skips and locked grooves can occur at both the lacquer mastering and galvanic steps of the record pressing process. Skips will tend to occur more frequently towards the middle of the record, so make sure you listen to each side from start to finish. The inner (final) groove on a vinyl record is in the form of a closed loop, which traps the tonearm and needle, preventing it from entering the label area. Occasionally a locked groove can occur unintentionally in the playback of the record itself. This will lead to a repeating or seemingly looping section of the musical programming.

Surface Noise - Pops and Clicks.

Surface noises can be continuous throughout a record or isolated to a short  abrupt noise sounding like a pop or click. In record pressing, there are accepted tolerances to pops and clicks (it’s part of the joy of vinyl for many!), but if it is jarring and distracting from the programming, you should note this in your feedback. It may be that something as simple as re-polishing the stampers can remedy the issue. 

Clicks and Pops should not be confused with distortion, as distortion is generally created during the mastering and lacquer cutting process. 

If your submitted audio is bass-heavy then the cutting engineer could be creating deeper grooves in the lacquer, making this harder to separate at the plant. The processes used to deal with deeper grooves can differ from plant to plant but it can occasionally result in a higher chance of distortion or surface noise.

Quality Control

It’s important to note, test pressings are scrutinized by the quality control staff at record pressing plants. Oftentimes, skips, pops, and distortion will be identified and remedied before test pressings make their way to a client. That is not to say that issues are not missed. 

When appraising your test pressings - we can get focused on the details and miss the obvious. Are the A-Side and B-Side labels named correctly? Are the tracks in the correct order? Is the correct project or catalog number etched into the runout groove of your record?

Don’t Panic!

If you do detect issues, the most important thing is to not panic. There are no issues that the record pressing communities have yet to encounter. At Kindercore, we will work through any test pressing claims with you to ensure you are ultimately receiving salable quality goods. We have years of experience resolving test pressing claims and are here to help. 

A poor test pressing experience is not a reason to question the output of any one vendor creating your product. Mistakes happen, and it’s important that we respond expediently to get things on track for your final production run.