Remington Lp Vinyl Record Pressing:: RECORD CORPORATION OF NEW ENGLAND Webster Massachusetts

LP LIST / AUDIO & MUSIC BULLETIN / THE REMINGTON SITE / 7" RECORD GALLERY / BACK

Webster Manufacturing Co. Massachusetts - Record Corporation of New England

Capitol Cavalcade, a ten inch record released in a limited edition in 1952 recollecting the first 10 years of Capitol Records.

Besides Donald H. Gabor (Continental Records Inc.) there were other people who started a record company in the early nineteen forties. One of these companies was Capitol Records which was founded when the US got engaged in World War Two, in 1942. At the occasion of Capitol's 10th Anniversary in 1952, Glenn Wallichs (Glenn E. Wallichs, 1910-1971) - one of the founders of Capitol - remembered:

"I happened to be operating a music and record store at the time and Johny Mercer was a regular customer of the shop. Occasionally, while browsing around and listening to new records, he'd even buy one. But seriously, Johnny commented frequently about various recording artists and the songs on records and I recall how we both agreed that there just might be room for a new company. The more we talked, the more enthused we became. And shortly, with a very big assist from the late motion picture and stage producer, and songwriter, Buddy DeSylva, Johnny Mercer and I rented office space and founded Capitol Records. Cow Cow Boogie, Elk's Parade and Strip Polka were immediate hits. But Capitol had its problems nonetheless. It takes tons of shellac to manufacture phonograph records and because of the war shellac was virtually impossible to obtain in any quantity." - Glenn E. Wallichs

The scarcity of shellac determined the record production in the 1940s. Right from the start of the existence of Continental Records, Gabor's 78 rpm shellac records were pressed at the Scranton Record Manufacturing plant which at the time was the largest independent record pressing factory in the U.S. Even after Capitol Records had acquired the plant in 1946, Gabor's Continental, Csardas, White Eagle, and probably early Remington 78s, were pressed there, but only for a short period. Having records pressed at Scranton was a costly affair. The scarcity of shellac is the reason why Gabor started experimenting to obtain a workable mixture of shellac and plastic in order to become less dependent on the availability of shellac and to get down the cost of pressing records as well. And he succeeded. Billboard magazine of July 1948 printed that Gabor's compound contained 25 to 30 per cent of vinylite, is longer-wearing than shellac, doesn't skid on record changers and can be turned out at a production cycle of two a minute.

A somewhat similar solution was applied in other countries as well, for example in the Soviet Union where CCCP (USSR) 78 rpm records were pressed on a smoother material which improved the signal to noise ratio at the same time.

To be able to determine the pressing process entirely it was necessary to be in charge of the pressing plant completely. So Gabor was going to run his own mill and Continental could become an even more independent company so to speak. That was in 1947 when the Record Corporation of New England was founded.

Webster had once been a center of textile manufacturing. After World War II had ended, the Webster Manufacturing Co. had moved to a non-union site in the South to avoid strict regulations, leaving behind an empty factory and an unemployed labor force. Whether Gabor persuaded the workers to buy the factory and install record-pressing equipment themselves (as David Diehl suggests) or that Don Gabor himself bought the mill relying on the existing labor force, is not quite sure. Fact is that the facory started pressing shellac records in 1947 of his ethnic labels Czardas, White Eagle, the Continental and later Remington 78 rpm disks.

Already in the spring of 1948 Gabor set up a second factory, but this time in Montreal, Canada. There Gabor's records were released under the Maple Leaf lable.

When the Long Playing record had been introduced Gabor conducted trials to find a similar substitute for LP records. There were two reasons. One, there was a shortage of plastic, and two, he wanted to keep his prices low which was impossible when using 100% high grade vinyl.

The Webster factory had 42 presses and also started manufacturing 45 rpm 7 inch records already in 1949. Several years later all of Gabor's labels were pressed there: 33 1/3 and 45 rpm discs; the early Continental LPs from before 1950; the cheap Remington LPs from 1950 on; and the early high quality Masterseals with reference MW of which the production was announced in 1951. In 1951 Gabor told journalist Cecil Smith that he intended to press the Remington records in the Webster plant. From that article it is clear that London records were pressed there as well. See Cecil Smith's article in The New Republic. He did not make this statement just for promotional purposes, but he had plans with the factory. However from the looks of most of the Plymouth releases, it is possible that these may have been pressed in another factory, maybe in New Jersey.
At left is a page of a small sized Remington Records Catalog issued in the fall of 1952. It says that Remington is one of the world's largest independent record manufacturers, a company not linked to a radio station or existing as a division of a larger company. The image also shows with pride the pressing plant and the countries were Remington Records were recorded and/or distributed. In 1955 the plant was flooded and after reopening in the fall of 1955 it was working at only 75 per cent of the normal capacity. Gabor sold his Record Corporation of New England and the pressing plants in Canada and Puerto Rico in 1959 to Thompson Record Corporation, a financial syndicate.

Page first published on the www on
October 14. 2009.
This page will be updated.

In the early days of the label many recordings of classical and semi classical music were made in Vienna. They were produced by Marcel Prawy. A few were made in Stuttgart with soloists and conductor Hans Grischkat. In France recordings were made with conductor George Enesco and a few other French artists. In the Netherlands Remington records were pressed and handled by Basart International N.V. in Amsterdam. In Canada LP records were pressed and distributed. From 1954 till 1956 recordings were made in Berlin and a few in other German cities like Düsseldorf. And there were the recordings made with Thor Johnson in Cincinnati.

Most recital recordings made in America were generally done in the Mastertone Recording Studios Inc. in New York City NY 10036. However at some instances a recording session was more or less improvised as the idea to tape a specific artist was decided on the spot at that very moment. This may have been the case with George Enesco's Sonatas and Partitas for Unaccompanied Violin by Bach released on Continental CLP-104/5/6. These may have been recorded at Gabor's home, or in his office, or in a room of a recording studio when the actual studio was not available, or even in the Webster plant. This is suggested by the striking of a clock which can be heard at some instance in the background. These performances were recorded on acetates. In specific cases other locations may have been chosen for practical reasons like Mannes School of Music or the Florida State University.

It is not known what makes and what types of tape recorders were used, although they must have been professional machines somewhat like the Magnecord M-80A (mechanical tape transport) and M-80C (amplifier) or earlier types. The speeds of the Magnecord tape transport were 15 and 7.5 ips (38 and 19 cm/sec.). Notwithstanding the fact that the sound quality recorded with professional and semi-progessional machines was of a relatively high standard, Donald Gabor transferred the original tapes to a simpler tape recorder. And from that "master" the lacquer was cut.

I suspect that he did this to "create" a sound character which would make his records playable on relative simple radio systems and cheap portable gramophones with ceramic cartridges or crystal pick ups, and the so important variable treble and bass controls. He was interested in manufacturing records with "music for millions" as far as the prices of the discs were concerned. If recorders like the Magnecord were not used by Gabor, they or similar machines of other brands were in use by the Mastertone Studios or by any other sound recordist like Robert E. Blake.
The specs at right give an indication of the technical standards in those days. These were published in High Fidelity magazine of October, 1954. The frequency response at 15 ips is 20 to 20.000 cycles. Wow and flutter is less than 0.1 %, the distortion better than 0.53 %. The tubes used are of the types 6BK7, 12AU7, 5Y3GT and 12 AX7.

I do not have a picture of the original cutting lathe used in the Webster pressing plant. It should be similar to the one at left; with or without stroboscope.
Once the lacquer is cut, it is fixed to a carrier disc and galvanized (nickel plated) and various positives and negatives are being made through electrolytical processes.

The drawing above shows the manufacture of one side of the final record. At right a lacquer of a 45 rpm 7" disc recording. The lacquer used is much larger than the final small disc. It is in fact a lacquer for a 10 inch record, 10 inch being the minimum (practical) size of a plate that can be mounted in the press. The pressed discs will be trimmed down to the actual size.

Groove and surface of the nickel plated matrix have to be checked carefully before it can be decided that from this plate negatives can be made. These negatives are called mothers and from each mother subsequent pressing stampers (slaves or sons) are made. Irregularities in the spiral track and of the surface of the master are corrected with specific tools. If the galvanized master has irreparable defects, it can not be used and a new lacquer has to be cut. Naturally the mothers have to be checked too, as well as the slaves, the actual stampers, from which the vinyl records are pressed.
			A record pressing plant was not a healthy work environment. Dust, heat and bad air determined the climate. The raw ingredients (polyvinyl, carbon, additives and fillers) were taken out of the containers, and put on a conveyor belt.


Ernst Lumpe: Allegro-Royale Pseudonyms 25 Years of Compact Disc<> SACD: Upsampling & Noiseshaping Your Desert Island Discs Garrard 4 & 5 HF Record Player The Sound of Tubes and Transistors The Universal Stabilizing Ring - URSR URSR: Review in HiFi Worl URSR: Picture Gallery URSR: Positive Feedback Online Award		The vinyl was "cooked" and continuously mixed in large heaters until it had the desired plasticity and density.	Then it was sliced into long sheets and carried to yet another machine which pressed pancakes (tablets or biscuits) of a specific size and weight.
URSR: Review in PFO, Issue 20. Elisabeth Lugt Soprano/Sopraan Marie-Claire Alain- Notre Dame de l'Orgue Active Loudspeake System Optimizing Phono Cartridge Performance Gold for Bernard Haitink Violinist/Violist Paul Godwin Rabco SL-8E Vintage Tangential Tonearm Wilma Cozart Fine: Mercury Living Presence Mercury Recordings on the Fontana Label Desert Island Discs DIY: Building a Tone Arm The Bullet Plug Decca London Ribbon HF Horn Loudspeaker T he Joy of Well Positioned Speakers Vintage Equipment Phono Cartridges: Ortofon, Decca, Tannoy Lp Record Cleaning + DIY Cleaning Formula Turntable + Cartridge Adjustment DIY: An Effective Turntable Weight LP Lists Stefano Pasini: Deutsche Perfektion Joachim Bung: Swiss Precision CLASSIQUE 777 Lp Record Covers Record Shops Catalogs & Books The TD124 page The SP10 Page Building a Tonearm The Turntable Mat Paris Jazz 1960s Porgy & Bess 75th Anniversary 7" Recordings of Violinists Acoustic Revive RR-77 Generator Klaas Posthuma - EMI Etcetera Globe Contemporary Records - Lester Koenig The Remington Site
The plates are mounted in a heavy metal rig similar to a waffle iron and precisely secured. Precision is one of the basics as no pressed record should be off center and every record should be completely flat.

	Vinyl is originally a colorless substance which can be colored as one wishes. Right from the start several 45 rpm 7 inch Remingtons were pressed from blue and red vinyl.
In the early days the releases on Remington were pressed at the Webster plant. At the time when most of these pictures were taken by Piasta Photography Studio (Webster, MA), the issues of Masterseal, Webster, Palace, Buckingham, Paris, Spin-O-Rama, and others were pressed at the Webster plant.

The pictures on this page are from about 1957-1958. By that time the vinyl was no longer the cheap mix of the early Remingtons but had more or less acquired the quality of the vinyl used by other companies. The vinyl biscuit is put in between two labels and between the two plates fixed in the pressing mould. Through a system of tubes steam is transported to the mould. The steam rises the temperature to approx. 140 degrees or even 190 degrees Celcius. Way back then pressing a record was a manual labour. Today the modern record plants press thousands of records. They are practically fully automated.
Checking the sound quality of a series of pressings is done by picking records at random from the batch of a pressed title. The turntable is the Rek-O-Kut T43 with two arms: the original Rek-O-Kut arm and the Audax Pro 16 tonearm from Audak.The Pro 16 is a unipivot design which was then called a compass bearing. The speakers are difficult to identify as the styling of the fronts are what was regarded as modern and handsome designs in those days. A visitor of The Remington Site identified the two amplifiers as being Bogen DB-114s. The 114 was a basic audio tube amp sold in retail shops. Here two mono amps are being used as power amps for mono and for stereo. The small tube amplifier in between the Bogens is probably the preamp. It has buttons (switches) in between the large knobs to activate filters at various frequencies and for muting.
The Bogen DB114 uses 3 x 12AX7, 2 x 6V6 for power, and for rectifier one 5Y3. There are 4 control knobs: a selector switch, the on-off plus volume knob, and variable bass and treble. And switches for Stereo/Mono, Rumble and Loudness. There were also Inputs were for Crystal Pick Ups as well as Moving Magnet cartridges.	An Audax advertisement in the October 1956 issue of High Fidelity Magazine, explains the workings of the Audak KT-12 and KT-16 Compass-Pivoted Tone-Arms in KIT form. The Audax Company had an office in the same building as Don Gabor had for a certain time: 500 Fifth Avenue, New York 36, N.Y.

The Webster plant was not just a record pressing factory. The mill had also a department where the covers were printed, cut and glued. Here a worker poors paint into a reservoir for printing sleeves on a press manufactured by Stokes & Smith Co. from Philadelphia.

	A stack of covers is being cut to size by an operator handling a "Sheridan New Model" cutting machine.
	Putting the ready LPs in a protective cellophane bag (jacket) is the finishing touch.

		These three lovely ladies put the ordered records in cardboard boxes. The LP with the Masterseal MS-50 recording of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto played by Michèle Auclair and Kurt Wöss conducting is also shipped. It is the re-release of the early Remington R-199-20.
	Every week thousands and thousanfs of LP records were ready to be transported to companies who had ordered the pressings. Don Gabor's Masterseal, Webster, Buckingham and Paris LPs were shipped to shops, department stores, and gaz stations.
The important job of the finance department: sending invoices and checking the balance of payment of each and every retailer. Modern electrical calculators assisted the workers. The rest was done in a pure analog fashion, so to speak.

In Billboard Magazine of February 16, 1959, it was announced that Don Gabor was selling the plant to Thompson Record Corporation. Gabor wanted to spend more time to his expanding disk business and invest more capital into its development. He will operate his business out of resident offices.	One condition was that Gabor will have access to 50 percent of the pressing facilities. The deal would include the plants in Canada and Puerto Rico.