do we have any CD pressing plant gurus around? I just picked up this CD that should be an old one (from '91) but it's in way, way too new condition to be original. I'm thinking it's gotta be a reprinting, but I'd like to be able to verify somehow
ivy
i am not a guru but i assume you did the obvious stuff like checking the IFPI/SID code?
zoedivision[m]
I know *about* those but I wouldn't know where to begin interpreting them......
ivy
there's a good page on discogs that knows a lot more about this an i do, let me see if i can find it
it's a bit vague but it does explain the meaning of the matrix codes so maybe you can cross reference them with pictures of the disc on discogs/mb or something
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zoedivision[m]
well this is interesting, IFPI codes were apparently introduced in 1994, so an original disc wouldn't even have them, lol
ivy
huh curious
so does your disc have one? :-)
zoedivision[m]
ye, lol
but that just makes me even more curious.... new reprint, or something from... in between, lol
in the end I may just politely have to ask the band, lol
ivy
do you know how to tell a CD-R from a pressed CD? i only ask because even some reputable record labels send out low-volume releases on CD-R (i own a couple of these from Alfa Matrix)
ofc, i don't think CD-R existed in 1991
zoedivision[m]
oh, yeah, this is a proper pressed CD, at least
and yeah, I've seen the rise of those sneaky CD-r represses, I hate it
a family member once bought me one for xmas from Amazon.... it was so hard not to be like.... sorry but this is not valuable to me as a collector Dx
I feel bad tho, I knew the band had these for sale, and I savvily assumed they'd be represses. I took a chance going with an eBay listing, but now I get the feeling they were just reselling off the band, and that's kinda lame........
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duckfromdisc[m]
waitwaitwaitwaitwaitwait.
youre telling me theres something different out there than a CD-R that isn't a CD-RW?
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Jakob[m]
<duckfromdisc[m]> "youre telling me theres somethin..." <- weren't they just talking about regularly pressed CDs?
There aren't any CD+Rs at least (oh god the horror)
duckfromdisc[m]
YEAH BUT I DIDNT KNOW THERE WAS A DIFFERENCE
IM SO SORRY I WOULD LIKE TO APOLOGISE TO THE ENTIRE MUSIC COMMUNITY
ivy
errr
do you mean is there a thing which is a CD-R which is not a CD-RW? yes there is
but i think there was a fairly short period that they existed before CD-RWs replaced CD-Rs
i believe the physical media is the same though, CD-RW is just a change to the filesystem that allows you to write extra tracks past the first CD-R track so you can "append" to the CD
early CD drives could not read these CD-RW discs
duckfromdisc[m]
LMFAO
wrong chat sorr sory
s/sorr/sorry/
sorry*
Jakob[m]
CD-RW have metallic alloy, CD-R had a dye. Quite different physically
duckfromdisc[m]
the lmfao was wrong chat but yeah i thought all CDS were CDR or CDRW
i didnt realize there were ones that were pressed
Jakob[m]
But yeah normal CDs are pressed/stamped in a factory not written with an infrared laser like at home. That's much faster
ivy
Jakob[m]: you probably know more about this than me but are you sure about this? i understood -RW was just a -R where you wrote a second (third, ...) track to it
ah, no, wikipedia agrees that CD-RW is physically different
-RW introduced in 1997 apparently, i think i'd stopped writing CDs by then
Jakob[m]
ivy: I recently watched "Technology Connections" videos about CD formats on YouTube. Would recommend quite insightful 😛 Other than that, definitely no big expert
1997 I was still quite little and probably only allowed to handle cassettes
crism
CD-R is writable only once; CD-RW is rewritable (in theory). https://www.techrepublic.com/article/all-about-... has more than you probably want to know. Manufactured ones tend to be higher quality; I have often had problems playing CD-Rs in my car (when cars had CD players) and on a computer, but never with an unscratched pressed CD. For my album, I made sure to get the minimum order that used a glass master, rather than
selling crap. I’ve bought too many of those from other artists.
duckfromdisc[m]
i never knew cds were pressed
crism
To make things more confusing, there are DVD-R, DVD-RW, and DVD+RW…
Vastly easier to stamp them out than burn each one, just like for vinyl. Carve that groove once, then press a million physical replicas…
ivy
i love that people learn new things every day (i do too) but i love that someone did not know that pressed CDs exist
virtualsid
lucky 10,000
ivy
like, shall we imagine a bank of 1,000 CD-R drives writing copies of the new Taylor Swift album to CD? :-)
crism
Same for CD-ROMs (meaning data, not music)—I used to do ebooks on CDs (many years ago); had to burn a gold master (literally gold, not just as in gold standard), test it, then ship it to the manufacturer for replication.
Covered my office door in the ones I fucked up.
virtualsid
crism: lol
when you said ebooks, I was thinking literally epubs on discs, and then realised you probably mistyped audiobooks?
crism
Epubs on disks. O’Reilly _The Perl CD Bookshelf_, _The Linux CD Bookshelf_, _The Webmaster CD Bookshelf_… early versions of what grew into Safari.
ivy
remember cdrom.com?
crism
HTML files plus a shitty Java search engine.
virtualsid
oh right! so not just a 1MB file on a whole CDROM :)
I had one or two of those at some point...
crism
Five or six ebooks, plus a physical book (so we could get shelf space in bookstores, which didn’t know what to do with ebooks).
virtualsid
got me thinking, not got audio books on CD for a while. Are they valid to input into musicbrainz?
crism
Yeah, there are a bunch of audiobooks on MBz.
virtualsid
good to know :)
ivy
here's something i don't understand, how do they make vinyls when i'm pretty sure a Vinyl-RW drive would not even fit into my computer?
virtualsid
I think I might look out for them in charity shops. Want to wean off audible.
ivy: lol
crism
Making vinyl: you make a master disc with a softer substrate and a needle that turns vibrations into a groove, instead of a groove into vibrations (cutting). Then you essentially cast the master and make a bunch of copies (pressing). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd2SW-Fys6I was the first search hit I found…
ivy
i did figure it was something like that :-d
crism
Some hipsters will cut live into the master; this was also done back in the early 20th century before tape was a thing.