What is a GrooveCoated stamper?
The simplest answer is, a GrooveCoated stamper is a proprietary type of stamper offered by Gotta Groove Records which has a specialized lubricious coating applied after nickel formation that reduces surface tension while increasing surface hardness. Depending upon the cut, this combination can dramatically increase the lifespan of the stamper, and reduce high frequency loss as pressing cycles continue over the course of manufacturing. In most cases, the number of records pressed off a single set of GrooveCoated stampers is double that of standard stampers.
But- before we get into more detail, let’s first discuss a basic primer on record plating in general…
There are three approaches to record plating:
1-step plating: The first metal part pulled away from the master lacquer is turned into the stamper used to press the records. No additional stampers can be made.
2-step plating: The first metal part pulled away from the master lacquer is re-plated to create a mother, and then it is turned into a stamper to press records. Additional stampers can be made from the mother.
3-step plating: The first metal part pulled away from the master lacquer is re-plated to create a mother. Then, it is replated again to form a thin layer of nickel over its silver surface (more on this below); and then it is saved as a “father” for future use. The father can make additional mothers. The mothers can make additional stampers.
In all three types of plating, the process is started by thoroughly cleaning the master lacquers. Different types of lacquers require different cleaning treatments, and lacquers cut by different mastering facilities can even require different cleaning treatments.
After cleaning, the lacquer face is coated with silver — yes, the metal silver. This silver layer has direct contact with the grooves on the face of the lacquer, and is therefore the most sensitive step in producing phonograph metal parts. The silver step is necessary to make the lacquer electrically conductive – without the silver, the lacquer would essentially burn up in the plating tank. Also, the silver is the very first metal layer to be in contact with the lacquer surface, and therefore is extremely detrimental in how the final record will translate from the original lacquer cut.
In 3-step plating, the first part pulled from the lacquer is used to create the mother, and never turned into a a stamper — it is called a “master” or a “father”. Many additional mothers can be made from the master/father. Additionally, here at Gotta Groove, we seal a mother to the master immediately after creation – therefore the mother/father faces never see the world until they are split apart. Because of this approach, Gotta Groove masters/fathers can be archived for generations without the risk of tarnishing or deterioration.
There are three primary benefits of doing 3-step plating: 1. The silver layer is nearly always left intact on the masters, therefore archiving the original lacquer cut in the truest manner physically possible on every stamper made from the 3-step processing; 2. (Under the Gotta Groove method), the master is always left sealed by a new mother, thereby infinitely increasing the lifespan of the metal master; and 3. Dozens of additional mothers can be made from the same master, thereby giving the end user flexibility to send the same record project to multiple pressing plants around the world, as well as the ability to create new mothers decades into the future for a title that conistently sells out of stock.
In 2-step plating, the silver-faced master is immediately re-plated to produce a mother. (The mother is made from the master). After the mother has been created and inspected for defects (and passed), the master then has the silver layer electrochemically removed, and the master eventually is turned into a stamper for pressing records.
In 1-step plating, the silver is stripped away from the original part before proceeding further; and the part is converted into a stamper for pressing records. Silver is a relatively unstable metal, and tarnishes very easily. A stamper which does not have the silver fully stripped will turn orange after pressing just a few records, and be terribly noisy. Similarly, an unprotected master will tarnish.
In 1-step plating, there is no going back – if someting happens to the stamper during pressing, a new lacquer cut is required in order to make an additional/replacement stamper. For this reason, it has traditionally been generally viewed as an inferior type of record plating, and very rarely used. Additionally, it can be argued that once the silver is removed from the face of the part, there is some audio information that is lost along with that removed silver. Therefore, records pressed with 1-step plating may have less “response” to a discerning listener, vs the same program material plated 3-step plating.
With 2-step plating, it is true that the first set of stampers (those that were converted from being the masters/fathers after silver stripping) are essentially the same as if they were 1-step stampers. However, since 2-step mothers were created from the masters before they were silver-stripped, any subsequent stamper generations made from those mothers will have whatever audio information was contained in the silver layer present (unlike 1-step stampers).
Now that you are an expert in record plating, let’s get back to GrooveCoated stampers…
In 2017-2018, NiPro Optics / NiPro Records and Gotta Groove Records worked to develop one of the first “new technologies” in record stampers in several decades — the GrooveCoated ™ stamper.
GrooveCoated stampers have a specialized lubricious coating applied after nickel formation that reduces surface tension while increasing surface hardness. Depending upon the cut, this combination can dramatically increase the lifespan of the stamper, and reduce high frequency loss as pressing cycles continue over the course of manufacturing.
With traditional record plating technology, over the course of the cycles of a pressing, the high frequencies tend to diminish first as the cycles go on. While this is always going to be a natural phenomenon in the course of pressing vinyl records, GrooveCoated stampers dramatically strengthen the grooves on the face of the stamper, and allows better material flow. This helps stampers stand up much stronger to the repeated stresses of each pressing cycle.
The truly amazing thing about this new record plating technology is that it does not cause the core nickel substrate of the stampers to become brittle (brittleness is an issue with traditional stampers, because they can break before finishing a run of records). This can help reduce scrap and turnaround time during the record pressing process. On average, GrooveCoated stampers double the life compared to non-GrooveCoated stampers! We have even pressed a few records of over 3,000 copies on one set of GrooveCoated stampers (although, we do consider these to be outliers).
In late 2018, GGR conducted an experiment with a 180 gram 6-LP box set which used GrooveCoated stampers for all copies. We recorded and analyzed frequencies of the recordings of records produced by the same GrooveCoated stampers from record #45 through record #2400 off the same stampers. The results were incredible — even after over 2,000 stamper cycles, the tracks sounded remarkably similar. When viewing the frequencies in a sound editor, the information was also nearly identical.
Due to this attribute, many audiophile records have since been pressed using GrooveCoated stampers, due to their ability to retain high frequency information for more cycles than traditional nickel stampers.
Please contact us at (800) 295-0171 or [email protected] to learn more about GrooveCoated stampers, and to add them to your pressing order.