dubplates/prices/affordability

[stanton]

hehehehehe

[2000f]

im thinking the producers themselves cut the dubs and hand em out to the djs themselves no?

not likely! The main thrust behind cuttin a dub is sound - it's gonna be mastered before the cut which immediately makes it sound better than the CDR it was burnt to. It demonstrates a commitment to sound quality, seeing as it would be so much easier & cheaper to play it off CD.

cutting a dub is also a sign of respect & commitment - "i'm so into these tunes by so and so that I'm gonna spend a load of my own money on cutting them to dub". This is also a form of self-quality control i.e. if you're not gonna spend your money on cutting it, you won't play it - I have definitely played tunes off CD/Serato that I wouldn't be bothered paying £10-15 on cutting to one side of a dub.

Dubplate culture is a great antidote to the throwaway nature of the digital revolution.

True. But at eg. Transition you can also have a mastered CD instead (cheaper) of a mastered acetate. So the mastering point is not valid.

[ramadanman]

just a few thoughts

in a lot of clubs that i've played in you can't guarentee having decent CD decks to play on, in fact once i played out and there wasn't even any so i just had to play the few records i bought. on the other hand, every club ive played has had a decent set of 1210s.

cutting dubs (at transition anyway) is half the price of getting a track 'cd mastered'.

it's interesting to see how the tune sounds on vinyl - as this is probably going to be its final destination anyway. and also you can ask the mastering engineer for advice on how to improve the mixdown for the next time

[elgato]

thats crazy that it costs twice as much to get it just cd mastered

so a cd master will be different to the master used to cut to vinyl release?

[jtransition]

If not comparable, is there a different in quality between a mastered WAV or a dubplate?

i mean a professionally mastered WAV will have passed through thousands of pounds worth of high quality equipment and received as much care as a dubplate.

A master is the version that all manufacturing is going to be produced from and as such it has to translate on most systems and be appropriate to the the genre and end medium.so the idea is to correct any problems whether this takes half an hour or four hours.
A dubplate still gets processed but not to the extent as a master.
I cannot answer your question because it does not make any sense,If you wanted to compare a dub with a record then i could answer that but a master and a dub are two different things on two different formats which sound different.

[stanton]

Cheers J, it's good to hear someone explain this properly.

Does anyone else feel that the scenes reliance on dubplates (wether they be actual dubplates OR 320/Wav/CD/Accapella beatboxing of tunes) kind of makes TPs and Promos a bit redundant?


(I'm still chuckling about that Greek wedding, sorry)

[2000f]

Jason to the rescue.


What they might mean is the following:

CD master (correct: pre-master) is only for production - not to be played.


However, as far as I remember you can have your dubplate cut (and compressed/EQ´d etc), but the same applies to CDs (not pre-mastering). Ie. should you chose to play only CD-Rs, then it can be processed like you would do for acetate cut, right?


But for all the pro audio geeks (myself including): What would the difference sound-wize between an acetate and a CD-R (both processed in the same way) be eg? Of course there will be be differences due to the acetate "sound" comes down to the RIAA amp, stylus, turntable etc. and the CD "sound" comes down to choice of D/A converts, line amp etc. comes into play, but can you describe it in any way (and please don´t use hype word no. 1, ie. "warmer" LOL!).

Big up to Jason!

[thinking]

Does anyone else feel that the scenes reliance on dubplates kind of makes TPs and Promos a bit redundant?

no, they're for different purposes:

dubplates are one-offs which are cut before a tune is released. This is good for 'road-testing' a tune i.e. seeing how a crowd responds, and is the only way for an unreleased tune to be played out without resorting to digital solutions like CDJs/Serato.

Paying to cut a dub is the responsibility of the DJ, not the producer or any label.



Test Pressings are just that - test pressing to make sure that the lacquers (aka masters) are sounding and have been cut well, and to ensure that the cut translates well onto vinyl. Often nowadays, labels choose to press a fair few (maybe 20+) so that they can pass them onto other DJs or sell them at an inflated price.

Promos are just advanced copies of the finished article, with/without artwork. Often they are sold as promos since this can provide certain tax breaks via loopholes concerning promotional materials.

It is the label that pays for the Test Pressing, promo and full release pressings, and these are all part of the process of releasing a record.

[stanton]

Does anyone else feel that the scenes reliance on dubplates kind of makes TPs and Promos a bit redundant?

no, they're for different purposes:

dubplates are one-offs which are cut before a tune is released. This is good for 'road-testing' a tune i.e. seeing how a crowd responds, and is the only way for an unreleased tune to be played out without resorting to digital solutions like CDJs/Serato.

Paying to cut a dub is the responsibility of the DJ, not the producer or any label.



Test Pressings are just that - test pressing to make sure that the lacquers (aka masters) are sounding and have been cut well, and to ensure that the cut translates well onto vinyl. Often nowadays, labels choose to press a fair few (maybe 20+) so that they can pass them onto other DJs or sell them at an inflated price.

Promos are just advanced copies of the finished article, with/without artwork. Often they are sold as promos since this can provide certain tax breaks via loopholes concerning promotional materials.

It is the label that pays for the Test Pressing, promo and full release pressings, and these are all part of the process of releasing a record.

Yeah, I understand all that, I was talking from the point of view of someone who DJs (pretty shoddily) but is aware that some of the tunes they buy, even on promo, are often played to death by the time they've got them. I shouldn't have used the term dubplate actually, I meant ANY prerelease version of a tune, digital, analog or whatever.

[thomas]

Tunes which have just come out should still be played by DJs though, if a DJ from Manchester whos not got the connections N type or whoever has can get hold of a certain tune a couple weeks before the crowd then thats a good thing.

[thinking]

Yeah, I understand all that, I was talking from the point of view of someone who DJs (pretty shoddily) but is aware that some of the tunes they buy, even on promo, are often played to death by the time they've got them. I shouldn't have used the term dubplate actually, I meant ANY prerelease version of a tune, digital, analog or whatever.

well that's just the 4,000,000th gripe about dubplate culture - like it or not, it drives many aspects of underground dance music and without it the scene would have a very different landscape, for better or worse.

There are countless threads about the pros/cons of dubplate culture on this and every other EDM forum, but this is not one of them.


edit: to address your original question, TPs and promos are there for the DJs which might not have access to unreleased tunes direct from labels/producers, but want to be as upfront as they can with their selection either because they have regular gigs/radio shows or are promo whores because they think that white labels have some kind of kudos.

[stanton]

There are countless threads about the pros/cons of dubplate culture on this and every other EDM forum, but this is not one of them.

Fair enough, it's been an interesting thread. Big up to everyone who's demystified the esoteric world of accetate for us all. Cheers.

[4linehaiku]

If you got an unreleased tune and had it professionally mastered so you could play it out on Serato and the like, could you then use that master to press up some vinyl, if you decided to release it later on?
Or would you have to get it mastered again because mastering for vinyl is different?

If that is the case, could you get it mastered for vinyl, then just play it out on Serato for a bit anyway? Is it still gonna sound a lot better than the unmastered wav?

[boomnoise]

just as a point of information test presses very rarely make it into the shops and what are referred to as tps are most likely actually promos.

[Sharmaji]

all this talk about sound quality, dubplates, etc... it's all very good but at the end of the day, it's about making people dance. Look at the baile funk dances in rio; samples are jacked from bad mp3's, put together in whatever cracked program there is, cut too loud, the vox done with an sm58 plugged straight into the computer--

and then you've got 4,000 people buggin' out, girls whining like crazy on the floor, parties popping off. It sounds like shit but-- that's not the point. the point is to rock a dance.

Any time i play out i'm gonna play probably 80-90% unreleased tunes. I rely on serato heavily, and don't use CDJ's. If i believe strongly in a track, and the producer has no plans to release it in the next few months, i'll put it in the cue to cut to dub. no, it's not cheap but it's a very, very, very awesome way to archive the music.

And yes-- pure vinyl sounds better than CD. forget the highend rolloff-- i'd actually rather have some of the real top, 16k stuff going on in vinyl-- it's all about the dynamics that get lost in the process of playing back a record that's pressed to +4 db. it sounds big, punchy, awesome.

but i'd rather have a bunch of really amazing, special tunes that sound good and a few that sound awesome, than be in a situation where i've gotta play the same stuff someone else does.

Chef & Jason from Transition ran down 'mastering'... a bit more: audio has to be in a state that can be actually translated to vinyl; the grooves have to be cut to within a certain specification, and if there's too much bass or too much clipping, etc, your needle will jump out of the groove-- not a good look. So dubs get a quick mastering job, maybe sonically cleaned up a bit but specifically to sound good on dub. it goes into that magic box that then tells the lathe what to do and... voila-- your acetate gets cut.

very cool process.

ultimately the songs, the music, the set is what drives DJ culture-- if you're going to see a DJ who you know has got some wicked tunes, and you're bummed out that you see a serato box up there-- your priorities are just full-on fucked. Dubplates are cool, no doubt; good tunes are more important than the medium.

[spooKs]

just wanna give a little shout out to people who play tunes that aren't necessarily brand new and aren't 'old classics' though, what would be the point in all this record malarkey if we didn't play things that are just releases?

[stanton]

just wanna give a little shout out to people who play tunes that aren't necessarily brand new and aren't 'old classics' though, what would be the point in all this record malarkey if we didn't play things that are just releases?

HEAR HEAR!

[xor]

Does anyone else feel that the scenes reliance on dubplates kind of makes TPs and Promos a bit redundant?

no, they're for different purposes:

dubplates are one-offs which are cut before a tune is released. This is good for 'road-testing' a tune i.e. seeing how a crowd responds, and is the only way for an unreleased tune to be played out without resorting to digital solutions like CDJs/Serato.

Paying to cut a dub is the responsibility of the DJ, not the producer or any label.



Test Pressings are just that - test pressing to make sure that the lacquers (aka masters) are sounding and have been cut well, and to ensure that the cut translates well onto vinyl. Often nowadays, labels choose to press a fair few (maybe 20+) so that they can pass them onto other DJs or sell them at an inflated price.

Promos are just advanced copies of the finished article, with/without artwork. Often they are sold as promos since this can provide certain tax breaks via loopholes concerning promotional materials.

It is the label that pays for the Test Pressing, promo and full release pressings, and these are all part of the process of releasing a record.

This is great stuff.
Was wondering, if you get a dub cut at say Transition, is a lacquer made which you can use for pressing up with, or is it cut straight into vinyl and you have to get it re-mastered to create a lacquer?

[signus]

Got my first Dubplates ever the other day, 3 10" sexy beasts, just the fact that you have on vinyl something that hasn't been released is well worth the money. Dubs are a beautiful thing

[thinking]

This is great stuff.
Was wondering, if you get a dub cut at say Transition, is a lacquer made which you can use for pressing up with, or is it cut straight into vinyl and you have to get it re-mastered to create a lacquer?

no. As J from Transition said earlier in the thread, the mastering process is completely different i.e. much more in depth than the quick 'tidy up' you'll get when you're cutting a dub.

If you go to master a tune, it is mastered for optimal sound & volume on all formats. This takes as long as it takes (which depends on the quality of the mixdown) and will finish up sounding as good as the engineer and his equipment can possibly get it. You can then take away the master CD, and/or master lacquers, which you use in the manufacturing processes. Incidentally, master lacquers are often (always?) 1-sided discs and are slightly wider than 12"s - the ones I've cut were anyways.

if you're cutting a dub, the engineer will give it a quick going over to make sure it sounds okay, then cut you the dub. It won't be fully 'mastered' i.e. not the best it might be with more attention, but there will be a degree of overall gentle EQ & compression before the cut.