Coloured vinyl

[holyzombiejesus]

I've noticed that more and more labels seem to be doing special edition coloured vinyl editions, either as a 'pre-sale only' lure or just for independent shops. I'm guessing they must be popular as more and more labels are doing them but I have never met a single person who would cross the road for a different coloured vinyl pressing. Even as someone who has spent many years buying records, I've never given a fig whether it's black, red, clear, whatever. Just wondered if anyone else gave two shits about this.

Also, sometimes I find that coloured vinyl sounds inferior. Is this my imagination?

[BlodwynPig]

I belief coloured vinyl does have problems sonically. Someone more knowledgeable will pop in here and explain - something about the material used to colour the vinyl.

I love colour vinyl. My first was an L7 7" on red, and then Steve Hillage's Green on...Green.  Probably my favourite is Optic Eye's Light Side of the Sun on a marble splash effect vinyl.

[DrunkCountry]

something about the material used to colour the vinyl.

I don't know very much at all about the production of this stuff, but that's pretty much what everyone I've known, who has released coloured vinyl, has said. The colour palette, in general, is restricted because of incompatibility (of materials) with the transferring process & what is available/compatible works on a different level of audio reproduction than your usual black vinyl, is as much as I've ever partially understood. I've got quite a few coloured/marbled releases but the audio quality is bunk on almost all so I hardly play them. They look lovely, though.

[thraxx]

Yeah, I'm not bothered about coloured vinyl but i seem to have dozens of them anyway. All the early verve singles, and the second album ones were ln coloured vinyl and you didnt have a choice. I mever play them because the sound quality is dogshit, and also it must be harder to press because they are all dog eared round the edges.

Saying that records like Mwng and Dots And Loops on coloured vinyl look fantastic.

[SteveDave]

I was asked if I wanted my LP (still available in many shops and on-line) in a colour and I chose vantablack.

[momatt]

I love coloured vinyl.
Though it's seen a resurgence lately, I've liked them since the mid-90s when I first started buying music.

Try to get those coloured editions where there's a choice.  I've never noticed a drop in quality and can't really see why that would occur.  Vinyl should be colorless by default, I thought they added the blackness to the plastic with carbon or something?  So a different coloured dye shod make much difference I'd have thought.

I'm happy to be proven wrong is someone can explain why.

[DrunkCountry]

Something to do with the thickness of the material used to secure the colouring/dye (or whatever it is), or something, as I partially understand it. As I say, technically haven't a clue & only going on what bands & labels have said to me in the past when discussing the reasons behind them choosing one over the other.

I plucked this from http://www.recordindustry.com/vinyl/colored-vinyl, which is the only thing I could find with a brief Google.

Some types of audio are unsuitable for coloured vinyl. Coloured vinyl can cause a higher noise level and/or clicks in the lead-in and lead-out grooves or on quiet parts of the recording.

Light colored vinyl can show spots or clouds, even if the press is cleaned prior to pressing your order.

Some types of audio are unsuitable for coloured vinyl and mixed coloured vinyl in particular.

also, re: black vinyl: https://youtu.be/y_OUkLbSs24?t=9m29s

nb

my LP (still available in many shops and on-line).

& very excellent it is, too.

[gilbertharding]

I haven't bought any records (as we used to call them) since the late 90s, but I used to buy loads, including coloured vinyl. Wouldn't go out of my way, though - but loads of Sub Pop stuff came on clear or coloured vinyl, and I doubt it sold enough to test the idea that it was a 'Limited Edition' anyway.

At the time I worked for a PVC window company - and as PolyVinyl Chloride is basically the same stuff records are made of, and listening to the sales spiel from the people who sold us the profile we made the frames from, I put 2 and 2 together, thus: The window people are at pains to point out that their frames are made from virgin PVC - which they have to do to ensure the colour is true (white, 99% of the time). I inferred that the only reason normal records are made from black vinyl because it was cheaper - you could use any old (possibly recycled) pvc and the black colouring would just obliterate any colour defects. Making a coloured vinyl record meant that you had to be more careful about exactly what you put in the mix, making it harder and more expensive to manufacture. I reasoned, possibly wrongly, that this (if anything) would make a better sounding record.

A couple of qualifiers here: at the time, the art of disc mastering was at a noticeably low ebb. Some pressings of records were barely playable without jumping and were on such thin discs some were warped before they left the shop. Whatever colour the vinyl (actually some of the worst offenders were on traditional black plastic).

I also wasn't that bothered about sound quality - as long as it played nice and loud, without any obvious crackles or scratches, that was fine by me. I mean, it was all fuzz pedals and shouting anyway, for God's sake.

Also, I had a copy of the Ramones first album on coloured vinyl which was really quiet and muffled - but I suspect that was because the master disc was knackered - it was a new Australian edition from about 1990 - rather than anything to do with what it was pressed onto.

Could you get coloured shellac?

Picture discs ARE shit though.

[Better Midlands]

I was of the understanding that coloured vinyl sounding inferior was a myth.

Picture discs however are shit because they're two very, very thin pieces of clear vinyl with some cardboard in between.

[DrunkCountry]

Could you get coloured shellac?

http://www.obsoletemedia.org/coloured-vinyl-record/

Coloured shellac phonograph records date back to the 1910s, on labels such as Vocalion, but coloured vinyl records began in 1949 with the launch of the 7-inch 45 rpm record by RCA Victor.

At the time I worked for a PVC window company

It wasn't Staybrite, was it?

[momatt]

the art of disc mastering

This seems to be by far the most important thing about making a good sounding record (or CD/mp3).
A good mp3 can be way more pleasing than an average vinyl record.

So if I did hear a shit coloured record I'd probably instinctively blame the mastering.

I bought a lovely-looking Telefon Tel Aviv reissue recently, pressed at 45rpm and meant to be a high-grade pressing.
Not listened to it yet though, but this might dis/prove the theory.

[Serge]

Any vinyl that isn't black can fuck right off. Nothing annoys me more than buying a record, getting it home and finding it's on pale blue or muddy red vinyl. (I say nothing, etc.) It does sound worse, too - the worst case in my own collection being Aphex Twin's 'Selected Ambient Works II' on diarrhoea brown vinyl - crackles like fuck. I couldn't enjoy that album until I bought it on CD. Black vinyl rules.

[momatt]

Racist.
I love vinyl in all it's different shapes and colours.

[Cuntbeaks]

Where do we stand on zoetrope vinyl?

They are very pretty, but you need a decent, controllable strobe to get the effect. I picked this one up, the music isnt for me, but the effect it produces is pretty eye popping.

https://vimeo.com/111751438

I have an old scientific strobe, with a big old dial on the back that allows me to control the strobing very accurately. It meant i could control the animation very effectively. Then the acid kicked in and i didn't know what the fuck was happening.

[BlodwynPig]

That's nice

[buzby]

Here's what a pressing plant has to say about the sonic properties of various colours (they even list them in a nice league table of sound quality)
http://www.gottagrooverecords.com/vinyl-colors/
According to their experience, it's all down to changes in the melting point and flow characteristics of the different formulations.

[jobotic]

My favourite is my Experimental Audio Research clear vinyl with sparkly confetti in it. Don't think it sounded that good but better than the EAR 10" black vinyl witch was bloody awful quality.

[DrunkCountry]

Here's what a pressing plant has to say about the sonic properties of various colours (they even list them in a nice league table of sound quality)
http://www.gottagrooverecords.com/vinyl-colors/
According to their experience, it's all down to changes in the melting point and flow characteristics of the different formulations.

Brill, ta.

[holyzombiejesus]

My favourite is my Experimental Audio Research clear vinyl with sparkly confetti in it. Don't think it sounded that good but better than the EAR 10" black vinyl witch was bloody awful quality.

I had a glittery Stereolab LP and the pressing was the 2nd worst I've ever seen. You could actually feel the bits of glitter on the record. (The worst was a gold vinyl Stereolab record that was actually lumpy, looked like it had been made out of mud and sand.)

[Jockice]

Do they still make them then? I haven't touched vinyl for many a year. It was great when I first started buying singles in the late 70s.  My first was Cool For Cats by Squeeze on pink vinyl. And I had about half a dozen Dickies singles in different colours.

[buzby]

Do they still make them then? I haven't touched vinyl for many a year. It was great when I first started buying singles in the late 70s.  My first was Cool For Cats by Squeeze on pink vinyl. And I had about half a dozen Dickies singles in different colours.

Aye - the pressing plant link I posted above says they can do any colour you want (even the crap-sounding glow in the dark and glitter discs).

When I started buying records (after getting my first saturday job in a supermarket) I used to frequent a couple of second-hand record shops. One had the glow-in-the-dark 12" of Kraftwerk's Neon Lights up on the wall for £12. I was already a fan on Kraftwerk (and it was listed in Record collector's Rare Record Guide, just behind Ralf & Florian with the poster sleeve) so I decided to save up for a couple of weeks to get it. Once I'd got it, I sat on the bus on the way home admiring it, put it on my Pioneer midi system (£350 at £12 a week from my mum's Grattan catalogue) as soon as i got in and it sounded awful - really tinny and crackly compared to the album. I've never bought coloured vinyl since

The one thing it was good for was leaving half in the sleeve while it absorbed light, so you could play a half-glowing record when you turned the light off.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I think colouring used to be a bigger problem than it is now. I'm not really arsed.

My yellow glittery coloured copy of Stereolab's Emporer Tomato Ketchup sounds fucking great, so there's that.

[Dr Syntax Head]

I don't have a great amount of vinyl but every Brian Jonestown Massacre album I have is coloured. And I love it.

[Captain Poodle Basher]

Do they still make them then? I haven't touched vinyl for many a year. It was great when I first started buying singles in the late 70s.  My first was Cool For Cats by Squeeze on pink vinyl. And I had about half a dozen Dickies singles in different colours.

I had The Dickies first album in bright yellow vinyl. The worst one was an album by The Hoodoo Gurus in a hideous greenish brown with a pink 'splatter' effect. I had a few Punk singles as well in dayglo colours but I can't recall who by.

[SteveDave]

<tag> Vinyls <tags>

[Dr Rock]

I had Phantasmagoria by The Damned on white vinyl (in fact it's one of the few vinyls I still have after basically ridding myself of 90% of the stuff I'd collected over the years when owning that much stuff became unenjoyable rather than good), and a fair few of their singles on red and other colours. They always seemed to sound the same. Picture discs were known to be inferior, and were from experience.

I think that Damned album was my second coloured vinyl as I previously had something by The Adventures on silver vinyl. I did think it looked cool, and still like coloured vinyl, if it's a nice colour. Picture discs, nah.

[Sebastian Cobb]

<tag> Vinyls <tags>

‎(ﾉಥ益ಥ）ﾉ ┻━┻ ...

[ASFTSN]

Fuck coloured vinyl and limited editions in different colours.  It just helps posers piss all over the format even further and buy up multiples for flogging and price gouging, rather than buying to listen.

It's a mildly entertaining novelty at absolute best.  Keep it black, keep it on the turntable.

[Better Midlands]

Keep it black, keep it on the turntable.

Once you tried black, you'll never go shellac.

[Brundle-Fly]

I love clear vinyl. I have a few albums in that.