Early Jamaican record pressing equipment and coconut dishwashing liquid

[Gorney]

From the Australian Graeme Goodall, chief engineer at Federal Records, Jamaica's first proper studio and record pressing plant, where Marley cut his first tune:

"While I was around, Federal was exclusively Finebilt. It was marketed by a co. out of Nashville. When George Benson (not the guitarist) opened his pressing plant, after WIRL, I believe that he put in SMT's (Southern Machine Tools) as the Finebilts were primitive, to say the least. The clockwork timers they used were always breaking down & when they did work were very inaccurate. But the pressmen were so good they would bypass the timers and "wing it'. But there were other secrets. The cycle was steam in when the press was open...close press and the steam shuts off as the process of pressing the vinyl generated internal heat, cold water in until the vinyl solidified then press open, remove the (still very hot) disc and place it on the edge trimmer. Remember this is the tropics and the plants had massive cooling towers with a huge "well" to try to keep the water, which was re-circulated, at a low temperature. And the dies were subject to build up of lime deposits in the capilliaries due to the hard water. But the pressmen, who were married to their own particular press, could tell immediately if things weren't copasetic.

I seem to recall that one company imported a Fabel, out of Belgium, that was used extensively in Europe. Byron Lee asked me to check them out....my recommendation 'no way". They were far too tempremental for the arduous conditions of Jamaica. Did you know that we had to keep the silver nitrate and stannhous chloride, used to spray the acetate masters prparatory to placing in the nickel plating bath to make the stampers, in a refridgerator with the feed tubes coming out through holes that I drilled in the side? On that subject, the "stampers" at Tuff Gong, and any other stamper for that matter, is a negative, and can only be useful if a disc is pressed from them. (or alternatively re-plated to make a "mother"). One of my strokes of genius was realising that to clean a master, or mother, you should spin the turn-table counter/anti-clockwise as the groove would then travel from the inside to the edge....common sense, but a major difference.

At one time we ran out of the pure wood soap used to clean the masters..I think the Ja. Govt put a ban on importing soap as Colgate Palmolive had opened a soap factory on Foreshore Road. Nothing daunted, I grabbed about a dozen L.P's from the factory, took a sample of the wood soap and located the chief chemist at CP, and asked him to analyze it and see if he had something similar. Guess what....they used a coconut based oil (yeah, they didn't have many coconuts in Ja.) in their dish washing liquid before they added the perfume and coloring. I said "give me a lickle taste and I'll lay some more L.P's 'pon you". He said "Seen, mon" called me in a couple of days, said " carry come wid the L.P's mon". When I got there he had a 5 gallon drum full of it. Poppa Kous eyes nearly popped out of his head. But I tell you, we had some mighty clean masters, and the dishes at the Goodall residence were incredibly clean also. - Mr Goody

[neve1073]

mp3s are sooo much easier

[Blast9]

Better quality too --- no crackling

[Jules]

Great story!



when Bob Marley & the Wailers recorded at London's, Basing St Studios, they were allegedly concerned with how the hard London water would effect their dreadlocks when they washed them. So Chris Blackwell was said to have imported several oil drums full of water right from Jamaica for them and delivered them to the studio. I think I got that from a Phil Brown interview in Tape Op..

[chetatkinsdiet]

I believe that article stated that there were a few other drums with some other things from the island as well......

[soupking]

There's no article stating anything about the console they were using was there?

[Gorney]

In the very early days it was an Altec Lansing mixer of some sort, fairly primitive; on one of my interview microcassettes I think he goes into a little more detail about it.
I think they had like one microphone at that time (late 50s) - at least that's how Alton Ellis remembers recording "Muriel."

[soupking]

Cool, thanks Gorney. I've been trying to get dirt on Leslie Kong for a while now.

[Gorney]

Graeme was very close with Leslie.

[seaneldon]

best thread title in a long time. you didn't even have to write anything in the body. it was already a 10.

[mossboss]

Originally Posted by Gorney

From the Australian Graeme Goodall, chief engineer at Federal Records, Jamaica's first proper studio and record pressing plant, where Marley cut his first tune:

"While I was around, Federal was exclusively Finebilt. It was marketed by a co. out of Nashville. When George Benson (not the guitarist) opened his pressing plant, after WIRL, I believe that he put in SMT's (Southern Machine Tools) as the Finebilts were primitive, to say the least. The clockwork timers they used were always breaking down & when they did work were very inaccurate. But the pressmen were so good they would bypass the timers and "wing it'. But there were other secrets. The cycle was steam in when the press was open...close press and the steam shuts off as the process of pressing the vinyl generated internal heat, cold water in until the vinyl solidified then press open, remove the (still very hot) disc and place it on the edge trimmer. Remember this is the tropics and the plants had massive cooling towers with a huge "well" to try to keep the water, which was re-circulated, at a low temperature. And the dies were subject to build up of lime deposits in the capilliaries due to the hard water. But the pressmen, who were married to their own particular press, could tell immediately if things weren't copasetic.

I seem to recall that one company imported a Fabel, out of Belgium, that was used extensively in Europe. Byron Lee asked me to check them out....my recommendation 'no way". They were far too tempremental for the arduous conditions of Jamaica. Did you know that we had to keep the silver nitrate and stannhous chloride, used to spray the acetate masters prparatory to placing in the nickel plating bath to make the stampers, in a refridgerator with the feed tubes coming out through holes that I drilled in the side? On that subject, the "stampers" at Tuff Gong, and any other stamper for that matter, is a negative, and can only be useful if a disc is pressed from them. (or alternatively re-plated to make a "mother"). One of my strokes of genius was realising that to clean a master, or mother, you should spin the turn-table counter/anti-clockwise as the groove would then travel from the inside to the edge....common sense, but a major difference.

At one time we ran out of the pure wood soap used to clean the masters..I think the Ja. Govt put a ban on importing soap as Colgate Palmolive had opened a soap factory on Foreshore Road. Nothing daunted, I grabbed about a dozen L.P's from the factory, took a sample of the wood soap and located the chief chemist at CP, and asked him to analyze it and see if he had something similar. Guess what....they used a coconut based oil (yeah, they didn't have many coconuts in Ja.) in their dish washing liquid before they added the perfume and coloring. I said "give me a lickle taste and I'll lay some more L.P's 'pon you". He said "Seen, mon" called me in a couple of days, said " carry come wid the L.P's mon". When I got there he had a 5 gallon drum full of it. Poppa Kous eyes nearly popped out of his head. But I tell you, we had some mighty clean masters, and the dishes at the Goodall residence were incredibly clean also. - Mr Goody

Hi there
This is quite fascinating stuff Is Mr Goody resident in Australia? I don't quite get it! If so would you be kind enough to PM me
We are most likely the last fully equipped outfit who still press vinyl down under located in Melbourne
A few tips like that directly from Mr Goody over a few ales would be fantastic
We do not have difficulties in getting the masters perfectly cleaned though we have tried a huge variety of "Soaps" to get a good one
No doubt I would be searching this one out It may be better?
And we do spin them backwards with quite good results
(Common Sense!!!!) Mr Goody said
Our Alphas are getting on in years now but they perform great The original timers and telephone exchange relays used in the control pane are extremely reliable but man when they give up they are a nightmare to fix Maintenance with no spares is certainly a big issue Just about everything has to be custom made one off
We walk into the Toolmakers shop we give him a worn out part and we tell him "Imagine this how it was when it was made new 30 years ago and make me two or three"
The guy runs away and hides behind some piece of gear in his workshop No kidding We ultimately get it made and we do keep these babies running So people can spin them

Cheers
Chris

Here it smells of freshly cooked Vinyl

[mossboss]

Originally Posted by Gorney

From the Australian Graeme Goodall, chief engineer at Federal Records, Jamaica's first proper studio and record pressing plant, where Marley cut his first tune:

"While I was around, Federal was exclusively Finebilt. It was marketed by a co. out of Nashville. When George Benson (not the guitarist) opened his pressing plant, after WIRL, I believe that he put in SMT's (Southern Machine Tools) as the Finebilts were primitive, to say the least. The clockwork timers they used were always breaking down & when they did work were very inaccurate. But the pressmen were so good they would bypass the timers and "wing it'. But there were other secrets. The cycle was steam in when the press was open...close press and the steam shuts off as the process of pressing the vinyl generated internal heat, cold water in until the vinyl solidified then press open, remove the (still very hot) disc and place it on the edge trimmer. Remember this is the tropics and the plants had massive cooling towers with a huge "well" to try to keep the water, which was re-circulated, at a low temperature. And the dies were subject to build up of lime deposits in the capilliaries due to the hard water. But the pressmen, who were married to their own particular press, could tell immediately if things weren't copasetic.

I seem to recall that one company imported a Fabel, out of Belgium, that was used extensively in Europe. Byron Lee asked me to check them out....my recommendation 'no way". They were far too tempremental for the arduous conditions of Jamaica. Did you know that we had to keep the silver nitrate and stannhous chloride, used to spray the acetate masters prparatory to placing in the nickel plating bath to make the stampers, in a refridgerator with the feed tubes coming out through holes that I drilled in the side? On that subject, the "stampers" at Tuff Gong, and any other stamper for that matter, is a negative, and can only be useful if a disc is pressed from them. (or alternatively re-plated to make a "mother"). One of my strokes of genius was realising that to clean a master, or mother, you should spin the turn-table counter/anti-clockwise as the groove would then travel from the inside to the edge....common sense, but a major difference.

At one time we ran out of the pure wood soap used to clean the masters..I think the Ja. Govt put a ban on importing soap as Colgate Palmolive had opened a soap factory on Foreshore Road. Nothing daunted, I grabbed about a dozen L.P's from the factory, took a sample of the wood soap and located the chief chemist at CP, and asked him to analyze it and see if he had something similar. Guess what....they used a coconut based oil (yeah, they didn't have many coconuts in Ja.) in their dish washing liquid before they added the perfume and coloring. I said "give me a lickle taste and I'll lay some more L.P's 'pon you". He said "Seen, mon" called me in a couple of days, said " carry come wid the L.P's mon". When I got there he had a 5 gallon drum full of it. Poppa Kous eyes nearly popped out of his head. But I tell you, we had some mighty clean masters, and the dishes at the Goodall residence were incredibly clean also. - Mr Goody

Hi there
This is quite fascinating stuff Is Mr Goody resident in Australia? I don't quite get it! If so would you be kind enough to PM me
We are most likely the last fully equipped outfit who still press vinyl down under located in Melbourne
A few tips like that directly from Mr Goody over a few ales would be fantastic
We do not have difficulties in getting the masters perfectly cleaned though we have tried a huge variety of "Soaps" to get a good one
No doubt I would be searching this one out It may be better?
And we do spin them backwards with quite good results
(Common Sense!!!!) Mr Goody said
Our Alphas are getting on in years now but they perform great The original timers and telephone exchange relays used in the control pane are extremely reliable but man when they give up they are a nightmare to fix Maintenance with no spares is certainly a big issue Just about everything has to be custom made one off
We walk into the Toolmakers shop we give him a worn out part and we tell him "Imagine this how it was when it was made new 30 years ago and make me two or three"
The guy runs away and hides behind some piece of gear in his workshop No kidding We ultimately get it made and we do keep these babies running So people can spin them

Cheers
Chris

Here it smells of freshly cooked Vinyl

[Johnny Dance]

Sorry to rehash a very, very old post but I was looking through info on old ska etc...

I thought I would chime in here, as I know a little bit (Graeme is my Dad's Cousin, and we are in touch from time to time), and he's a real influence on how I think about music etc..

Graeme now lives in the US (near Atlanta) and is still active in the industry, and still has pretty much golden ears.

I believe the the one Mic he was using was a U47... he told me once he slept with it under his pillow as it was the only one on the island!

He also worked on the creation of the Sony C800G and was one of the original founders of Island records (and was engineer on some of really, really great tracks)

So I guess I am pretty proud to call him a relative!

Peace

JD

[walth]

interesting story