Former poster Earwicker here.
Don't have much to add but thought I'd log back on just to express my condolences to all those who knew Steve.
Aside from all the music I once spent far too much of my time on this board and it meant an awful lot to me. He definitely seemed like one of the good guys to me.
I've spent a few days occasionally dipping back in to read this thread and it's been both sad and beautiful doing so.

Been nice to see some old names pop up too.

The last guitar part that Steve plays on the new album is just one of the most trippy and amazing things I've ever heard. Towards the end of the last track on first listen, I was just willing it to continue, very sad. Heartbreaking to lose this man, and his guitar sound. To think I'll never see them live again or see his input anywhere. He was just walking sense.

pure l wrote: Sat May 18, 2024 4:36 pm
Really diggin To All Trains too.

I don't say this lightly. I think it might be their most focused record overall. I think it's absolutely stellar. When I was with him in November he was sort of talking about how whatever they were doing with the vinyl was "a new experimental process" and they had recently had to reject test presses but he wasn't in a hurry, just wanted it to be right. I still want to know what is different about the pressing of this vinyl. I will add it onto "thing I wish I would have asked"

He talks about that in the Vish interview. Basically, they went with a more sustainable vinyl production facility that uses recycled plastic and has less waste product. I think it was a fairly new place, and Bob had to fly out there to cut the record on the spot to work out kinks in the process. Up until the end they were looking for better ways to get things done

penningtron wrote: He talks about that in the Vish interview. Basically, they went with a more sustainable vinyl production facility that uses recycled plastic and has less waste product. I think it was a fairly new place, and Bob had to fly out there to cut the record on the spot to work out kinks in the process. Up until the end they were looking for better ways to get things done

https://greenvinylrecords.com/index.php/home-en-us/

The records are made out of PET, which is what they make plastic Coke bottles out of and shit like that.

Recycled material I believe but don't quote me on that.

They're injection-molded rather than pressed from what I understand, so the record has no lip.

I listened to the test pressings of the Big Black remasters for Steve b/c his turntable was hosed. I'm pretty picky, and they were all one-and-done.

Granted, it's Big Black, so you're not going to hear minor surface noise during the track. But the thing I noticed the most was a marked paucity of actual pops. You might have the occasionally very slight "sssh" sound, but otherwise very very clean.

The test pressings of the new Shellac record were similarly very clean, much more space in the recording, no pops. Some other slight artifacts that took a while to resolve but eventually disappeared--honestly, I probably would've just lived with them the way they were initially and been fine with it, and as noted I'm picky. The company was super meticulous about tracking stuff down.

Also you can't press the labels onto the records (since they're molded, not pressed), and Steve didn't want to use their usual solution (stickers), so there was a crazy amount of time spent on how to get around that. Eventually the Green Vinyl people figured out how to print the labels directly on the records, which is a) nutty and b) very cool.

I believe that is all correct information.

Thanks for the info on the pressing, Tim. Super cool. The video on that page is really neat and it looks like the molds are repurposed from laser discs.

My dad worked in injection molding at the dawn of CDs (it was the same company who did the clear cassette tapes) and I remember even back then there could be incredible detail with injection molding (for all those digital divots) so it seems like an LP would be good for that process as well.

seems strange to post this, but knowing Steve, he would have been frothing to share the info about how these records were made. i quickly found these in our texts:

just realized the video doesn’t play in the screenshot. my mind is elsewhere.

here is the video:

This is so cool

^ Wow, I would LOVE to see that in person!! Thanks for sharing.