Carting up Music

The song "Dancing In The Moonlight" by King Harvest was the on radio today and it reminded me how difficult it was to find a clean vinyl copy of that song. If there was noise you heard it over the keyboard intro. Other songs that come to mind:

"Rock and Roll Lulabye" B.J. Thomas
"Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" Elton John


Any others?

The B.J. Thomas song, as pressed by Monarch Record Manufacturing in Los Angeles, was great - clean - as all of Monarch's product was. Monarch's 45's were styrene (which does have some downsides like cue-burning because of the physical properties of polystyrene) but I found their quality control excellent. I'm in the Midwest which did not normally receive product from Monarch. B.J.'s label, Scepter Records, utilized several plants across the U.S. and the couple here in the Midwest had quality issues all the time. Recordings with quiet passages could be problematic. As a collector, if I intended on purchasing a certain record and knew that the independent label (A&M, Atlantic, Elektra, Scepter, among others) utilized the services of Monarch, I would seek out record stores on the West Coast and order from them to be assured of getting a clean copy. The Monarch copies were easy to spot in several ways once you knew what to look for.

Some of those styrene discs would burn the very first time you tried to cue them. Also, I noticed, depending upon how the master was cut, you could also have a problem with those discs "skipping". I owned a few of those 45's that I could barely get to play. Usually, I'd go buy another copy...and it might have solved the problem.

Yes, cue burn could be a problem. A conical shaped stylus would be the way to go - ellipticals seemed to 'take their toll' on styrene discs immediately. Yes, the styrene is 'brittle' in comparison to vinyl. Very unforgiving. The physical characteristics of vinyl vs. styrene are quite different. Plus, I had heard that in the case of 45s, many record pressers that would use vinyl (compression mold single) would use 'recycled' vinyl (cheaper) and the noise level with that material would be greater (and maybe unacceptable in the case of the original author on this thread and my experience as well). Don't know that as fact but that would be one way to get some 'cost' out of the process. Of course, the quality of raw material directly factors into the final product. My experience with Monarch was that (by and large) the material and processes they used for their 45s resulted in quiet 'mass produced' discs. That was what he was lamenting - noisy discs. My response was to that.

Are you saying you had tracking issues with discs manufactured by Monarch?? How did you determine that they were manufactured by Monarch?? Again, any manufacturing process has multiple possibilities for defects. Monarch would not be immune. I do recall a tracking issue (with a good playback system - cartridge, tone arm, proper calibration, etc.) on "Rock Me" by Steppenwolf. That was most likely a mastering issue.

Regards!

I would have no idea if they were pressed by Monarch. But, just as general thoughts: I remember the styrene discs burned much quicker and, seemed to me that, at times, if they weren't mastered just right, the skipping issue could occur.