talking 60's & 70's here: what's the thinking about just how many acetates would be made per individual recording. is it hit-and-miss i.e. make 5 for quality purposes, or is it make 20 and send them out to radio stations see what happens?

does anyone know ( have a count of) the most acetates per individual recording?

Many say that about 5 or 6 acetate copies were made for most recordings .... BUT I'd guess it wasn't as simple as that. I'd say bigger record companies might make more as they'd have A&R teams based in various cities (New York, Chicago, LA) and would want input on a proposed release from the different teams. On the other hand, a poorly financed little indie label (or a independent producer / artist manager) might only have had the funds to order a couple of copies.

You're right though, some acetates were made for US radio station use, to gauge the audience reaction to a proposed new release -- no idea if they'd be the ones first supplied to the labels A&R guys or if extra would be ordered to send to the radio jocks.

THEN OF COURSE, there were the actetates made for music publishers -- these being sent out to artist's managers or label A&R guys with a view to them getting one of their acts to record the song.

Edited Tuesday at 11:152 days by Roburt

Here's a thing also...

are Acetates run off all at once?

Or could you produce Acetates ( presumably from stampers, mothers, blah, blah blah) at any time after the initial 'run'. So in effect could you run a 60's Acetate ( from the stampers, etc) in 1990 for more Acetates?

Edited Tuesday at 19:361 day by Kenb

20 minutes ago, Kenb said:

Here's a thing also...

are Acetates run off all at once?

Or could you produce Acetates ( presumably from stampers, mothers, blah, blah blah) at any time after the initial 'run'. So in effect could you run a 60's Acetate ( from the stampers, etc) in 1990 for more Acetates?

Acetates are literally 'cut' individually on a lathe basically , no multiple copies from stampers , exactly the opposite in fact as the stampers are made from the acetates.

Depends on how many someone asked for at the time in the cutting room, there’s no pattern to it. Quite often the only one is the one used to make the metal stampers. The stampers are the inverse of the acetate, you can’t play a stamper.

Give the cutting engineer a tape, ask them to master the output and cut an acetate. If someone decides they don’t like the recording enough they might not release it at all.

Edited Tuesday at 20:481 day by Sutty

11 hours ago, Woodbutcher said:

Acetates are literally 'cut' individually on a lathe basically , no multiple copies from stampers , exactly the opposite in fact as the stampers are made from the acetates.

thanks for that.

so i guess if you want 10 acetates you cut 10 acetates individually.

Edited yesterday at 07:561 day by Kenb

22 hours ago, Roburt said:

(1) Many say that about 5 or 6 acetate copies were made for most recordings .... BUT I'd guess it wasn't as simple as that.

(2) I'd say bigger record companies might make more as they'd have A&R teams based in various cities (New York, Chicago, LA) and would want input on a proposed release from the different teams. On the other hand, a poorly financed little indie label (or a independent producer / artist manager) might only have had the funds to order a couple of copies.

You're right though, (3)some acetates were made for US radio station use, to gauge the audience reaction to a proposed new release -- no idea if they'd be the ones first supplied to the labels A&R guys or if extra would be ordered to send to the radio jocks.

THEN OF COURSE, (4) there were the acetates made for music publishers -- these being sent out to artist's managers or label A&R guys with a view to them getting one of their acts to record the song.

(1)&(2) It wasn't as simple as that. It depended upon the size and organisation style of the record company.

I can speak to Motown's, because I had intimate knowledge of their historical stock, and their production process. I'd say that Motown averaged probably closer to 10, as 5 or 6 were made for Quality Control meetings alone; and then there were also the Jobete Music "proof of ownership" acetates, and artist demos. There were usually also producer acetates made of the different takes before the final mix and version was chosen, and the different LP tracks also had acetates made. Sometimes there were acetates made of individual instrumental parts. But Motown was more fastidious about their instrumental production. Then, of course, (4) there were the acetates made for the music publishers, (3) and possibly some made for radio DJs. That would usually occur IF the company hadn't already made vinyl DJ Copy press runs. Usually these would be small companies with little handy cash. So that would likely have been done by Motown only during their first few years.

I don't know enough about other record companies' production process during the 60s. Motown, during the '70s made less than they did in the '60s, and by the time we were operating Airwave during the first half of The '80s, the whole industry's operations were different enough, using even less of them. But it always depended upon the size of the company and the complexity of their production and marketing process.

Edited yesterday at 09:521 day by Robbk

There are some interesting articles on line relating to the Motown studios and acetates .Mike McLean was an engineer at Motown and worked there from 61 to 72 .I remember him penning an article where he explained about Motown trying to rush out “ It’s The Same Old Song “ in an effort to beat Columbia who were going to release an old Four Tops record to cash in on the success of “ I Can’t Help Myself “ .I think he said that the rhythm of “ Same Old Song “ was basically “ I Can’t Help Myself “ in reverse .Anyway ,several different acetates were cut ( slightly different versions ) and then rushed to the local radio stations for advance airplay .Here is one such article ….

Recording Magazine

Audio Archaeology: Unearthing the Secrets of Motown Studio

I’ve found the article about the Four Tops record ,it’s in the “ Complete Motown Singles 1965 “ 300 acetates were run off that particular night …wow

14 minutes ago, Eddie Hubbard said:

I’ve found the article about the Four Tops record ,it’s in the “ Complete Motown Singles 1965 “ 300 acetates were run off that particular night …wow

wow indeed. thanks for that.

2 hours ago, Eddie Hubbard said:

I’ve found the article about the Four Tops record ,it’s in the “ Complete Motown Singles 1965 “ 300 acetates were run off that particular night …wow

WOW! Who'd have even bet the over on 20, let alone 300!!??? If they needed all to be the same take and mix, they could have dashed across the border to Windsor to have 300 vinyl DJ copies made. But they wanted to test the DJs on several different versions, so they had to have them cut one-at-a-time. The 2 Columbia cuts were very pedestrian, and the record charted weakly. So, Motown probably didn't need to rush their marketing of different versions of "The Same Old Song". They could have just decided on the best version in-house, and pressed up the store stocker run and shipped them to their distributors, as well as having lots of their staff taking off a day and driving them to nearby cities in the rest of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Missouri.

Edited 16 hours ago16 hr by Robbk