Category: Presto

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Mike Dixon “Keeps Craft of Cutting Records Alive”

We Lathe Trolls are always proud when one of our own gets some much-deserved media attention. Here’s an awesome article and video about Mike Dixon, often known around here as “piaptk” (“People In A Position to Know”). The video spotlights his contagious exuberance, his passionate supercool-geekitude about record-making, and his beautiful and unusual individually cut records. It shows off his ridiculously extensive collection of Presto 6Ns, each with an attractive new carrying cabinet. And, it contains an unusually succinct and understandable explanation of just how record cutting works.

(We will therefore forgive the fact that the article link uses the horrendous and incorrect term “vinyls.”)

This month Mike is cutting records in Paris with Kris Dorr, for Converse. I am hoping they will post some blog items of their own, but in the meantime, do read this.

https://www.azpm.org/s/18568-tucson-artist-keeps-craft-of-making-vinyls-alive

https://media.azpm.org/master/video/2014/4/17/hrhd/041714_mike_dixon_lathe_cuts.mp4

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Tragwag’s Presto 6Ns

I visited AudioGeography’s Tyler Bisson in Bethel, Connecticut, USA, and we compared his two 1940s-era Presto 6Ns record cutters, which are separated by 2420 serial numbers.

They are not the same. So we geeked out on the differences.

Our man Kris Dorr (aka Kris D) of Washington state is one of our Presto 6N experts. He wrote me after I posted the video and expressed that he wished he could overdub a response track. I wish he would, too! Apparently we got some historical stuff right, but a few of our hunches are wrong here. As with many on this forum, we are often shooting in the dark, doing our best to recapture knowledge which is on the verge of getting lost. The nice thing about Presto 6Ns is that they can work great even if you don’t use the equipment quite in the way it was originally intended. For example, several on the forum (including Tyler and Mike Dixon/piaptk) use them to emboss, which works great even if it isn’t their original purpose.

The best introduction to the history of Presto record cutters is on Alan Graves’ terrific site:

http://www.televar.com/grshome/Presto2.html

This video debuted in this chat threat, a few months ago:
https://www.lathetrolls.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4671&p=28580

Tyler’s site: http://www.audiogeography.com/

Here’s Tyler doing his thing at Record Store Day, 2014:

http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/37/17/dtg-bb-record-burning-2014-04-25-bk_37_17.html