So we often get asked how does the music actually get into a record, and the answer is via a stamper.
This is a stamper. It's a nickel plate. We have one per side, and this contains all the information within the grooves for the records. This is made through an electroplating process.
Basically we get a lacquer cut for each side of the record. We then get those to our stamper manufacturer who has stampered this in the UK. They make, we think, the best stampers in the world. And these go into an electroplating bath. Well this is the lacquer does, goes into the electroplating baths with nickelsol made solution and nickel pellet, and electric currents pass through and this gets grown over the course of a few hours. So they're incredibly information heavy. It's quite a technical process, but at the same time it feels a lot like witchcraft.
We have to look after them, we use gloves. We clean them in a very particular way, special optical wipes, we use pure acetone. We blow them down with dried, compressed air, and we make sure that they're clean and dust free before they go into the press, because otherwise we can have problems through the pressing. It's a critical part. We're really glad we've got a great supplier like stamper discs, and we're really glad that that quality comes through into our records.
