Tokyo Dawn Records SimuLathe

The Cut version’s default view.

This clever new plug‑in can be used by vinyl cutting engineers to help get the best results from their tools and medium — or simply as a way to learn more about vinyl mastering.

I find it remarkable to be writing this, but vinyl sales have grown consistently over the last 15 years from their lowest point in history in 2006, and are currently at their highest levels since 1990! Vinyl sales have even surpassed CDs after a 35‑year reign, partly as casual music listeners have switched from CDs to streaming services and partly because keener music lovers are (re)embracing the physicality and involvement of playing vinyl discs. As a result artists, both famous and hobbyist, are releasing more of their music on vinyl, and sometimes exclusively on vinyl, and the demand for mastering houses able to cut vinyl masters is on the rise.

However, mastering for vinyl is a fiendishly complicated business, with a large number of interacting parameters that all have to be carefully juggled and optimised to squeeze the music onto the disc’s surface in the most sympathetic and reliably playable way. In the past, the mysterious black arts involved in skilful vinyl mastering took many years of apprenticeship and bitter experience to acquire, with many unusable lacquers and damaged cutter heads along the way. But Tokyo Dawn may have found a way of making that process somewhat easier for professional mastering engineers — while also allowing the curious amongst us to explore the weird and wacky world of vinyl mastering for ourselves, at least in a virtual sense, without having to install an eye‑wateringly expensive (and increasingly rare) mastering lathe and all the associated hardware.

Overview

TDR’s SimuLathe is a DAW plug‑in available for Mac OS 10.9 and above or Windows 7 and above (both for 64‑bit platforms only), and available in VST2, VST3, AAX and (for the Mac OS) AU plug‑in formats. In addition to the demo, there are two different versions, called Ref and Cut. The less expensive Ref version is intended primarily for educational and referencing purposes and provides a complete simulation of the entire disc mastering process, based on one of four representative lathe emulations, with all of the real‑world parameter options. It even goes as far as replicating how a cut disc sound will sound when replayed, using one of three carefully modelled pickup cartridges (complete with dust and damage artefacts!).

For anyone interested in finding out how their track(s) could sit (and sound) on a vinyl record — be it a single, EP or a full album — SimuLathe Ref affords the opportunity to explore a wide range of options and to make decisions in advance over settings for the classic elliptical filtering, recorded level on disc, groove excursion, widths and velocities, overall playing time, and much more besides. Incredibly, the virtual cut groove can also be explored in remarkable 3D detail through a virtual microscope, and any problematic or risky areas are automatically highlighted by the software.

A virtual microscope allows you to check the 3D cut groove in very fine detail!

The more expensive Cut version is aimed at professional mastering studios with one or more real vinyl cutting lathes. The SimuLathe software allows professionals to check and adjust the audio material, and assess the optimal cutter settings in advance of lowering a real cutter head onto the lacquer. The user interface looks much the same as the Ref edition at first glance, but it actually includes many more advanced features, including special limiter functions to control directly the groove excursion, width and velocity.

Audio filtering parameters are considerably more comprehensive than the Ref version, too, and there are calibration options to ensure specific real‑world disc lathes can be replicated precisely with the benefit that disc authoring can be fine‑tuned in the virtual world before cutting the lacquer, thereby avoiding any nasty surprises. Even the specific pitch computers used in popular hardware lathes are emulated precisely, including those employed on Neumann’s VMS66 and VMS80 lathes, amongst several others. As a result, disc surface space utilisation, groove excursion, groove widths and land areas, velocity hotspots, and audio quality can all be thoroughly analysed and optimised long before the cutter head is even warmed up!

...mastering for vinyl is a fiendishly complicated business, with a large number of interacting parameters that all have to be carefully juggled and optimised to squeeze the music onto the disc’s surface in the most sympathetic and reliably playable way.

Disc...