Put To Wax
How the record was made, book & music recommendations
It brings me great joy to tell you that my music has finally been put to wax! You can now purchase a beautiful limited edition 7” cherry red transparent vinyl with our new single ‘Letters to a Lost Poet’ on it. There’s only 10 left in the whole wide world so don’t delay…
The first time you get to witness your music in physical form is a big milestone for any musician. We spend so much time in the intangible abyss of wiggly air and streaming services that being able to hold your creation in your hands is satisfyingly grounding. Akin to making a meal that exactly resemblers the picture in the recipe book, it’s as if it has just walked right out of the second dimension and into the third.
The story of how these beautiful, red discs of joy came to be goes back at least as far as 1946. Ben from Raretone Mastering who mastered this track and my last EP happens to own the world's only surviving vintage Presto 28N Cutting Latheby machine which can cut audio directly onto vinyl in real time. They were used primarily in the 1930s and 40s to record live radio broadcasts and Ben’s machine was one of a few used to record the Nuremberg trials in 1946!
These machines pre-dates the master-produced vinyl pressing technology that we know today and were used throughout the 50s and 60s to create the ‘master lacquer discs’ for metal stampers at pressing plants. To try and explain it in laymans terms (layman-to-layman I hasten to add) you begin with a blank polycarbonate disc and place it in on the lathe machine which looks like kind of like a giant record player from a retro submarine. The audio signal then passes through tiny speakers causing the stylus to vibrate and etch the groove into the disc surface.
This is a mechanical process and must be done live meaning that Ben had to listen to our song 30 times to make these 30 records (what a hero). This is where the term ‘put to wax’ comes from as the earliest direct-to-disc lathe cut records were carved live into wax cylinders during a radio broadcast or live band performance in the studio. When we visited Ben’s studio in Leeds to pick up our records, he showed us some very early recordings that were actually cut to paper discs. Notes from the past!
A neither a historian or an engineer, I fear I have not conveyed just how impressive this machinery is or what a joy it was to witness it in action, so here’s a little documentary of our morning at Ben’s studio. As you can hear we were well and truly wowed.
As a little independent artist with a small (but growing!) fanbase it is rarely financially viable to get your music cut to vinyl due to minimum orders of atleast 100 records. But thanks to Ben bringing this old machine back to life, you can finally hold my music (and a little piece of history!) in your hands and play it in all it’s crackly vinyl warmth.
I am very proud of these vinyls, which come with a gorgeous print of the artwork (taken at Sam Hobbs studio in Ilkley where we have made so much music of the years) and the lyrics, designed by our wonderful friend (and old housemate!) Jonathan Lodder. Big thanks as always to co-writer, producer and housemate Liam DeTar who worked very hard to bring these to life and lovingly hand-numbered them all on our kitchen table.
If you’d like to own this little piece of audio recording and Rosie Miles history, hit the button below to buy yours now! A true labour of love.
This year I’m on a quest to try and support myself more through my music and writing in the hopes that I can dedicate more time to both. In light of this, I have switched on a paid subscription to this blog which you can sign up to below if you would like to, and are able to, support me on the slightly mad mission to being a full-time artist. Thank you for being here.
Meet you on the stage
11th June - London @ Next Door Records 2 (supporting Baba Ganoush)
Meet you in the bookshop
A man without a country - Kurt Vonnegut
I discovered this book up a few months ago in the library, on a mission to cut down on book spending but it was so good I just had to buy my own copy - big fail or big success? A memoir from one of my favourite writers since I was at school who wrote the famous anti-war and science fiction Slaughterhouse-5 and Cat’s Cradle. Written in a response to George Bush’s war mongering in the early 2000s, it’s full of hilarious, moving and brutally true musings on life, writing and American politics. I could have underlined the whole thing honestly. And it feels particularly apt right now.
The Vinyl edition blog is a classic - we love our little red disc xxx