When pressing vinyl records, a stamp called a “father” is used which is an inverted copy of the original, with ridges instead of grooves. What would it sound like if you played it on a normal turntable?

Question

When pressing vinyl records, a stamp called a “father” is used which is an inverted copy of the original, with ridges instead of grooves. What would it sound like if you played it on a normal turntable?

In: Physics

Answer 1

It wouldn’t work. The needle would fall off the ridges into the space between, which isn’t shaped like a groove in the way a turntable expects. A snag in the wrong spot might even damage the needle.

You could make a specialized player for father stamps, using optical scanning or some similar technology. Such a device would be useful for quality control, so I wouldn’t be too surprised if the record companies had made some, though I have no way to confirm that. If they did, then someone could listen to the father stamp before using it to press discs, to ensure there were no defects that could be passed on to the batch.