Based in Tucson, Arizona, Michael Dixon runs what seems like a hundred businesses centered around lathe cut records, from cutting records for bands, to selling lathes and parts, to a training camp for aspiring cutters. Most of what I knew about lathe cuts came from hearing about DJs having fragile, expensive lacquer dubplates made to scratch their own tracks onto recordings years ago – but the game has changed a lot, as I learned thanks to Michael’s encyclopedic knowledge of the subject. I recently acquired a four-record set that Michael’s collaborator, Zack Hansen at Precarian Cuts, made for Seattle’s Great Falls, and they are cool as hell!
How did this whole thing get started for you?
I have played in bands, and I've loved and collected records since I was a kid. I always wanted to release my own music on vinyl, but none of my bands were very good and we couldn’t sell 50, much less 1,000 copies. Pressing records was so expensive, even back then. In 2006 I went to a house show in Olympia and asked the band if they had any vinyl. They said they usually had lathe-cut LPs, but they were sold out. They told me about Peter King’s lathe cutting service in New Zealand [King Records Worldwide, see Tape Op bonus content], and said, "This guy will make you 20 copies, if you want." So, I started my record label [PIAPTK, People In A Position to Know], buying lathe cuts from Peter and releasing my own home recordings, as well as for my friends’ bands. Eventually I said, "Maybe I can do this myself." I started buying broken machines. I met a friend, Kris Dorr, who is more mechanical and taught me a lot – he’s been my business partner for Mobile Vinyl Recorders for almost 15 years now. He taught me a lot about how these work. I continued experimenting with the cutting side, and realized if I had two lathes, I could double my output. With four lathes, I could quadruple my output! As I bought these cutters, I had to maintain them and learn how they work.
What was your path to doing this full-time?
I moved to Olympia in 2004 and I was teaching high school. I wasn’t playing music anymore; I was more focused on my career. I was teaching business. Accounting, entrepreneurship, work-study program, and marketing. I was running a tiny label, and my creative outlet was making weird and unique packaging from upcycled trash. I ended up getting hired by The University of Washington’s Henry Art Gallery to run a live cutting booth for a traveling vinyl record themed art exhibition called “The Record,” and I got a little bit of press for the recording booth. Six months later, Converse called and said, “We want to set up a dubplate station at Coachella for this band called The XX. Will you come down and cut records?” So, I called in sick at work. Kris and I flew to Palm Springs, California, shipped down the lathe, and we cut dubplates at a VIP party for three or four days. Everybody there was like, "Oh, my god. I have to have this at my marketing event." That also became, "My record release," or, "My film premiere," or, "My wedding." Even though I was a marketing teacher, I had no idea about this “marketing activation” thing, where brands want cool things happening at their parties. Converse said, "We love this and want to take this all over the world in the next year. Here’s a list of all of our events. Can you do it?" I said, "Maybe." I loved my job. I loved teaching. I went to work the next day and the principal came in with the contract for the next year. I was told, “If you’re coming back, you need to sign it.” I went home to my wife at the time and said, “I have this potential opportunity, but it’s freelance. I’m going to lose my insurance. Money might be tight for a while.” She said, "As long as we can get out of the Northwest and find some sunshine, let’s do it." I quit my job, moved to Tucson where I had a bunch of friends and it was cheap to live, and I started doing more events and more short runs for bands. I was also ramping up my label, repairing more of the machines, and doing it full-time. That was 2012.
Can you talk about this as a businessperson, as well as a person who loves art?
Yeah, art and commerce. It is kind of a dirty combo! But if big corporations pay me lots of money to appear at their party, then I don’t have to charge tiny bands and musicians as much for records in order to make ends meet. Not only am I interested in the art and culture aspects of vinyl, but I love working on the gear. I love going out and educating people on how this stuff works. I love going out to libraries and teaching kids. I also love providing a service to bands who can’t press a thousand records. The diversification happened naturally. I just followed my obsessions, and, since there weren’t many people in this tiny niche, I became “the guy.” Until very recently, it was also a bit of a feast or famine thing. I was trying to find whatever was the most in-demand at the time. If the Mobile Vinyl Recorders events at festivals are not really happening, then I would focus on short runs for artists, or my record label, or the gear sales. I love having a million plates in the air and juggling. When I wake up every morning, I have no idea what I’m going to do.
What does your typical week end up looking like, if there is such a thing?
First thing every morning, I answer dozens of emails. And whatever I thought I was going to do, it’s probably off. I’ve got to put out this fire; this client we’re working with at South by Southwest suddenly needs something that I have to get in the mail today. Or this band is leaving on tour and wants something in four days. I might drop everything, go in and cut records, and have them done by lunch and in the mail. I’m also fortunate to have found some great people here in Tucson that can help me. Zack [Hansen] from Precarian Cuts and Phen Troncoso from Lock Grooves run their own cutting businesses in my studio and pick up slack from time to time. I’ve got a handyman who helps me around here. I’ve got my buddy, Kris Dorr, who will sometimes come down and help me restore machines if I have a bunch in the queue.
What’s the relationship between Lathe Cuts, Precarian Cuts, and Lock Grooves?
Zack and Phen worked for me when I first moved to Tucson. I started <lathecuts.com> as a service to cut for bands. But I got so busy with being on the road that it was hard for me to manage everybody here. Also, the technology was still very early days and lathe cuts didn’t track as well. They didn’t sound as good. None of the people that were working for me, and I had 12 people at one point, really understood the machines the way I did. It scaled up way too fast and imploded. I closed it down and told everyone who was already trained, “If you want, you can get your own clients, pay for your own mistakes, pay me a little bit of rent, and use my gear while I’m on the road.” It started as a co-op. For the most part now, Zack is doing his own thing. He doesn’t work for me unless I really need something, like if we’ve got to do 3,000 Justin Timberlake records in two weeks. Phen is quickly becoming our right-hand man for Mobile Vinyl Recorders. Right now, he’s out on a gig in Denver, and he’s running it himself. So, I can stay home a little more and focus on the machines, as well as installing machines around the world.
What is the setup there? How many machines are cutting simultaneously?
For the cutting services, we use four machines at a time. We’re not always running at full capacity, because maybe one sounds weird and needs work. But, for the most part, we’re cutting audio in real-time to four discs. We’ve found that four is the maximum manageable number, because you only have so many arms, and we try hard to spot check every disc.
What feeds the audio?
We use laptops or iPads. The signal chain goes into a mixer, then into an equalizer so that we can sweeten each one, then into an amplifier, and we finally add it to the cutter head. The cutter head basically just acts like a little speaker, but instead of having a paper cone that pushes the sound waves out, it focuses them down to the tip of the needle and scratches those grooves in real time as the cutter head moves to the center of the disc.
I don’t know a ton about cutting, but my understanding is that it’s very attended. Someone’s sitting there watching cuts with a microscope or loupe. Is it like that for you all?
We are definitely hovering over it while it’s happening. There are a million things that can go wrong. We monitor the light reflection of the groove, looking for over-cuts, bad groove depth, or broken stylus tips. Traditionally all of these machines cut on lacquers. But Apollo, the only place that made lacquers in the US, burned down. Now the only place that makes lacquers is in Japan, and they’re only for professional mastering and are in limited supply. If it wasn’t for plastic, these machines would be completely useless. But because Peter King figured out how to cut records onto polycarbonate, and then myself and a handful of other people have spent years dialing it in, they have a second life. The old-school mentality was that dub plates degraded over time and ruined your needle. That would happen with lacquers, because lacquers are very soft, and every time you play them back the stylus removes a little bit of material. That removes high end and introduces surface noise. Now there are two types of plastic cuts: Diamond cuts and embossed cuts. Embossed cuts are my specialty. They’re a little bit lower in fidelity and volume, but they’re way cheaper because they’re easier to make and the materials are less expensive. Embossed cuts are really good for short runs for bands. You can order from Zack, Phen, or me. We can make 30 or 50 copies for $5 each, and then bands can sell them at the merch table. Diamond cuts [sound] almost as good as a pressed record, but because they cost four times as much in materials, they end up costing much more to buy. A double-sided 7-inch might be $40. Those are much better for one-off cuts, like a jukebox or a Valentine’s Day gift. Embossed records are much better for short-run merch. I use the term “mid-fi.” Most artists who spent days mixing the music with expensive monitors can tell the difference, but your buddy hearing it for the first time probably won’t. I’ve even had some bands tell me they prefer our cuts to their digital master.
They are also cool objects, just as art pieces.
Right. But we go out of our way to make them sound as good as possible because they are going to get played. And the cooler that you make them, the more often that they’re going to get pulled out and shown to a friend. “Check this out, it’s on translucent blue square. They only made 20 of them. And they handmade the covers, and everybody painted or collaged them!” They’re different than a pressed record. Their primary function isn’t necessarily music delivery, although they certainly do deliver the music, and we do make them sound as good as possible. That’s part of the reason that I do so much education. I do Lathe Cut Camps so people can come here and learn hands-on. I want to make sure that as many people as possible are turning out as good-sounding records as possible.
I have a 78 of my grandparents and my dad when he was a baby that they cut on what I assume was a consumer lathe in 1950. Are the things you’re using similar to that, or are they more industrial-level stuff?
The home consumer ones had crystal cutter heads. The crystal cutter heads have all degraded. You can re-grow a new crystal, but at best they’re very lo-fi. I don’t mess with them at all. But there’s a step up from that – the portable machines that they took out for speeches at the local high school, or to record the local band. They’re small. Those are limited in their options, and the cutter heads only go up to about 8 kHz before they really drop off. But you can cut a pretty good punk record on them, and they’re good for entry-level. The machines that we use, most are radio station machines. Before magnetic tape, they were the machines that the radio stations recorded interviews and broadcast feeds on. Presto made the majority of them. There was another company called Rek-O-Kut that made more after Presto phased out. Presto 6Ns were the workhorse for most radio stations, and probably the highest production lathe out there. That’s our bread and butter. For me, that’s the industry standard.
How many of those are out there in the world?
I think there were at least 5,000 Prestos made. Almost every radio station in the U.S. had one or two. Back then, if you were the news station in Tucson, you’d get all your national news from Associated Press in New York. But it’s 5:00 p.m. in New York when it’s 3:00 in Tucson, so they’d have to record it over the phone line, time delay it by two hours, and then play it back – on a record. Once magnetic tape came in and they could reuse the material rather than throwing a disk away, everybody put these in the basement and they sat there.
What is the tech like, and what is a typical restoration?
It was top-shelf 1940's technology at the time, but mechanically it’s pretty simple. It’s gears, cogs, cranks, little idler wheels, and pulleys. But there are lots of adjustment points. When I dig into a restoration, removing 80 years of grease, rust, and decayed rubber is first. Finding replacements for the missing or broken parts is always a challenge. I buy every lathe I can find, and I especially love to buy spare parts.
What powers it?
There’s an old Bodine electric motor, which has a capstan that turns an idler wheel, and that turns the inside of the platter. Then the platter turns the disc. The disc turns a center foot, which turns a worm gear, which turns a one-way clutch, which then turns a horizontal feedscrew, and that moves the cutterhead across the face of the disc.
Is there an amplifier?
Yeah. The amplifier is used to power the cutter head. Some of the more portable, lighter-duty machines came with tube amplifiers built in. The big radio station ones had a separate tube amp that was permanently mounted. A lot of people now just use modern power amps, like for a PA. A 350 watt Crown PA amplifier runs them great.
You’re depending on these 80-year-old machines to make a living. Are they stable?
Once you’ve taken apart the motor and cleaned it, recoiled the cutter head, and replaced all the old rubber, they’ll run forever if you take care of them. But I do have to re-make parts to keep them going. I usually make extras so that if somebody else has this machine, they can buy the parts. I try to provide extra parts, blanks, and embossing needles. I also middleman for other people who are making parts. I have a great machinist on the East Coast who makes parts for me. I distribute Stateside for Jed Kubiak in Poland, who’s inventing a lot of upgrades, and I sell Konstantin Tokarev’s TKV stereo cutterheads.
You also run a record label that’s done hundreds of releases that are probably wilder than a lot of the work you do for other bands.
I got into this from an art perspective. I love vinyl, but I was more excited about the possibilities of making covers and sleeves for only 20 or 30 records. I’m a big thrifter and garage saler, so I’m always on the hunt for weird trash that I can turn into a cool art piece to put a record into. The next logical step is to make the disc itself out of weird materials, or in some sort of weird format. When I first started, I was cutting records onto plastic picnic plates from Safeway. Somebody else had figured that out before me and passed it along. The noise floor was high because it was cheap plastic, but the music actually translated pretty well. It had clear high end, and it had good bass. I’ve made records out of laserdiscs, laminated placemats, x-rays, chocolate, and even a brass drum cymbal. I also released a series of hybrid CD records that play on a turntable and in a CD player.
Oh, so the grooves are on the outside?
Yeah, the digital information reads from the inside out, and the groove information reads from the outside in. You can fit 40 minutes of digital, and three and a half minutes of groove without them overlapping. I make CDs of the album, then I cut an outtake or an acoustic version in the unused portion. I started drilling multiple center holes; I called them Eulerian circles. The grooves look like Venn diagrams. You see the grooves overlapping because it’s clear, but they’re on different sides of the record. I’ve been fortunate – through the record label – to work with a lot of my favorite bands, like The Flaming Lips [Tape Op #17], Grandaddy [#7], Mike Watt, and Money Mark [Mark Ramos-Nishita] from the Beastie Boys. The thing that I really brought to the table was this weird format and something that very few other people could do.
For something like a Flaming Lips single, what quantity are they ordering?
Well, we only made 350 of that. But right now, we’ve got someone in the studio cutting a thousand double-sided Jeff Tweedy records for South by Southwest. We did 3,500 Justin Timberlake records for his Super Bowl party and [Man of the Woods] record release in 2018.
How long does it take to cut 3,500 records?
We had people in the studio for three or four weeks, cutting almost 24/7. It’s a three-and-a-half minute song, times 3500, divided by 60 minutes, divided by four machines. It took hundreds of people hours; but it was for American Express, and they had the budget.
What should bands or recording engineers know if they want to do lathe cuts?
I always suggest doing a mono mix for embossed records. If you know what it sounds like in mono, you’ll be happier. If you’re just doing a one-sided single, or one song per side, you don’t even have to master for vinyl. You can just send me your mix, and I’ll master it to fit this format. If you’re trying to do an LP or a 10-inch, or put four short songs on one side, that does need to be mastered, or at least normalized. Some people compress the hell out of [their masters]. That’s great for digital, but it’s not great for our format. Also, a lot of times there will be differences between each record, because each cutter head has its own coloring.
I assume this has been an incredible time for you.
The last three years have been absolutely bonkers. Three or four years ago there was a lull, and I was like, “Maybe I need to start polishing up the résumé.” But everything’s picked up for us, in a huge way. Bands are ordering more because they can’t get pressings done. A lot of labels want to buy the equipment so they can make records. I’m selling more machines than ever. I actually have a waitlist because I can’t find and restore machines fast enough. It’s gotten insanely busy for us around here, and we are really having fun. 
