cold.fyi/The Groove

B6 · about 20 min · updated November 2026

Test yourself, and where to go next

The short version: Questions drawn from every section, the full glossary, the best outside sources, and what this guide could not pin down. If you can source any of the open questions, the corrections desk wants to hear from you.

Test yourself

16 questions

Each answer explains itself and links to the section that covers it.

Glossary

114 terms of art

  • 180 gram A heavier 12 inch LP. Standard weight is about 130-155 grams; 180 gram records use the same stampers and groove depth. read more
  • 2-step / 3-step plating Making metal parts from the lacquer to produce stampers; 3-step adds a metal mother so more stampers can be made for bigger runs. read more
  • 45 RCA Victor's 7-inch single at 45 rpm with a large center hole, introduced January 10, 1949. read more
  • 45/45 stereo The Westrex system that cuts left and right channels on the two walls of one groove, each at 45 degrees; the US standard from December 27, 1957. read more
  • 45/45 system The stereo groove standard: two channels cut at 45 degrees to the record surface and 90 degrees to each other, so the stylus moves both sideways and up and down. read more
  • 78 rpm The shellac-era disc, produced commercially from 1897 to the late 1950s; speeds were not standardized, despite the name. read more
  • Absolute and relative mode DVS modes that do (absolute) or do not (relative) track where the needle sits on the record. read more
  • Anti-skate An outward bias on the tonearm that cancels skating force; dial numbers do not equal the actual force. read more
  • Belt drive A turntable whose motor turns the platter through a belt. read more
  • Bio-attributed PVC PVC made with renewable feedstock, such as used cooking oil, in place of petroleum. read more
  • Bioplastic record A record pressed from a non-PVC plastic, such as Evolution Music's sugar-and-starch recipe. read more
  • Biscuit (puck) The lump of PVC placed in the press before it is squeezed into a record. read more
  • BPI British Phonographic Industry; publishes official UK sales from Official Charts Company data. read more
  • Burnishing facet A tiny flat on the cutting stylus that polishes the groove wall; the hot stylus allowed much smaller ones. read more
  • Cantilever The tiny arm that carries the stylus and passes its motion to the cartridge's generator. read more
  • Catalog number The release's number, usually the same on both labels; unlike the matrix number it does not change from side to side. read more
  • Coarse groove The wide groove used on most records made before 1948. read more
  • Combo package A plant's bundled price for a finished record: lacquers, plating, labels, sleeves and a printed jacket. read more
  • Compound The PVC mix records are pressed from, sold as pellets. Black comes from carbon black. read more
  • Cut number The suffix after the dash showing which cut of a side this is, such as -1 or -2. read more
  • Cutter head The transducer that turns the amplified signal into stylus motion, such as the Neumann SX-74. read more
  • Cutting stylus The small chisel, usually sapphire, in the cutter head that carves the groove. read more
  • Cylinder The first commercial record shape, a tube; Edison conceded to the disc in 1913 and made his last cylinders in 1929. read more
  • De-essing Taming harsh 's' sounds before cutting, since heavy sibilance can distort the master. read more
  • Dead wax The smooth band between the last groove and the label, also called the runout or matrix area, where codes are stamped or etched. read more
  • Delta number A triangle plus five digits: a job code used by Monarch and other plants, not proof of one plant. read more
  • Direct drive A turntable whose platter sits on the motor itself, giving high torque and a fast start. read more
  • Direct Metal Mastering (DMM) Cutting straight into copper instead of lacquer, which skips the lacquer and its plating. read more
  • Discogs A user-built music database and marketplace launched in November 2000. read more
  • DMM Direct Metal Mastering: cutting straight into a copper-plated master instead of a lacquer. read more
  • DVS (digital vinyl system) Software and an audio interface that let a turntable control digital files through timecode vinyl. read more
  • Electroplating Growing nickel onto the silvered lacquer in a chemical bath with electric current to make metal copies of the groove. read more
  • Elliptical EQ A filter that sums low frequencies to mono so the groove avoids large vertical swings. read more
  • Equalization curve The deliberate bass cut and treble boost applied when cutting a record, reversed by the phono preamp on playback. read more
  • Equivalent album units Luminate's measure combining album sales with streams and track downloads. read more
  • Etched vs stamped Hand-scribed into the lacquer vs machine-punched; Discogs asks that the difference go in notes. read more
  • Extruder The machine that heats compound and pushes it out, like toothpaste, to form the puck. read more
  • Father The first nickel negative pulled off the lacquer, called the master in the UK. Its grooves are ridges. One US plant uses the word for an archive copy instead. read more
  • Father, mother, stamper The plating generations off a lacquer: a negative father, a positive mother, then the negative stamper used in the press. read more
  • First pressing Copies from the first production run; matrix data alone does not prove it. read more
  • Flash The excess vinyl squeezed out at the edge during pressing, trimmed off and recycled. read more
  • Goldmine standard The grading scale used mostly by US sellers and Discogs: M, NM, VG+, VG, G+, G, F, P. read more
  • Gramophone Emile Berliner's flat-disc system, patented November 8, 1887; the ancestor of every record since. read more
  • Graphophone The improved cylinder machine by Bell, Bell and Tainter that replaced tinfoil with wax, patented May 4, 1886. read more
  • Groove pitch How closely neighboring grooves are spaced, measured in lines per inch. read more
  • Groove speed How fast the groove passes the stylus: about 21 inches per second at the outer edge of a 12 inch at 33 1/3, about 28.3 at 45. read more
  • Half-speed mastering Running the source and lathe at half speed, an LP at about 16 2/3 rpm, to make high frequencies easier to cut. read more
  • Hot stylus A cutting stylus warmed by a wire coil so it softens the lacquer and cuts a quieter, more detailed groove; developed at Columbia in 1948. read more
  • IAM triangle A triangle with IAM inside, marking Capitol's Scranton plant about 1963-1973. read more
  • Injection molding Shooting molten plastic into a closed mold, as Sonopress does with PET for its EcoRecord, instead of compressing a PVC puck. read more
  • Inner groove distortion Distortion and loss near the label, where the groove moves slower and wavelengths are shorter. read more
  • ISCC PLUS A certification for sustainable and circular supply chains, used for BioVinyl. read more
  • Label baking Drying center labels in an oven, often overnight, so moisture does not bubble them in the press. read more
  • Lacquer An aluminum disc coated with nitrocellulose; the master groove is cut into the coating. read more
  • Lateral and vertical modulation Side-to-side and up-and-down motion of the groove; in stereo, music moves the stylus tip in a mix of the two. read more
  • Lathe cut A record cut one at a time in real time into a blank of vinyl, polycarbonate or acrylic, with no pressing. read more
  • LP The long-playing 12-inch record at 33 1/3 rpm, unveiled by Columbia in June 1948. read more
  • Luminate US sales tracker, formerly Nielsen SoundScan; counts consumer purchases rather than RIAA-style shipments. read more
  • Mastering lathe The machine that turns the blank and moves the cutter head across it. read more
  • Mastering SID / Mould SID Source codes on CDs: an L-code added at glass mastering and an IFPI code added at pressing. read more
  • Matrix number The per-side production code in the dead wax that files the stamper and ties it to the right label. read more
  • Microgroove The narrow groove introduced with the 1948 LP; microgroove discs carry nearly twice as many grooves as coarse-groove discs. read more
  • Mid and side signal Mid (what both channels share) moves the groove side to side; side (their difference) moves it up and down. read more
  • Mother A metal positive plated from the father, with grooves like a record, used to grow stampers. read more
  • Mother number The code showing which mother (the positive metal part) a stamper was made from. read more
  • Moving coil (MC) A cartridge with the coils on the cantilever and a fixed magnet; lower output, usually under 2.5 mV, so it needs more gain. read more
  • Moving magnet (MM) A cartridge with the magnet on the cantilever and fixed coils; typical output about 4-8 mV. read more
  • Near Mint (NM) As summarized by Jazz Collector, a nearly perfect record with no obvious wear. read more
  • New Orthophonic RCA Victor's equalization curve from about 1952, essentially identical to the RIAA curve. read more
  • One-step / two-step / three-step How many generations of metal parts are made between lacquer and press. More steps means more stampers can come from one lacquer. read more
  • One-step, two-step, three-step How many plating generations come before the stamper; more steps give more stampers for bigger runs. read more
  • Overcut Neighboring grooves running into each other, which can make a record skip. read more
  • Phonautograph A device about 20 years older than the phonograph that traced sound waves but could not play them back; Edison reversed its process. read more
  • Phono preamp An amplifier that lifts a cartridge's signal to line level and applies the inverse RIAA curve. read more
  • Phonograph Edison's 1877 machine that recorded by pressing a stylus track into tinfoil on a cylinder, later wax; the first device to record and play back sound. read more
  • Picture disc A printed image sealed under a thin clear playing surface on a PVC core, per a retailer's description. read more
  • Pitch control A fader that changes platter speed to match tempos; plus or minus 8% or 16% on SL-1200 models. read more
  • Porky Prime Cut The runout signature of UK cutting engineer George Peckham. read more
  • Pre-echo and post-echo A faint copy of a loud passage heard right before or after it, a risk of tight spacing on lacquer. read more
  • Pressing ring The circular indent on the label left by the press; its diameter can point to a plant. read more
  • Puck (biscuit) The warm lump of compound placed between the stampers, about three times as thick as the finished record. read more
  • Pure album sales Physical and digital album purchases only, without streams. read more
  • PVC Polyvinyl chloride, the plastic most records are pressed from. read more
  • RE A repress marker on some matrices. read more
  • Record Collector scale The UK grading scale, which includes Excellent at roughly Goldmine VG+. read more
  • Record Store Day An annual day of shop-only limited releases, first held April 19, 2008. read more
  • RIAA Recording Industry Association of America; sets US record standards and publishes official US shipment and revenue figures. read more
  • RIAA curve The standard disc EQ: bass cut and treble boost when cutting, reversed on playback; time constants 3180, 318 and 75 microseconds. read more
  • Rumble Low-frequency noise from the turntable's own moving parts that the stylus picks up. read more
  • Rush A paid faster turnaround, priced per record. read more
  • Scratching Moving a record back and forth under the stylus to make rhythmic sounds. read more
  • Shellac The compound used for 78s: shellac resin with fillers such as clay, slate or limestone, carbon black and cotton fibers. Heavy and brittle. read more
  • Silvering Spraying a thin conductive silver layer onto the lacquer, the same way a mirror is made, so it can be electroplated. read more
  • Skating force The inward pull on a pivoted, offset tonearm caused by groove friction. read more
  • Slip-cue Holding a record still on a slipmat while the platter spins, then letting go; a workaround on belt-drive decks. read more
  • Splatter A color effect made by mixing pellets of different colors in one biscuit. read more
  • Stamper A thin nickel negative, about 145 grams, mounted in the press, one per side. Worn stampers are replaced from the mother. read more
  • Stamper code Letters or numbers showing which stamper pressed the copy, such as EMI's GRAMOPHLTD and Decca's BUCKINGHAM ciphers. read more
  • Steamless press A press whose molds are heated by electrically heated water instead of steam from a gas boiler. read more
  • Stylus The diamond tip that rides in the groove; its shape (conical, elliptical, Shibata, MicroLine, line contact) sets how much of the groove wall it touches. read more
  • Test pressing The first few records off new stampers, usually four or five, sent to the artist and label for approval before the run. read more
  • Time constant One of the values (3180, 318 and 75 microseconds) that set the corners of the RIAA curve. read more
  • Timecode vinyl A control record pressed with a tone (1,000 Hz for Serato) that software reads for speed, direction and position. read more
  • Tip-on jacket An older jacket construction with printed paper glued over board. read more
  • Tracking force The downward weight on the stylus in grams, set with the counterweight to the cartridge maker's figure. read more
  • Turnaround The time from an approved order to delivery; one US plant listed 6-8 weeks as standard in 2026. read more
  • Turntablism Using turntables as musical instruments; the term was coined by DJ Babu in 1995. read more
  • Variable pitch Automatic widening and tightening of groove spacing to fit the music, driven by a preview signal about a second ahead. read more
  • Variant The same album in a different color, cover or retailer-exclusive edition. read more
  • Very Good Plus (VG+) As summarized by Jazz Collector, a record showing signs of careful play and slight wear. read more
  • Vinylite The vinyl compound Columbia used for its first LPs, sold as nonbreakable. read more
  • VRMA The Vinyl Record Manufacturers Association of North America, founded after the 2020 Apollo Masters fire. read more
  • War of the speeds The 1949-50 contest between Columbia's 33 1/3 and RCA Victor's 45; it ended with the LP as the album and the 45 as the single. read more
  • Wow and flutter Slow (wow) and fast (flutter) speed wobble, given as a percentage; lower is better. read more

Further

Where to go next

The best outside sources behind this guide. None of them are ours.

Still digging

15 things we could not source well enough

Send a source and it goes in, with credit if you want it.

  • A count of how many record pressing plants were still operating at the 1990s-2000s low point (no reputable dated count found).
  • Whether any new lacquer (master disc) manufacturer has launched since the 2020 Apollo Masters fire (no 2024-2026 source found).
  • Steam temperature and pressure for a conventional steam-heated record press, in stated units, from a plant or press maker.
  • A current (2024-2026) share of the record PVC compound market held by any supplier.
  • A current worldwide count of vinyl pressing plants.
  • A standards text (RIAA or IEC 60098 full text) stating which phase convention - in-phase lateral or in-phase vertical - the 45/45 stereo groove uses.
  • An industry-wide typical tracking-force range for modern cartridges.
  • DVS user numbers (how many DJs use Serato, Traktor or other timecode systems) from a primary source.
  • Year-by-year industry-wide vinyl pressing lead times for 2024 and 2025 (only a qualitative 2023 easing report was found).
  • Average US retail price of a new LP by year, 2023-2026 (only Discogs secondhand-market averages were found).
  • The Czech Republic's (or GZ Media's) share of world vinyl output (only an unsourced secondhand "60%" claim was found).
  • A primary EMI or Abbey Road source for what the YEX, YAX and XEX lacquer prefixes on EMI records mean (only a shop blog found).
  • Current official Discogs marketplace figures for annual sales and order count (company page would not load).
  • Luminate total US vinyl sales for the 2026 Record Store Day week (only the top sellers were found).
  • Eight runout markings (Sterling CA, Monarch, RTI and GZ Media codes) waiting on a source we could open; they stay out of the decoder until then.

Spot a mistake in this section? Tell us.