| Main Pressing plants Pennyroyal Tea Test pressings Collection |
| WEA Mfg Olyphant/ Specialty Records Corporation (CD) | |||||
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Warner-Electra-Atlantic Manufacturing Olyphant started to replicate CDs in 1987, and DVD replication started when the format was introduced in mid 1996. Their plant in Olyphant was called Specialty Records Corporation up to 1996. They pressed most of Geffen's Nirvana promo discs including samplers, and Sub Pop discs, as Sub Pop and WEA share the same parent company. They acquired their IFPI 2U repertoire in mid 1995. Ownership of the pressing plant switched to Cinram in 2004. The various elements of the matrices all have their function. First, let's look at a random matrix from when they were Specialty Records Corporation, the About A Girl CD promo from 1994: (S-logo) 38 PRO CD 4688-2 RE-1 SRC**01 M0S1 The logo is an S in a ring, the Specialty logo. PRO CD 4688 is the catalog number of the release, the following -2 is for Compact Disc. The number before the catalog number, in this case 38, is the client number of Geffen/ Universal. The alphanumeric number for Sub Pop is IR. (1 is Warner/ Reprise, 2 is Elektra, 3 is Atlantic, their own main labels.) RE-1 stands for remake 1, meaning the first metalized glassmaster (MGM) was unsuccessful. RE-1 etc always follows immediately after the catalog number. SRC is short for Specialty Records Corporation. The following number may represent the number of the MGM, in case they made several masters. Between SRC and the number #, *, -, =, or @ may be found, I don't know what their purpose is, if any. The dotted M0S1 part is added mechanically to the matrix on a metal plate, and probably stand for Mother and Stamper, meaning M* identifies the number of the mother created from the father, while S* identifies the number of the stamper created from the given mother. A few differences happened when they changed into to WEA Mfg, as shown by the Drain You CD promo matrix from 1996: (wea mfg. OLYPHANT-logo) ifpiL903 Y513 38 PRO CD 1070-2 01 M0M1 M1S1 IFPI 2U3F The Specialty logo has been exchanged with a WEA logo, reflecting the 1996 namechange. An LBR IFPI identifies the LBR used to master the disc, and a mould IFPI identifies the pressing plant and the exact mould used. SRC has been removed, but the following number remains (the Hype soundtrack CD has OLY before the number, all others I've seen had nothing). A code appears before the client number, which starts with a letter followed by one or more digits. This is most likely WEA's own identification number, their "catalog number". One can roughly determine the year of manufacture by looking at the matrix codes. The code included SRC from the start in 1987, though no S-logo. The font used was a font similar to Arial and Verdana. To begin with, a continuous bar occupied the unwritten area, this was replaced with a barcode in 1990 or early 1991, and barcodes have been present since then. (The In Bloom promo from 1992 has two lines of "stars" instead.) In 1993 they switched to a Courier-like font, and also included the S-logo. They got the IFPI 2U repertoire while they were still called Specialty, in mid 1995 (so a disc with both an S-logo and an IFPI code means it was manufactured sometime between mid 1995 and about mid 1996). The S-logo was exchanged with a WEA-logo in 1996, reflecting the namechange. The WEA numbering system was also introduced in 1996, W, X, or Y followed by number of digits. From 2002 the first letter was Z only. Courier-font and barcodes during all this time. The WEA logo was obviously scrapped when Cinram took over in 2004. WEA also manufactured vinyl records, cassettes, and VHS tapes. |
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| Main Pressing plants Pennyroyal Tea Test pressings Collection |
