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Records pressed in South Africa Sound Quality

C

Conster

pfm Member
I just picked up a bunch of records from a local store and am quite impressed with the sound quality.
Very smooth sweet and analogue sounding very much like a good UK or German pressing. Also the quality and weight seems great much heavier than it's US counterparts. Anyone else experience this?
 
I don't think I have ever seen a South African pressed record although there are quite a few South African record labels. Do you know who pressed these? Are you sure they are are not pressed elsewhere, but have a South African label? The last record pressing plant in Africa, in Zimbabwe, that originally pressed for the South African Gallo Label was supposed to have been closed and sold off in 2015.

https://www.musicinafrica.net/magazine/africas-last-vinyl-pressing-plant-goes-sale
 
Very variable. I have friends from Zimbabwe (or Rhodesia as it was back when they lived there) and due to sanctions they tended to get western stuff well after the fact and of quite dubious quality (no master tape would ever have got anywhere near SA or Zim). Obviously home grown music faired much better, both countries producing loads of great stuff. One of these guys has an amazing collection of Zimbabwean ‘Jit’ 45s, many being quite rudimentary DIY recordings and productions, but with so much life! As ever the ‘first pressing from country of artist origin’ rule tends to stand up.
 
I checked some of the African stuff I have on vinyl and it all seems to have been distributed by UK or French companies and usually pressed by MPO in France. Sound quality on some of these is pretty good.
 
I can't speak for SA records but it is not true that African records were mostly pressed in UK, France or Holland. It may have been the case for records that were actually distributed in Europe but Africa is a large continent and there were many pressing plants for local music. For instance during the heyday, EMI and Decca both had big pressing plants in Nigeria. Even smaller countries like Ghana and Ivory Coast had their own.

IMO African pressed records were highly variable. Some were very good (e.g. the EMI and Decca ones) but there were many that were pressed on poor quality vinyl or were off-centered. The used records are mostly in terrible shape, worn and scratched up, covered in dirt and mud, and often suffered from the humidity, dirt and poor storage conditions.

But, what wonderful music!
 
paulfromcamden said:
Lots of African countries had booming record industries and pressing plants in decades past.
Here's Frank Gossner looking for records in Ghana: https://dustandgrooves.com/digging-in-ghana-with-frank-gossner/
Click to expand...

Interesting stuff.

I had (and sold, years ago) this rarity from 1963. interesting for its connections to what was happening with music in the West Indies.

E.T. Mensah And His Tempos Band* ‎– King Of The High Lifes
Label:
Decca ‎– WAL 1032
Series:
Decca West African Series –
Format:
Vinyl, 10", Album, Mono
Country:
Ghana
Released:
1963
Genre:
Folk, World, & Country
Style:
Highlife

From memory (!) it was an old BBC colonial pressing plant, but I might be making that up.
 
I used to own Malian pressings of some Ali Farka Toure albums and the sq was consistently good.
 
I am mainly referring to American artists like Al Jarreau, Earl Klugh Michael Jackson Chuck Mangione Maze. All of these sound great just not sure if they were actually pressed in Africa or imported and package in Africa.
 
You need to check the deadwax. Sometimes the etchings may tell you.

My best guess is that if they were popular titles, they were likely locally-pressed. South Africa was big enough to have local pressing plants and certainly it would have been more economic to manufacture them there than to import vinyl records.

But I must qualify all this conjecture. I suspect during the apartheid era, bans or censorship would have been operative for a lot of items, so things that made sense in other countries did not apply to SA . The records that you mentioned may have very well been smuggled in.
 
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