He had a man wiring the coils for his cutter heads for him. Herr Richter told me literally that he would take all his knowledge with him to his grave.įirst of all, I told him that I would continue my quest, with or without him.
He didn’t want to share anything, he was completely closed. He had lots of information I needed, especially for fixing cutting heads. This became the responsibility of one man, Johannes Richter, who was therefore in the possession of all the drawings, schedules and specifications. They were obliged to offer maintenance for ten years. You’ve got to know that Neuman stopped producing cutting machines in the 80s, they sold the last one in 1989. I understand that a German gentleman, one Herr Richter, has been very instrumental in your career. I couldn’t afford a Neumann record cutting machine, so based on the information I had I began building my own. I started to buy parts, talk to technicians from the plants in Switzerland and read as much as I could find. I decided that I wanted to gather all the information so that I would be able to make my own records in twenty years’ time. It meant that an entire industry was going to disappear sooner or later. In the late ’80s I realised that vinyl was on the way out. It’s the combination of a love for music and for engineering, the mastering and pressing of records. Where does your fascination for cutting records come from? Even after being in the business for twenty years, he is still a relatively young face in a world that until recently was dominated by record industry veterans. Technology developed by him to improve the record cutting process is currently being used in many facilities all over the world. The Swiss-born Flo Kaufmann is one of the world’s prime experts specialised in cutter head repair and upgrading and tuning cutting rooms. On the heels of the publication of new book Passion For Vinyl II: Ode To Analog written by Robert Haagsma, we share an excerpt interview with cutter head repair specialist Flo Kaufmann. In an increasingly disposable society, and where specialist know-how is at a premium, experts like Flo Kaufmann exist as unheralded heroes – the small cogs without whom the whole vinyl industry would collapse. With lathes in short supply, and cutter heads themselves like gold dust in the mastering room, the act of repairing rather than replacing is more crucial than ever. As we discovered in our documentary on the art of vinyl mastering, knowledge of the fine-tuned process is as scarce as the materials needed to sustain them. No matter how incredible a music recording, if it’s not cut well to vinyl the audio will sound mediocre.
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