RTI Record Technology Incorporated -

Record Technology, also known as RTI Record Technology Inc. or more commonly RTI, is a renowned pressing plant for vinyl records and CDs located in Camarillo, California. 12″ records have been manufactured there since 1974. Its services include lacquer cutting and all other stages of tooling for record presses. The portfolio also includes the packaging and worldwide shipping of records.

RTI has a good reputation for very good manufacturing quality as well as quality control in the production of sound carriers. The audiophile LPs of Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, for example, are pressed there.

The current logo of RTI.

RTI’s former logo now looks wonderfully retro-futuristic.

From 1995 to 2010, the cutting studio AcousTech Mastering also belonged to the same group of companies and was located on the same premises.

How do you recognise pressings of RTI?

RTI pressings can be recognised by the following scheme of info in the run-out groove or deadwax of records:
Side A: xxxxx (2) or (3)
Side B: xxxxx (2) or (3)

More recent pressings show this pattern:

Side A: xxxxx.1 (1) or (2) or (3)
Side B: xxxxx.2 (1) or (2) or (3)

What are RTI’s manufacturing processes?

Single-stage (top) and three-stage process in the production of records. (Copyright: MFSL)

(1), (2) and (3) show the different manufacturing processes:

In the three-stage process (3), the lacquer cut is used to create negative “fathers”, as well as positive “mothers”, from which the final punch for plate pressing is finally generated

For the two-stage process (2), a negative “father” and a positive “mother” are also produced. Subsequently, however, the “father” serves as the press die. This process is only suitable for small runs. If additional “fathers” are needed, they can be produced from the “mother”.

In the one-step process (1), a negative “father” is produced from the lacquer cut, which is used directly as a pressing die (without a diversion via the “mother”. This process is used, for example, to produce the Ultradisc One-Step releases from Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, or the 1step series from Impex Records. Omitting two generations of copies increases the sound quality. However, with the relatively soft material of the “fathers”, only a few copies can be pressed, which leads to increased production costs.

Further identification features of the stamps for RTI pressings are one or two crosses with dots.
( ꔰ [unicode symbol], + or ++), which indicate a pressing of RTI.