Our Neumann VMS 70 lathe and SX 74 cutterhead are very early versions. We don’t know the lathe’s complete history but we think that it spent it’s early life in the mid 70s in service at EMI in the UK. In the 90s at the legendary Music House in London, this lathe cut many of your favourite jungle/drum’n’bass and reggae classics.

In 1999, the lathe arrived in Toronto. Having seen a need for for electronic music oriented cutting services, Kevin Park and his studio partners in Scratch Free, acquired the lathe from the Music House. Legendary lathe tech, Sean Davies, was there to uncrate and install and the lathe and provide a few days of training. After that, Scratch Free was off and running and quickly became a staple of the house, techno and d’n’b comunities of the day.

At the end of the Dj era, with vinyl production at an all time low, and the studio in need of some TLC, Kevin took a few years away from the world of cutting and records to restore the equipment and follow other audio persuits.

Joining forces with the esteemed Lacquer Channel in 2014, the lathe was once again in service and re-established as as a go-to for vinyl specialized mastering and cutting in Canada, working with 100s of bands and engineers and supporting many of the emerging small plants through the era of vinyl resurgence.

Now settled in to a small town in eastern ontario and operating independantly, the KPVM studio continues to be a cornerstone of the Canadian vinyl industry.  Thanks to steady improvements and a tireless devotion to the signal path, and recent upgrades to the lathe by Chris Muth, this system is now sounding better than ever and continues to supply sides of the highest quality.