Dorogi Hanglemezgyár

(Literal translation: Record Factory of Dorog) Record pressing factory of the Hungarian state owned record company, Magyar Hanglemezgyártó Vállalat (Hungaroton). It opened in 1976 in Dorog, near Budapest. Before that MHV records were pressed by the cable factory (Kábel- és Műanyaggyár, from January 1, 1964: Villamosszigetelő és Műanyaggyár), always struggling with capacity. (In 1974 only 2 million records could be pressed at the cable factory.) In the mid '80s more than ten millions records were pressed at Dorog each year. From the early 1990s the manufacturing has dropped severely due to the growing popularity of the CD (and cassette) formats, and financial problems. In 1995 the plant has been privatized and soon after ceased to exist. There still are debates about where exactly did the machinery go, most often it is believed that they were sold to one or more companies in the UK. Characteristics of records manufactured at Dorog A typical runout matrix made at Dorog has the following matrix scheme: ABBC N-D M E FF OO (e.g. SLPX 18037-A III/P AT 16 at Living Hungarian Folk Music 1 - Élő Népzene I.), where: ABBC N is the catalog number of the release (in example above: SLPX 18037). (See Hungaroton for further explanation of catalog number system.) D is the side identifier (A or B) M is a Roman numeral marking the number of the cut E is a single letter code marking if its a prototype (P) or remanufacturing (U as in utángyártás), which is not necessarily the same as a reissue or a repressing. This code only appeared later in the matrix. FF is a double character initial of mastering engineer (see below) OO is a single or double digit etched (in the example above: 16) All text is machine stamped, except for the OO, which is hand etched and usually more faint, harder to notice. Vinyl mastering engineers: AT - Arányi Tibor BE - Battha Endre EO - Ernőffy Olivér HP - Horváth Péter KK - Keppinger Károly MG - Gábor Mocsáry PJ - Petrás József Radányi E - Endre Radányi SI - Imre Selmeczi SR - Spangel Rudolf (Hegyaljai Anna (HA) and Endre Radányi (Radányi E) also were cutting engineers for MHV, but their signatures appear on earlier records.) Pressing ring diameter is 32 mm. (Jugoton and many other plants also had 32 mm rings.) Contractual pressings Since the "planned economy" of socialist Hungary only ran one record factory (and prevented competition), almost all Hungaroton releases where made here. The only exceptions would be releases they outsourced to Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia or in some cases, India, due to temporary workload issues. This connection was mutual: in the 1980s many Yugoslavian releases were pressed at Dorog. In such cases the records were cut and pressed at Dorog. They did not provide lathe or metalwork to other companies to avoid transporting damages. From the late 1980s some other companies were allowed to release records, but they did not have their own complete manufacturing plants, therefore Dorog was inescapable at one point, even if they brought the plates from Western Europe (MMC Records) or had their own pressing machines (Nívó Records). In 1987 the record factory of Dorog developed a separate cataloging system for contractual pressings: BP-PPP, where PPP is a 3-digit sequential number (the very first in our database as of April, 2022 is 003: [r3958014]). This replaces the catalog number portion of the matrix, the rest is as described above. Many counterfeit releases of otherwise out-of-print rare psychedelic, progressive records, live bootlegs in the late 1980s where pressed here, as can be identified by the mastering engineer's initials in the runouts.