PROFILE
Robyn Raymond
By Manus Hopkins
How Robyn Raymond became Canada ’ s only female vinyl cutter currently working is a long story , but her infatuation with records goes back to her earliest years . As her family moved around a lot – she attended 11 schools by the time she was 12 – the one thing that was always constant in her life , she tells Professional Sound , was music , and in particular , vinyl records , which remained a hallmark of her personality into adulthood .
“ Through my whole life , what ’ s kind of always been my thing is my record collection , and my association with my record collection ,” Raymond says . “[ My friends and I ] would have parties at my house , and part of it would be that everybody would go and pick a bunch of records and then we ’ d play them .”
Raymond has worn many musical hats , first singing in a choir as a teenager before starting to sing with gigging and small-time touring acts . She then went to college in Red Deer , AB , for kinesiology and human performance , before moving to Calgary and starting a string of jobs in various pockets of the music world .
“ I was going to a lot of shows , and I kept seeing the same two characters at the shows ,” Raymond remembers . “ They were like , ‘ Hey , you ’ re always here ,’ and I was like ,‘ So are you ,’ and they were the promoters . They were like , ‘ Do you want to come to shows for free ?’ and I said ‘ absolutely , I do .’ So , then I became a ground-level street marketing and flyer kid , gathering minions underneath me so that we could tell everybody about these wacky shows that we were doing .”
Raymond worked her way through the ranks in live promotion , doing marketing and other related duties for everything from club shows to arenas and festivals . There , she got well-acquainted with everything that goes into making a big show or tour happen , but eventually went back to school for more studies in human performance and wound up working for the Canadian Olympic bobsled , skeleton , and hockey teams as a manual therapist until 2017 . After the conclusion of the 2016-2017 season and a month in Korea doing the Olympic homologation , Raymond ’ s contract wasn ’ t renewed , and she wasn ’ t sure what she was going to do next .
On a trip to Edmonton to see Metallica , an old bandmate of Raymond ’ s suggested she get in touch with the people who ran
Canada Boy Vinyl , a nowdefunct Calgary-based record pressing plant , to see if there was any work she could do with her knowledge of vinyl .
“ Through that conversation , I found out that there were many ways to make a record , which I kind of knew but didn ’ t know to the degree that I know now ,” Raymond says . “ I started poking my head around looking for labels and things .”
Raymond got connected with Calgary ’ s Inner Ocean Records , whose owner ( Cory Giordano ) turned her onto lathe cutting . Originally , Raymond thought she was out of her depth , having no formal education in audio , but since she learns by doing , it involved about a year of practice while working other jobs before she felt she had the necessary skills and connections to make a career of vinyl cutting .
“ The easy way to explain what I do is that it ’ s kind of like a reverse record player ,” Raymond says of the hand-cutting process . “ So , it ’ s built on a record player , and there ’ s a stylus that carves the groove in real time , rather than the one that plays it . You take a blank record , and you put it on the turntable , and it spins at the appropriate speed , and you lower a cutting head on to the blank desk . This is universal , whether you ’ re cutting a lacquer , or a piece of copper , or into plastic , you lower the cutterhead and then you start the audio source and so it carves out this little tunnel that corresponds to how we hear music . Once the side has started , I just sit there in real time , one by one , handindexing , and then when that ’ s done , I flip it over and start the B side .”
Currently , Raymond is booked up until March 2023 , with 30 or 35 projects in the queue . One of her favourite projects she ’ s worked on was cutting records for Prada , composed by Fashion Week ’ s Frédéric Sanchez and auctioned off to raise money for UNESCO .
“ It ’ s kind of a joke between my friends and I , too , because my records were in the
September 2020 issue of Vogue and I had no idea ,” Raymond laughs . “ I have some very fashionable friends and I ’ m the one sitting here in a ripped Guns N ’ Roses t-shirt , so that seems appropriate .”
A feat Raymond calls her “ personal Everest ” was cutting 500 singles for the Arkells last year , making her the second person in history to lathe-cut that many records for a single act , the first being Peter King , who cut 1,420 copies for the Beastie Boys in the ‘ 90s . Raymond has worked with other notable Canadian acts like City and Colour and Priyanka ( the winner of the first season of Canada ’ s Drag Race ), but also loves taking on “ weird little records ,” and says the best part of the job is when she gets to give someone their first physical record .
The biggest professional challenge to date , Raymond says , is simply not being a mastering engineer . Imposter syndrome can prevent her from giving herself the kindness she deserves and having full confidence in the abilities she possesses , but she has enough support around her to be able to work through the self-doubt that can plague her , and an important part of cutting records is doing it her own way .
“ Everybody has a different way of doing it ,” she explains . “ There ’ s 7,000 mastering engineers in the world , but only 200 cutting engineers in the world , and they all cut a
Manus Hopkins is the Assistant Editor of Professional Sound .
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