I can offer a little explanation about the use and evolution of the DM number codes.
The purpose was to co-ordinate individual original master tapes of mixes with the safety copies, acetates and master lacquers that were subsequently made from them. The earliest ones I dealt with from before my time, consisted of a letter code for the producer and a number which indicated the reel and the position on the reel of duplicated safety masters. By the time I arrived, the recording engineer and mixing engineer codes had been added to the prefix.
In 1965 it worked like this.
1. An engineer was assigned songs to mix by the quality control department.
2. the engineer turned the mixes into the disk room
3. the disk room cut a "rundown acetate" and turned it into quality control
4. quality control reviewed the rundown and ordered 10" 45 RPM acetates [[that were cut hot as if they were masters) and "Duplicate Masters" or "DMs" of the mixes they considered worth keeping as contenders for a release.
5. The disk room then leadered the mixes that were to be kept, trashed the rest and created a reference slip filling in the mix engineer code, the temporary number from the rundown acetate and the settings chosen to create a 10" 45 master disk. This reel and the acetates were turned in to quality control. Quality control added the producer and recording engineer codes and sent the reel to be duplicated in the studio.
6. In the studio a recording engineer made a copy of these reels of masters. In 1965 this was at 7.5 i.p.s. on one or two tracks of a three track machine. This engineer filled in the numerical portion of the DM number which consisted of a "DM" reel number, the track numbers of the three-track and the position on the reel. {The reason this low quality format was chosen was because it was assumed that a new first-generation mix would be created matching that on the tape if an original master was lost and no acetate of it was available to serve as a guide.)
6. Quality control then evaluated the ten inch 45 rpm acetates and generally ordered "remasters" which were new mixes incorporating their suggestions. Occasionaly this would extend to ordering changes in a vocal or even additional background vocals or instruments.
7. This process continued until quality control was convinced we had the best possible performance, arrangement and mono mix of the song.
8. For stereo albums, this "ultimate" mono mix would be used as a guide to create a mix in stereo.
Later on, we switched from using the 1/2" 3-track duplicate masters to 1/4" duplicates at 15 i.p.s. and the numbering was changed to indicate if it was mono or stereo using the letters M and S. The formula became:
producer code-
recording engineer code-
mix engineer code-
reel number-
mono or stereo code-
position on reel
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