how were copies of vinyl made in "third-party" countries


I have some LPs from the former Yugoslavia, Holland, Hungary, Russia (bought them way back when in bulk) and now I wonder what the process was and how close they are to the original? 

I assume they weren't digitized, they were released in the 70s and early 80s. Anyone knows what they would receive from the recording studio/company/warehouse? Tapes, the "negatives"? Are there copies considered better than others?

 

grislybutter

And in re Canada, there's not a lot of info-- I found a scholarly policy paper behind a paywall that said Capitol EMI established their first plant in Canada in 1976. Another source on Capitol said that they used an RCA plant for pressing in Smith Falls, Compo may have pressed some- it was the largest independent in Canada, it was purchased by Decca, and Sparton, which did Capitol records before EMI bought them. The convoluted corporate history indicates that eventually the Capitol name was dropped for EMI's Canadian operations. 

I saw very little to direct me to Canadian pressings of Harvest imprints. If you look at an example--Roy Harper's Stormcock- a cool record, it was not released in Canada until 1978 (UK is 1971) and says manufactured by Capitol Records of Canada. I suspect one could track down this information on an album by album basis on Discogs. 

That's all I got. Phew! :)

I have many New Zealand pressings of various qualities. The best are early stereo classical records from EMI made from UK stampers and have matrixes that correspond with the first pressings from Columbia or HMV. These sound amazing and the only time I've had a chance to A/B one with a UK original (SAX 2368), the NZ version sounded essentially the same but on quieter vinyl (so better). Obviously, I can't claim this will always be the case, but the thinking is that these were made in such small quantities and by subscription (so no wasted copies) they used the best vinyl and paid the closest attention possible to the pressing process. Who knows? New Zealand Deutsche Grammophon are often made from German stampers and usually sound terrible, so it's not all good news.