Vinyl Junkies …

Hope you enjoy it!

spent a wedge on vinyl today #rsd15

random but anyone want some vinyl storage?

http://www.architonic.com/pmsht/plus-naughtone/1048497

got two of these in my office going, cost £500 each but £150 for the pair bags them

http://www.factmag.com/2015/05/07/pressed-to-the-edge-vinyl/

interesting read. i stopped putting out records about two years ago and still miss it some days... but having to wait up to five months for tests from the pressing plant is insane. i wonder what the solution is for the electroplating bottleneck.

It's nuts, I find it hard to believe the industry has let it get itself into this mess... Of course, it's the small labels that have kept the plants running all these years that suffer...

Vinyl is coming Back

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yeah, completely. my friend robert who's been putting out records for years is really struggling, it's awful to watch it unfold. all because someone wants taylor swift 'red' on double gatefold LP ( ...not that i regret this)

to be fair, i don't think it's 'the industry's' fault (misleading term*). it's the combination of independents still largely having the same volume of output in terms of vinyl release per year (or thereabouts - just a guess, but to my knowledge they don't fluctuate or increase terribly rapidly because they don't have the money or desire) and major labels having a lot more of a push back towards vinyl (from cds and downloads) and totally inundating a mechanical process that just can't keep up. as the article says, it's an expensive business producing the laquer and only two companies in the world do it; what a crazy monopoly.

*think i mainly begrudge the term 'music industry' because i don't see independents and majors as part of the same machine. to me they do different things and i interact with them very differently as a consumer and producer. i'm terribly biased though.

apart from the obvious cite your reference comment, if you'd read the article you'd know the issue is not the units of production but the relative lack of production plants and finishing materials that is the issue. your jpeg does nothing but support my point

edit: sounds a lot meaner than i meant it

I meant the vinyl manufacturers, ridiculous to let your business get into a situation like this...

my bad.
for them i suppose having 5 weeksworth of work outstanding is better than no one pressing records and having no work at all tho...

Hey, I understand the article. I was being flippant. It sucks that people are having to wait so long. But if you've tried to get something pressed in the 5 month period before record store day in the last few years, you wouldn't be too surprised. But then, like you said, I understand that a micro run of 300 LPSs isn't high on anyone's agenda, especially if you actually send test pressings back multiple times stuff can take an eternity.

Record Store Day fucking sucks, it's entirely to blame and I don't think many of it's customers are buying independent Vinyl on the reg.

I wonder what the mastering is like on something like the red or 1989 gatefold? Have you heard it?

A friend just got some dub plates done in Hackney in 24 hours, might be time to start releasing stuff in editions <100.

i knew as soon as i typed 'if you'd read the article' i was being a massively assuming hypocrite but i did it anyway because internets

i've always had to press 12"s in runs of 100-300 because i can't find any decent places to give me a sub-100 run without lessening the mastering (i mean it's negligible, plus most of the music i like sounds like it was recorded in a bin, but it still matters), which is why i normally collab with other euro labels/distros to split the run. that way everyone gets some records to distribute, we don't lose time doing mad tradez months after release date, and no one ends up (hopefully) with a tonne of vinyl they can't shift. actually, i did end up using a batch of super old 7"s that i was definitely never going to sell to do some DIY a few months ago so maybe they do have a use...

the red gatefold mastering ain't anything special, but the record was probably so over-produced by the time it went to press i doubt it would ever sound much better

i wonder what the solution is for the electroplating bottleneck.

I think people need to electroplate more.

A friend just got some dub plates done in Hackney in 24 hours

Hackney to the rescue. Again. :)

And the 'vinyl' thing is still an odd distraction. What's the point in pressing any digital recording onto vinyl, or indeed a terrible analogue recording? Not to mention the many rubbish pressings of analogue recordings made in the past from cheap copies of masters. Improving analogue recording quality is the important thing, and making this something normally expected again.

I was in the HMV in Oxford Street and they had a sign saying 'Music and Vinyl upstairs'. Er?

Yeah, I just stick to hot stampers.

http://www.wired.com/2015/03/hot-stampers/

So much vinyl sounds shit these days I rarely bother... Also why buy an expensive reissue that sounds crap when you can get the original for less?!? #suckers

from last week's new yorker.

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I got my decks up and running yesterday, spent a fantastic afternoon playing a few choice picks out of a couple of boxes of 45s... Pure bliss... I've missed my vinyl, neglected it for far too long... Looking forward to starting a night down here in Brissy... :)

The radiohead back catalogue has notoriously shit mastering on vinyl.

I used to go to mastering places BITD, the first few times at Porky Prime Cuts then later to some place in Camden that I can't remember the name of... Vinyl was still the predominant format so skills were not in short supply and the quality was magnificent, Porky was amazing and so fast! You'd get TPs back a week later... Things done changed... I wanna put out a couple of 'fan pressings' out here in Oz, will let you know how I get on... 👌🐓

I was once a recording artiste (not) selling upwards of 1000 copies each release , probably topped 5000 once . then in 2007 the labels decided digital was the way to go and they refused to release my last contrived work on vinyl .
i would say much of the problem is the several thousand underground labels that popped up in the last 7 or so years . they brought it back alive but they also only do small runs up to 300 . then the majors came back in and and most of the big pressing plants such as EMI had gone thanks to the majors abandoning vinyl . so they have to use smaller companies ....
i love vinyl 180gram, coloured , 7inch , 12 inch whatever it sounds great to me . the skills of the engineers has got better though the lathes are still the same , 24bit 96k optimum for cutting vinyl i believe you can't even buy a 24bit cd player , digital just sounds too harsh and some of the mastering is appallingly loud . just got 4 x 7" singles in the post this morning :)

Officially back in love with my vinyl again... Back into the habit of picking an LP out and sticking on the turntable, feels great... Funny how you get out of the habit of doing these things, became much easier to slap an LP off your iTunes library on the computer speakers... Playing stuff I haven't listened to in forever (which isn't available digitally anyway) and it's wonderful...

Do they play backwards & upside down where you are?