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MrSargent posted:I don't know what the name for this is, but they also press the 45 all the way to the center so it doesn't require an adapter. I have to imagine that increases the cost as well since it is more material. I've pressed a bunch of 45s and most press plants have literally zero cost difference between big hole and small hole 45s, and the ones that do charge a different price charge maybe 3 cents extra per record. The thing killing their per-unit cost is pressing 300 instead of 500 and doing full CMYK jacket-style sleeves.
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Nov 4, 2018 05:31
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sporklift posted:What I meant was someone (VMP?) is selling a $25 record on amazon for $11 and still making a profit. Pressing a record is way cheaper than people build it up to be. A run of 500 LPs in full color jackets costs maybe $2100 before factoring in payment for the artist. Per unit costs goes down if you press 1000, although there's another little spike if you press more than 1000 (plating another stamper, getting more center labels and other bits that don't offer price breaks). A bigger imprint like VMP has staff and a web presence and needs to pay for and all those things, but the manufacturing alone is only as much as 20% of what you're paying for when you're buying a $25 LP. On the other hand there are labels, even big ones, with tighter staffing and more DIY oriented ethos like Goner that can sell something like a 2xLP of Carbonas singles & rarities for only $20 and still make a healthy profit.
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Mar 11, 2019 18:56
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CPL593H posted:I would think that royalty and licensing poo poo can be expensive sometimes. And is that 2100 price tag including mastering/remastering and cutting? Oh royalty and licensing can for sure be a sticking point as you scale upwards through the talent/fame pool, that's undeniable. But yeah just fwiw the $2100~ I cited includes everything that happens after getting your mix locked to the day you have a bunch of records cluttering up your living room and you're trying to figure out what the hell to do with them. Master for vinyl, carving and plating the mother and one initial stamper, center labels, 500 black LPs, and 500 cmyk jackets, and shipping. If you're interested in trying it out some time, I would recommend Imprint for jackets and full color centers and Aardvark or Carl Saff or Lucky for mastering to vinyl. There's a ton of places to press now, so that just depends on how much premium service you wanna pay for and if you're close enough to anywhere to do a pickup instead of shipping. I like the places that are a little cheaper and more old school (like Archer in Detroit), but I know a lot of people who happily press with plants that offer lots of premium extras like Pirates/CZ (who I will never work with again because I think the QC is all over the map) or big timers like URP (who I won't work with again because dealing with them is like dealing with your insurance company, and they have a big reputation for running hot and breaking stampers). I'm curious about the new plant here in Chicago but I won't be pressing again until probably this autumn.
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Mar 11, 2019 20:00
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CPL593H posted:That's pretty cool. Are you pressing your own music or are you a label? I'm one of the countless small labels doing the thing. It's called What's For Breakfast? Records and it mostly focuses on garage/garagepunk, but there's some shoegaze and heavy stuff from time to time. Here's some cell phone glamour shots of most of what I've pressed to wax, but I've also done a ton of tapes in between to keep things going. The front page of the website needs an update but the links to the bandcamp and the social media are current. If you like how something sounds, DM me—the Storenvy fees are getting crazy and I really want to get away from that platform ASAP. And color variants for most are almost sold out so I hold them for tabling at local label events, but I could route what's left of those to goons.          edit: fixed the link. Clearly I'm uhhh good at this. Bread Dragon fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Mar 12, 2019 |
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Mar 12, 2019 16:08
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GnarlyCharlie4u posted:This is cool and good. The cop-out answer of course is that I love them all, or I wouldn't have spent the cash, BUT I can offer some guidelines. Anyone who likes general all-purpose punk music can enjoy the Ellen and the Degenerates 45. The Bow & Spear LP (general shoegaze) or the Modern Convenience LP (Tennessee garagepunk with shades of Jay Reatard) also have crowd pleasing sounds. I really love The Wirms stuff I've released, but it's a little more odd—I always say they remind me of an Ozarks version of the first Meat Puppets EP, real manic. Ten High opened at Gonerfest this last go-round and they're about to play like a dozen shows at South By but some people hate paying $5-6 for a single. I love big hole singles even though it's admittedly stupid to press one ITYOOL 2019. Nothing purely electronic but I'm about to release a CD (and later in the year an LP) of a Kansas City band called Salty that sounds like the old British band The Cardiacs. I've also got a few distro copies of the new Science Man LP. CPL593H posted:Garage is extremely my poo poo, so you'll be hearing from me at some point. Thanks for the support and the heads up on the bad link! Holler anytime. I don't wanna poo poo up the thread without content so here's a shot of the beat up old James Gang LP I'm jamming while working from home. 
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Mar 12, 2019 19:47
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kingcobweb posted:What's the noisiest fuckin band you have dude. Blast some feedback into my ears just blow my brains out with distortion. This is a sincere post. I haven't pressed anything truly loving insane to wax. Bow & Spear sound gnarly live if you live in Chicago and they want to sound gnarly on their records, but they keep wilting when recording engineers move to clean up their sound. Missiles of October sound like Nomeansno but that's not exactly a noisy Melvins sound. The Bleeders tape I did a while back was gnarly as hell and the Sunwyrm stuff has had some gnarly basement hesher jank on it. The second Shitdels album is gonna hit wax later this year but that's noisy in the sense of 'old punks killed themselves a swamp witch with the reverb and tremolo cranked to 11' rather than like a noisy hardcore thing. I like noisy poo poo—one of my all time favorite modern full lengths is Black Fuzz on Wheels by Acid Eater—but none of that's come across my docket yet. No harm no foul if none of those descriptors work for you.
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Mar 14, 2019 02:59
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Within the last few days I picked up the new Uranium Club LP and a friend sent me a surprise 45. Both slay and it's a good week. 
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Mar 20, 2019 16:41
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MrSargent posted:Speaking of 45's above, does anyone in here actually collect 45's? A big portion of my collection is actually 45's and I have been spending a lot of time with a collector buddy who mainly focuses on 45s. Its almost a whole new world of record collecting compared to LP's. I have a few hundred garage/punk/budget rock 45s and the big hole single is conceptually my favorite format. I'm also slowly picking up country 45s when I see bargains. But like JehovahsWetness, I'm doing the occasional vinyl dj nights and walking in the door with the equivalent of two shoeboxes for a night of music is way easier than walking in the door with a handtruck loaded with three 12x12x12 boxes of LPs. Barry isn't wrong to say that they're a PITA, and most people don't give a gently caress about the format, but it's great for a few genres that coincidentally had commercial peaks before the year 2000. MrSargent posted:That's awesome man! I used to do some DJing with a DJ controller/laptop but would really like to do an all-vinyl set at some point. Would need to pick up another turntable, but I feel like I have a pretty good collection of stuff people would recognize and dance to. Thinking about transporting my turntables, mixer, and records to a venue does not sound like fun though. Look around your city and you'll be surprised how many bars have a full DJ rig set up in some neglected corner. Not everyone by any means but I bet you can find a few. You can probably give your own all-vinyl set a shot for the cost of a polite inquiry and a second cartridge.
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Mar 20, 2019 21:20
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CPL593H posted:I think that's just me. You're not alone  . All the same, welcome to the flock Dissapointed Owl, and bravo on the effort! I just had some plates arrive at the press plant like 3 weeks earlier than I thought they would, and more critically, 3 weeks before I have the money to pay the press plant. C'est la vie.
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Apr 26, 2019 23:14
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pwn posted:And from Bread Dragon, a noisy gooey blast It's been a few years so I can't remember the exacts, but that LP was co-released with a bunch of small labels to help make it happen in the USA, and I also did a WFBR-exclusive tape edition with a few alternate takes. All the download codes that I set up were sealed into the tape editions BUT you can get the LP version of the filez pay-what-you-want (aka free baby!) over at the band's own bandcamp page. I'm glad you like it!
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May 26, 2019 14:17
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Grand Prize Winner posted:Are those new-production 7"s with a big hole? I thought nobody made those anymore. I would say at this point ityool 2019, I see wayyyyy more big hole 45s than small hole. I love em—I sometimes DJ all 45s sets at local dive bars, doing country or garage/surf/punk, and big hole 45s are a little easier to handle in that context and it just feels good to casually toss them in the vicinity of a dome adaptor and let them take care of themselves.
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Jun 18, 2019 01:24
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EL BROMANCE posted:Tons of my 90s+ punk stuff is 33 1/3 7"s, lots of which think putting the speed on the label makes things too easy. There was an infamous clip of John Peel on BBC Radio 1 where he played the same song at both speeds because he wasn't sure which was correct. lmao yes, I've had to add little 33/45 stickers to the poly sleeves of a bunch of these so I don't do it wrong in a DJ environment. That's why I make sure everything on my label has very simple and legible centers. I've also got a ton of white label 45s from punk bands looking to cut like $30 off the price of pressing a record, which seems like the wrong $30 to save to me. Give me the drat info! I just go through and write on them because gently caress it. Grand Prize Winner posted:Is that a 33.3 7"? Neat. Like El Bromance explains, it's super common for a punk / indie / local band to do a 7" at 33 so they can fit four or more songs onto the disc and shoot their shot. The recommended cutoff time for a 7" at 45rpm is 4:30 per side. You can go longer, you just get fewer guarantees from press plants. The recommended cutoff time for a 7" at 33 is probably 7:00 or so per side. I've pressed at 33 in the past but I decided I won't anymore because the noise floor and the fidelity can be a bummer. Basically, the deeper and fatter the groove, the higher the fidelity and volume. If you're packing in more music, the grooves get closer together, which proportionally also makes them shallower. A 7" at 33 will usually lose at least 3dB off its output to balance that out, which means you have to crank your volume knob a little harder, which means a little more signal noise coming through and a wimpier overall sound. I cribbed this chart from Aardvark Mastering's website, I've always thought it to be interesting. You can see a 45 has about a third more fidelity from the outside groove to the inside. 
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Jun 30, 2019 14:06
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MrSargent posted:one of the best guitar solos of all time on Comfortably Numb. *the most Blues Lawyer guitar solo of all time. Hard pass on ever hearing that solo again in my entire life. And for more meaningful content, I tabled a record fair a few weeks ago and found the JLL and new old stock Big Eyes at another vendor's table. I had put the vendor's band on a little local festival a few weeks prior so he let me have both for a princely $12 cash. Then on the 3rd I was walking past Reckless in Wicker Park and figured what the hell and stepped in to dig the 45s. I pulled three winners for $6.50. That Big Huge EP on the bottom right is really good, I remember seeing them right when that came out and not having cash on me. Glad it came full circle. 
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Jul 8, 2019 15:07
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I'm phone posting from a parking lot like an unprepared scrub but in regards to Bandcamp no fee stuff, I'm a goon, I have a label, I press records, and you can check it out at wfbr.bandcamp.com. I can write about it at length in the future but that's the quick version. Cheers!
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Jul 3, 2020 19:43
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CPL593H posted:I HAVE BEEN DASHED UPON THE ROCKS BY YOUR SIREN SONG! marjorie posted:My wallet is angry I got home from the woods and I'm pleased as punch that someone took me up on my decidedly half-assed blurb. Thank you! I'll have these packed and dropped ASAP. These orders make up for my own recent splurges, so we're all making this same mistake over and over together forever.
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Jul 6, 2020 05:19
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Sweeper posted:VMP is upping their price to $43/month!! For one record!!! Lmfao even with color wax, premium jackets, and licensing, this is like 70% profit
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Aug 7, 2020 00:38
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abraham linksys posted:i wonder if they're paying massive amounts for licensing since labels know they want big ticket artists to keep the subscriptions going? They're probably paying more than I'm giving them credit for but based on the entire history of musicians being paid for their work combined with the nature of glossy contemporary subscription services, I'm not naturally inclined to be generous
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Aug 7, 2020 01:44
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dorium posted:Extra info that pressing plants are letting labels know if they don’t get metal works by the end of the year don’t expect pressing in 2021 Duh? The guys at the plants aren't just standing around idle waiting for another job to show up lol. Of course there's a queue. Two months from receiving metal parts to shipping a finished run would have been considered average ten years ago when there was way less demand. I'm not sure what point this gentleman is trying to make. Also Stoughton jackets loving suck, I hate working with them. Ross all the way.
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Nov 10, 2021 22:14
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pwn posted:I’m pretty sure he misspoke and meant 2022 I wondered if that's what he meant but I work at a small press plant and our lead is only 6 months for new jobs, with the caveat being that we aren't taking new customers outside of our local market rn. Other plants will have different policies but overall the landscape will self-moderate via price hikes and book closures. Eventually the majors will gently caress off a bit as well and the whole field will go back to being exclusively weird cranks.
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Nov 10, 2021 22:56
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Read After Burning posted:
I'm not particularly into the aesthetic of an obi and they drive me insane at the plant because they increase the amount of time it takes to pack & assemble an order by like 30%. One of our biggest customers puts them on everything. I've spent entire shifts just pre-folding the last inch of the drat things where you want them to catch before you fold over and sticker/tape it tight.
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Nov 18, 2021 03:49
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CaptainBeefart posted:A subscription for vinyl releases seems kind of gross/weird. Back when Singles Clubs for smaller labels were economically viable in the sub-$100 category for 6-12 singles from a label with a cohesive sound that you liked or that had a good reputation, they were rad. But putting now $300 on the chopping block for just four albums that you may or may not have any interest in whatsoever is, to me, madness. Sadly until a new lacquer plant opens to replace Apollo, 7" singles will be a diminished artifact on the landscape. pwn posted:With no concrete way to back it up I'm gonna guess that Third Man Pressing going online in mid-2017 had a hand in it, UPI had been the main (only?) plant in the States for years and their work was (is?) hit-and-miss, but for all one can say about Jack White (see my prior post,) he doesn't gently caress around with his pressings. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he forced UPI to up their QC. Even at the lowest point in vinyl production in the USA, there were probably eight or ten domestic plants of varying reputations. United has a relatively lovely reputation and they were turning out a lot of the bigger domestic presses. If you ever press at United, be prepared to buy extra stampers, because yours are gonna get broken. I personally wouldn't press anything at United to this day unless I had a giant label's lawyers backing me up to swing dong if something goes wrong. And a lot of stuff was being imported from GZ in that era, and they'll press whatever you send them without batting an eye or giving a heads up if it sounds bad. Lots of medium and smaller labels and off-label bands were getting great stuff from Archer, Musicol, Gotta Groove, and Rainbo in this era. BigFactory posted:Numero group reissued Karate’s records. That’s been a long time coming Two outta three pressed with love at my plant in Chicago.
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Jan 14, 2022 15:43
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Nightmare Cinema posted:I'm writing some music atm and I'm already thinking of what plants will give me the highest quality possible at a decent price for when the time comes (or whatever's possible for a double-LP at least). I'm always gonna put my thumb on the scale for working with a plant that's regional to you to arbitrarily increase the chance of buy-in from the presser, to boost the odds that you can rapidly troubleshoot headaches, and to save a scooch on the freight or even better allow for local pickup. Nothing concrete, just gut feeling stuff. I know a bigger indie label had like 8,000 LPs delayed by additional months due to the ocean freight crunch that hit last year. Might have been Castle Face? FWIW European plants went hard on DMM years ago -- I don't have a problem with it, but I know a lot of people turn up their noses at it compared to a hand-cut lacquer. I think that bias is mostly an artifact of the kinds of albums that were being pressed in the 80s when the DMM tech arose, but I'm no audiophile. This might be why Euro plants are way firmer on runtimes than American plants? I know some lacquer wizards that can really squeeze all the juice out of a disc for a traditional plating setup.
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Jan 15, 2022 18:31
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When you work at a press plant, the holiday party all-vinyl White Elephant gets pretty aggressive. At various points I held a nice clean copy of Electric Warrior, the 2000 reissue of Enter the Wu-Tang, and Otis Redding & Jimi Hendrix at Monterey Pop before ending with Think Pink by Twink. I was nowhere near the most stolen-from participant. Lots of great albums moving around, plus a few gags like a CB radio themed comp from the 70s and the Star Wars soundtrack. I contributed the Sweeping Promises LP (it's a good'n). Of course, the real star of the night was the pallet jack loaded up with beer.
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Dec 12, 2022 00:17
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Ballz posted:Yeah, sometimes the lacquer will be cut at one place and then sent somewhere else to be pressed (usually GZ) because the first pressing plant doesn't have the capacity to press it themselves. Most are fairly small operations, with GZ being the largest pressing plant still in existence today so a lot of the larger releases get sent over there. Is GZ not 100% DMM?
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Jan 23, 2024 00:22
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