record pressing

[SewnFlesh]

anybody have information about pressing 12" vinyl.. best place to get it done on the west coast, cost per lp, etc. I realize there are many factors that modify this price.. just trying to get a ballpark figure for pressing just the vinyl (no artwork / packaging). i'd be looking at maximum of 200 lps.

Also, anybody know what the maximum time you print on one lp?

just curious about where people are getting their vinyl done.

[tylerp]

I think these are the most commonly used plants in the states:
rainbo
archer
bill smith
erika
united

all have websites, most with price quotes. there's also pirates press which uses GZ in the czech republic, known for their weirdly sharp records, predictably stupid splatter styles, and supposedly possibly transferring digital files (sometimes even low quality ones) rather than shipping master tapes or cds to the plant. but pirates press offers all in one packages so lots of kids use them.

there's a couple brokers here who have deals with the plants but sometimes it's not a better deal than going direct with the plant. I think lucky laquers is one that people here use.

I don't know who does vinyl mastering nearby (ie actually mastering FOR vinyl) but a commonly used one is aardvark. another one is bonati, I think, which is a bit more expensive.

regarding packaging, most materials are available for fairly cheap at bagsunlimited (a website). some places (like imprint) have some nice deals with printing artwork and doing cover packaging.

I think there's a place in montreal that's a broker and does some packaging. I forget the name. samo? soma? samo, I think. they have a website too.

googling will get you to anywhere I mentioned. find the cheapest deals, try to resist all-in-one packages.

[Andrew]

Tyler's on point.

[SewnFlesh]

I think these are the most commonly used plants in the states:
rainbo
archer
bill smith
erika
united

all have websites, most with price quotes. there's also pirates press which uses GZ in the czech republic, known for their weirdly sharp records, predictably stupid splatter styles, and supposedly possibly transferring digital files (sometimes even low quality ones) rather than shipping master tapes or cds to the plant. but pirates press offers all in one packages so lots of kids use them.

there's a couple brokers here who have deals with the plants but sometimes it's not a better deal than going direct with the plant. I think lucky laquers is one that people here use.

I don't know who does vinyl mastering nearby (ie actually mastering FOR vinyl) but a commonly used one is aardvark. another one is bonati, I think, which is a bit more expensive.

regarding packaging, most materials are available for fairly cheap at bagsunlimited (a website). some places (like imprint) have some nice deals with printing artwork and doing cover packaging.

I think there's a place in montreal that's a broker and does some packaging. I forget the name. samo? soma? samo, I think. they have a website too.

googling will get you to anywhere I mentioned. find the cheapest deals, try to resist all-in-one packages.

thanks tyler.. I think were going to do artwork/packaging mostly ourselves so I just need mastering for vinyl and printing. I'll look into the ones you mentioned above.

cheers!

[age of quarrel]

tyler said pretty much everything i would have said and more

[tylerp]

this is what I get for posting on vivalavinyl for half a decade. these threads pop up all the time there.

I forgot to add that you should really resist letting the pressing plant do the mastering. they tend to charge a little bit more than another place but they do a really bad/rushed job. you can usually hear a record that had the mastering done at the plant. it's tinny and an automated process as opposed to having an actual person listen and do it with dedication.

also it might be a good idea to get the plates shipped back to you in case you ever want to do another pressing. that can save you a lot of money in the long run, even if you don't plan right now on doing a second pressing, cause you never know.

200 lps is an interesting number. that's a very short individual run. it might get a little expensive. record pressing is the kind of thing where it follows a price/quantity curve where doing a few records costs a LOT per record and doing a lot of them costs a lot less per final individual piece. I think this is especially true of LPs which tend to have more of a surcharge or setup charge. doing 300 might make it a little more worth it. if you don't think you'll sell 300, you might want to question your choice of putting an LP out. especially if your recording costs are pricey at all. what band is this for? if you're going to tour with it a couple times or whatever, it should be fine. then again, if you're putting out 200 LPs, selling 140ish at slightly marked up prices, and breaking even on the whole operation, that's totally fine if it accomplishes what you want, right?

[age of quarrel]

like aram once told me that dave larson told him "if your arent prepared to have 500 copies of a record sit in your closet dont put it out"

[SewnFlesh]

this is what I get for posting on vivalavinyl for half a decade. these threads pop up all the time there.

I forgot to add that you should really resist letting the pressing plant do the mastering. they tend to charge a little bit more than another place but they do a really bad/rushed job. you can usually hear a record that had the mastering done at the plant. it's tinny and an automated process as opposed to having an actual person listen and do it with dedication.

also it might be a good idea to get the plates shipped back to you in case you ever want to do another pressing. that can save you a lot of money in the long run, even if you don't plan right now on doing a second pressing, cause you never know.

200 lps is an interesting number. that's a very short individual run. it might get a little expensive. record pressing is the kind of thing where it follows a price/quantity curve where doing a few records costs a LOT per record and doing a lot of them costs a lot less per final individual piece. I think this is especially true of LPs which tend to have more of a surcharge or setup charge. doing 300 might make it a little more worth it. if you don't think you'll sell 300, you might want to question your choice of putting an LP out. especially if your recording costs are pricey at all. what band is this for? if you're going to tour with it a couple times or whatever, it should be fine. then again, if you're putting out 200 LPs, selling 140ish at slightly marked up prices, and breaking even on the whole operation, that's totally fine if it accomplishes what you want, right?

depending on where you go the price between 100-500 per record is not huge but I agree that doing 500 would make the most sense and is the best price/quantity. I have no idea how many we'll sell.. its for my band Nomad that just did a recording a couple weeks ago. were looking into the cost of putting it out ourselves and yeah if you make 200 and sell 140 we'd pretty much break even and have a nice piece of vinyl that were happy with. There are five of us in the band that can share the cost so even a couple thousand dollars isn't crazy if we split it.

Agree about having mastering done at the plant, it never crossed my mind until I saw that some plants do offer mastering.

The thought of putting out a record for this recording never really crossed our minds until we started listening to the mixes and thought that we'd actually be really happy to put it out on vinyl. Were not 100% gonna do it but i'm definitely looking at the costs as putting out a record would be alot of fun.

[tylerp]

http://www.rip-v.com

looks like canada has a new pressing plant! this is crazy. I do not know their prices at all. it might even be more expensive than using the states, especially considering how far east it is, just thought I'd drop this bit of information down.

you can also find a lot of information with smart google searches. looking for all those plants I mentioned in one search brings up a ton of message board threads from other places about what they've used, what they like/don't like, etc.

from what I remember from vlv, united is cheap but slow and they don't have good communication. bill smith is a good compromise between price and quality and communication. erika is amazing quality and can do lots of crazy custom jobs but tend to run a bit expensive. I don't know much about rainbo but one of the guys in victoria used it for a mexican power authority record and it looks/plays nice.

[Andrew]

I don't know much about rainbo

Rainbo is who fucked up the last Damages 7" that it had to be repressed/repressed on different vinyl. Their prices are good but they can be a pain.

[SewnFlesh]

thanks for all the info guys.. really appreciate it.

[tylerp]

how did the damages 7" get fucked up? I like how these plants give DIY labels/bands low priority since the majors are using plants again and doing runs of several thousand again. it's the DIY labels/bands that kept them in functional operation when everyone else stopped giving a fuck about vinyl. sigh.

[Human-Demise]

bumping this.
human demise is recording soon, and we want to put it out as a 7inch, but we need someone affordable AND able to do a small run. as I dont think we can sell 300 of them. also theres only two members in my band so that doesnt diffuse the cost very much.

[Noelle CDP]

Anything record or vinyl related I recomend talking to Taylor Geddes from Just Say No Records or probably Wolf from Iskra might know too.

I know has done that for a long time and dealt with different plants and probably has some contacts too.

[Human-Demise]

minutes after posting i found pretty much exactly what i was looking for.

[Andrew]

minutes after posting i found pretty much exactly what i was looking for.

Which was?

[destroy]

the agent for rainbo is called samo, and I believe they're based out of toronto. we went through them for the tempest LP. it was decent, and they had good communication allowing a pretty wicked turn-around time. this meant me having to throw down a whack of money on a whim so we could get them on time, but it was worth it.

if you want a tiny amount of records you could get a lathe. the first tempest 7" was done by Peter King in New Zealand. weird process, very expensive, and a very unique result. the record sounds way kvlt compared to the recording. people generally don't like lathes a lot.

imprint is good for covers too. cheapest option out there and the quality is good.

ultimately it's probabaly worth it to just suck it up and press 300 or whatever the plant will do and sit on the waste. it's sad to see a lot of waste and can be depressing knowing you've got something you can't get rid of, but hunter's quote rings true...

[Andrew]

Much of the cost of pressing is in the set up. The difference in price between 100 records and 200 doesn't tend to be that much (ie. you can typically get twice as many records for $50-100 more). You might not be saving that much by pressing a small amount.