sneakyimp

I'm aware that it is important to get the master lacquer to the metal plating folks as quickly as possible. Masterdisk, who recommended VDP in the first place, will be overnighting my master lacquer to Paris. I am already committed to VDP so I'll have to just hope for the best at this point.

The cardboard cassette mailers rock. They would give me peace of mind if I were sending out a shipment of tapes.
 
If you are charging for shipping yourself, I'd simply charge enough for shipping and handling costs to cover the cost of them. Just be transparent about why you'd might be charging $5 to mail a tape and people would be appreciate knowing they're getting safe packaging. 
 
 

TIL. Yikes, these people suck. 

Well, I know it's time consuming, but I create my own "boxes" from rectangle piece of cardboard (with no sides) - simply to save money.
Shipping internationally, it's bulletproof.

I think bubble mailers would be fine just be sure to wrap each tape thoroughly with bubble wrap and backing cardboard on the front and back of the case so the cases don't get cracked in transit. 

https://www.amazon.com/cassette-mailer/s?k=cassette+mailer
 
so there is no dealing with ULINE

Scott Hull does great work you should be pleased, can't comment on the other 2 plants but gotta groove presses good records. There is some misinformation given to you GZ can cut from lacquer but I would not recommend cutting a lacquerer locally and shipping it to Europe you generally want the lacquer put to metal plating as quickly as possible 

I'm happy to report some progress. A friend had wisely advised me to make sure I had everything in hand (artwork, masters, possibly my own lacquer, money) before contacting the pressing company. I decided it was finally time to look at getting lacquers cut -- even though I was worried about getting a lacquer cut and nowhere to press it -- and finally talked to my mastering guy (Alex DeTurk, who is really great) and asked who he'd recommend to cut a lacquer and he referred me to Scott Hull at Masterdisk. This really broke the log jam.
 
Scott Hull is not cheap, but he's quite well known and Masterdisk has some of the best gear in the world. His secret weapon is his studio manager, Mickie Steier, who is super nice and friendly and who directly introduced me to 3 different contacts at three different pressing companies. She first mentioned Vinyl De Paris, saying they had done some 'beautiful test pressings.' She also said Microforum in Canada was good. And lastly, she connected me to someone at Gotta Groove. Mickie's introduction cleared away a lot of the suspicion I might otherwise have encountered by contacting these companies directly because they know she works at Masterdisk and that she's serious. It also reassured me to have her recommendation because Masterdisk knows what they are doing.
 
I contacted all 3 companies and learned that Gotta Groove currently has a 10-month turnaround time. Microforum estimated  26 to 28 weeks for turnaround (although I think they'll let you pay a rush fee to reduce this considerably) and VDP said their turnaround time was 14 weeks. I decided to go with VDP and have sent off my artwork. Unfortunately, everyone in Paris goes on vacation in August, so this will slow things down by 4 weeks, but I should receive my vinyl around November if all goes well. I've received my test lacquer from Scott Hull and I played it and I'm PUMPED.
 
My experience with Scott & Mickie at Masterdisk has been really encouraging, and VDP has been very helpful, too. They answer all my questions clearly and promptly, and I'm impressed with their attention to detail so far.

I'm happy to report some progress. A friend had wisely advised me to make sure I had everything in hand (artwork, masters, possibly my own lacquer, money) before contacting the pressing company. I decided it was finally time to look at getting lacquers cut -- even though I was worried about getting a lacquer cut and nowhere to press it -- and finally talked to my mastering guy (Alex DeTurk, who is really great) and asked who he'd recommend to cut a lacquer and he referred me to Scott Hull at Masterdisk. This really broke the log jam.
 
Scott Hull is not cheap, but he's quite well known and Masterdisk has some of the best gear in the world. His secret weapon is his studio manager, Mickie Steier, who is super nice and friendly and who directly introduced me to 3 different contacts at three different pressing companies. She first mentioned Vinyl De Paris, saying they had done some 'beautiful test pressings.' She also said Microforum in Canada was good. And lastly, she connected me to someone at Gotta Groove. Mickie's introduction cleared away a lot of the suspicion I might otherwise have encountered by contacting these companies directly because they know she works at Masterdisk and that she's serious. It also reassured me to have her recommendation because Masterdisk knows what they are doing.
 
I contacted all 3 companies and learned that Gotta Groove currently has a 10-month turnaround time. Microforum estimated  26 to 28 weeks for turnaround (although I think they'll let you pay a rush fee to reduce this considerably) and VDP said their turnaround time was 14 weeks. I decided to go with VDP and have sent off my artwork. Unfortunately, everyone in Paris goes on vacation in August, so this will slow things down by 4 weeks, but I should receive my vinyl around November if all goes well. I've received my test lacquer from Scott Hull and I played it and I'm PUMPED.
 
My experience with Scott & Mickie at Masterdisk has been really encouraging, and VDP has been very helpful, too. They answer all my questions clearly and promptly, and I'm impressed with their attention to detail so far.

You want to go with Dunk! Pressing.  They've been cranking out really nice products and are about to scale up in a big, BIG way.  Their turnarounds are not crazy, and they are some of the nicest people.  Shipping from Belgium.  I have so many of their records, and they all sound great.  They're still small enough to care about the product and not just crank out shit to make product.  They're good people, I know them personally through their festival.  You can tell Wout and Luc that Greg sent you. 
 
https://www.dunkpressing.com/

I saw you mentioned Gotta Groove Records in Cleveland. I am currently in the middle of pressing my album with them and it has been a pretty smooth process so far. I just approved my lacquer and it sounded great. Any question I have they have answered within a day or two. So far I have no complaints. I'm not scheduled to actually get it until spring of 2023 but I think you are going to run into that with all pressing plants at the moment. 
 
Best of luck! SDK was a jam and my band used to play it all the time at our practices....

I haven't used Smashed Plastic (Chicago) but I know people who work there and the quality of the stuff i've seen come out of there's been good. Not sure on what wait times are like. I've used Gotta Groove (Cleveland) the most and was always happy with the product. The one time there was an issue, they were quick to address it and replace all the records. Both also do jackets/packaging.
The first record I pressed, I used Pirates Press. I was mostly happy with the product, but would've gone elsewhere if I had known better. One of the reasons they get a bad rap is because audio quality on their releases is sometimes not great. A big reason this is the case is that they will use whatever you give them and you'd be surprised how many people have given them 128 kbps mp3s and things not properly mixed for vinyl. Most other plants will have higher standards because they don't want to have to deal with pissed off people when the record sounds like shit. The record I had was properly mastered for DMM and sounds really good. Unfortunately, some of the jackets were printed off center and had a thick line on one of the borders that wasn't present in the proofs. Their single pocket standard jackets have super thin spines which is kind of a bummer. Also, the hidden shipping costs are definitely higher because they ship from GZ in Czech Republic. As @smailtronicsaid, pressing domestically makes a ton of sense, just from a shipping cost standpoint. 

Two month turnaround, short run experts and all done in-house. You'll be hard pressed to do much better than these guys.
 
https://www.mobineko.com/

I would say the hate against Pirates is overblown. I think the main issue was with many of their splatter/haze/etc. records having a grainy residue. Some of their records are a bit noisy, and they used to sometimes have a low level whooshing sound (this might have been a DMM issue... but I haven't noticed this in years). But honestly, the majority of what they put out sounds quite good. Maybe most importantly, I have personally never experienced an off-center pressing from them, and that is the defect that I find to be the most infuriating and detrimental to the sound of the record.  Compared to the garbage quality I've seen from places like United, I'd rather take something from Pirates/GZ any day.

I press all my records at Packaged Sounds in UK. https://packagedsounds.com/
Tom Reiss runs it and he's been a good buddy of mine through these forums for a decade now.
They specialize in very artistic colored vinyl. Here are some pics of records they pressed for me. They also printed the artwork:
 

As a fan, half the records I get pressed at GZ are scratched up from their paper inner sleeves.
Also not a fan of direct metal mastering. Though recently I've seen labels that have their own lacquers made, but use GZ for the pressing.

As a consumer, all the time. Especially in recent years. It seems like every other new pressing I have gotten lately is jacked up in some way. Scuffs, scratching, warps, etc. Or they just don't sound good in general. Plant QC has became quite the issue through the pandemic boom.

That's really awesome. Matt Damon is a great actor and that's a really cool accomplishment.

Ehhh i should not have mentioned it. I got defensive when youspinmeround said I have 'no experience.' It's SDK in the movie Eurotrip. I share credit with three other guys.

Ehhh i should not have mentioned it. I got defensive when youspinmeround said I have 'no experience.' It's SDK in the movie Eurotrip. I share credit with three other guys.

Ha! You're welcome. Matty's a tool, I'll bet.

No clue about quality but:
 
https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/2022/04/26/2429225/0/en/Copycats-Media-Introduces-Vinyl-Record-Manufacturing.html

Yeah, RTI is in suburban LA, and they put out a really nice product! Oh, and if you have a guy cut a lacquer for you, you can't use Pirates. DMM doesn't use lacquer, it cuts on a different material disc

Good luck, Ross (ETR dude) has always been a sketchy businessman, but I'd guess he licensed it through the company that put out the movie.

My girlfriend is in the process of switching jobs and her boss's name is Matt. I sing my own modified.version of this song daily to her. Thanks for making it