petgrief

This is great. I've needed this record in my life for a long time.

I love that Var album. I sprung for the box set, so now I have a length of rope that I can use to strangle my dick while I listen. I wouldn't have known what to do with it, but they were nice enough to enclose a how-to photo.

Thanks for trying to make this happen, Jesse. Agree that the new cost was probably too much.

Pay up, you honkies. I don't want to miss the red vinyl.

I've gotten some very large orders from overseas and have never had to pay any fees. Most of the time it's from an ebay or discogs seller, but I have ordered $350+ from European retailers on a couple occasions and haven't had to pay anything. The customs form had the full value listed in both instances. That's no guarantee that it will be the case here, but that's been my experience over the last 10 years of buying heavily. On the off chance you do get hit with customs, I think the agreement in advance needs to be that everyone will chip in to cover their share before they get a record.

I'd be down for a group buy.

FYI, don't wait much longer on this if you're planning to get the vinyl bundle. Only 47 left as of right now.

We rarely do printed inner sleeves. Doesn't have anything to do with seam splits, they are just ridiculously expensive for what they are. We had a printed inner for the deluxe version of Bright Eyes "The People's Key", but RTI has a policy of putting the record in a poly sleeve, and then inserting the empty printed inner separately. We didn't know that when we designed the package. I don't remember hearing much about inner seam splits, I wonder if it had to do with the tighter tip-on style jackets those had? Correct me if I'm wrong though, you guys that got them in the mail. At any rate, it's not something we normally do. EDIT: RTI's policy is for 180 gram only, I think. And it's due to paper scuffs, which is the real reason I'm not a huge fan of printed inners. They seem worse than plain white inners as far as that goes, maybe due to the weight of the stock? Regardless, everything goes into poly-lined inners at my house.

You definitely have to not free-hand the cut. The method I used was a utility knife like this one ($3.14) http://www.dickblick.com/products/excel-plastic-handle-utility-knife/?clickTracking=true&CAWELAID=520010530000041982 Then get a metal yard stick like this ($5.24) http://www.dickblick.com/products/c-thru-aluminum-yardmeter-stick/?clickTracking=true&CAWELAID=520010530000059339 You need to have something underneath to keep from damaging your floor. I have one of those large self-healing cutting mats, but you could use a big flattened box if you are careful not to over cut. Measure out your cuts and trace them with a pencil using the yard stick. Then you use the metal yard stick as a cutting guide. Have someone help you to hold the yard stick in place, and gently drag the utility knife along the edge of the yard stick on top of your pencil line. You want to use moderate pressure, and make a number of cuts. Go slow so you don't waver off the edge of the yard stick, or slip and cut off your thumb (Seriously! Be careful and go slow. If you're klutzy, this could be dangerous). Keep doing these cuts until you get all the way through. Then go onto your next one. It takes a little while, but after you get the hang of it, it's not that time consuming.

Thanks!

http://imgur.com/6VWQDDI Above is a photo of what I did. I have heavy drapes up now, but didn't when I took the photo. They usually stay open, with just sheers over the windows. A little hard to see, but the photo shows the rubber feet in the top center of each cube. I have 7"s and 10"s in the boxes along the bottom row. When I get some time I'm going to paint them to match the Expedit. I'm also going to install some 1x2s in the back of each cube to keep the LPs a uniform distance from the front. If the records end up getting pushed back too far, the card squares will tilt back and it doesn't look good.

I have this same issue. I have curtains up, but my wife didn't want them closed all the time. I have large windows on two different walls, so that's understandable. I cut out squares of heavy posterboard (the good kind that they sell at Dick Blick or Hobby Lobby, not the flimsy variety). They sell a bunch of different colors. I went with a few variations of warm dark gray, as that fit my room decor, but you can find any combination you like. I made them just 1/8" smaller than the inside of the cubes so there's only a 1/16" gap around the edges. In order to keep them from falling out the front of the cubes, I used self-adhesive rubber pads like these: http://www.acehardware.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3674937 These are mounted under the top edge of each cube, one each, in the center. You just need to make sure to get ones that are thick enough to go past the height of the card square. To remove the card square, you press on the top side of the square and the bottom will pop out for removal. To re-insert, you slide it in from below, so the top edge goes behind the rubber pad. Then push the bottom of the card square into the cube so it's vertical. This keeps the sun off my expedit, and also keeps my 2 year old from bothering them. I also looked into UV window film, which has to be professionally installed. It would be better than nothing, but to get a high rating of protection it needs to be somewhat dark. The clear films help, but long term I would still worry about fading.

Specifically relating to AinR, they had problems with the Sigur Ros and Beck box sets that were pressed at Rainbo. That's supposedly why they switched to Pallas. http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/has-anyone-had-any-experience-with-artist-in-residence.171102/ They are cheap for a reason. Google user reviews of the Beatles Box Set they did recently. There are many complaints about the quality. You don't hear stuff like this about RTI. You get what you pay for. EDIT: here's one thread. http://www.amazon.com/Quality-issues/forum/FxUMOU7210LYBW/TxL1HAV5N8HLTI/1?asin=B0041KVW2K

Cool, mainly just curious.

What's the discogs rule about listing parts of a box set separately? I'm guessing since the mislabeled records weren't available separately, they wouldn't get their own entries, no? If anything, the corrected versions would get entries since those will be sent out separately from the box set. I could be completely wrong, of course.

It wasn't too much of a stretch to assume this was Rainbo, heh. I'm not familiar with Pallas at all. I guess they did the Transatlanticism remaster/reissue, which supposedly sounds excellent.

According to Barsuk (via this thread on stevehoffman), these were pressed at Pallas, not Rainbo. Post #12 here: http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/death-cab-for-cutie-the-barsuk-years-180g-vinyl-box-set-from-arists-in-residence.300991/

I'm frustrated, but I know that occasionally stuff gets fucked up in our mail order too. Being good friends with the guy who runs our online store, I just imagine myself bitching him out and it calms me down. Also, I think the person who would get yelled at via email is sometimes (often?) not the person directly responsible for the error. Especially in this case if it's primarily a website problem. It does help me put things in perspective that it's a small operation vs a giant corporation. If it were a big corporation they would have no excuse.

Yeah, I ordered after it had been up a maximum of an hour or two. A co-worker who ordered after me got his. Hopefully they can get their operation straightened out, they have so many good releases. I'm somewhere around 50/50 for orders having problems so far.

I ordered this right after it went live, I don't understand how I missed out. What a bummer.

You could definitely be right, I'm way out of my area of expertise here. Not sure about the first Good Life album, but I think that one is still on Better Looking.

We actually licensed En Garde from Initial Records, which from their website appear to be no longer active. I'm not sure what the deal would be with it at this point, who owns what rights, the master, etc. Your best bet is to email info *at* saddle-creek *dot* com, and we'll try to get you an answer. Thanks! As far as Black Out and the first couple Cursive records, I think those are going to happen at some point. Can't promise anything, but I'm definitely pushing for it!

Regarding the Maria Taylor and Criteria vinyl pressings, we agree. We just wouldn't want to put them in the budgetary hole doing expensive vinyl pressings that might take a while to sell through. I think Maria Taylor especially tends to have more of a CD-buying fan base.

Sorry, I haven't heard about the Sub Pop reissue pressing quantity. Might want to send them an email.

That is definitely possible. Unfortunately I don't have all of the pressing versions to be able to compare the matrices. I have a couple different pressings of a few titles. I'll take a look at those and see what I can find out. I will admit that matrix inscriptions have always been pretty cryptic to me. They differ from plant to plant, and I have trouble interpreting them in any meaningful way. I'd heard that records inscribed with a "-1" or "(1)" at the end can imply that it was from the first set of stampers. But we've received true first pressings that are marked (2) at the end.