jailhouse Posted November 9, 2010 Share Posted November 9, 2010 Right now, you guys are the most expensive plant out there behind RTI. I've been dying to check you guys out, but have a hard time justifying the dramatic increase in cost's compared to our current plant.Any plans on possibly dropping things to a bit more competitive edge? I know both me and a lot of other labels I have spoken with have the same concerns. It's always awesome to check out a new place, especially a owner operated place, but it's also extremely risky from a label perspective when we want to deviate from our current, trusted plants to try out the new guy on the block. Any plans on possibly price matching or beating labels current preffered plant rates, in order to drum up some new label business? This is not meant as crap talk in the least, I have heard nothing but excellent things about you guys, but the pricing makes it a tough sell for those of us who have been using the same plant for a long time. I'm in Chicago and I'd easily move all my work to you, just, if nothing else, to have a more local plant, so I'd be interested in discussing this off the board as well if you didn't feel comfortable doing this exchange on a mesageboard. But yeah everyone speaks very highly of your work. do you do in-house plating or is that aspect outsourced to Mastercraft? Same here, and my apologies for possibly sounding rude, or blunt. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
donlombardo Posted November 9, 2010 Share Posted November 9, 2010 Name a few records that you liked that you've done! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thieves Posted November 9, 2010 Author Share Posted November 9, 2010 any sort of sales questions/etc should go to [email protected]. as a person who is day-to-day on the floor of the place, i honestly don't even know our rates. as for getting people jobs, i can't help you out. i just don't have the pull and we only have a small handful of employees. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cactusbot Posted November 9, 2010 Share Posted November 9, 2010 I'm in Chicago and I'd easily move all my work to you, just, if nothing else, to have a more local plant, so I'd be interested in discussing this off the board as well if you didn't feel comfortable doing this exchange on a mesageboard. But yeah everyone speaks very highly of your work. do you do in-house plating or is that aspect outsourced to Mastercraft? Mastercraft. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thieves Posted November 9, 2010 Author Share Posted November 9, 2010 How long does it take to set up and clean up a job? Do you fill up a hopper with a vinyl color and then press all of your current orders that want that color continuously instead of cleaning the press after every job? man i wish we had presses specifically for certain colors, but we don't. we do a thorough clean out of the machine as many times as the client has paid for. if they have four color variants but only pay for one transition, we'll do the clean-out for the color they specify or whatever makes the most sense. it's hardest to make a clean white or clear record, but easy to transition out of that. whenever you see a record with what looks like a peacock feather or parabola of another color in it, that's from a little bit of the last color still being in the nozzle of the machine. those marks can stick around for hundreds of records. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thieves Posted November 9, 2010 Author Share Posted November 9, 2010 I'm in Chicago and I'd easily move all my work to you, just, if nothing else, to have a more local plant, so I'd be interested in discussing this off the board as well if you didn't feel comfortable doing this exchange on a mesageboard. But yeah everyone speaks very highly of your work. do you do in-house plating or is that aspect outsourced to Mastercraft? Mastercraft. we're looking into getting a local partner to get into the plating, as a lot of issues we have seem to happen sometime between getting the lacquer cut and getting the stampers to us. we have our own local guy with a beautiful, newly restored lathe and the minute we switched to him as our go-to guy a lot of issues we used to have our gone. i really have my fingers crossed for some non-plant competitors to mastercraft to show up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
donlombardo Posted November 9, 2010 Share Posted November 9, 2010 How long does it take to set up and clean up a job? Do you fill up a hopper with a vinyl color and then press all of your current orders that want that color continuously instead of cleaning the press after every job? man i wish we had presses specifically for certain colors, but we don't. we do a thorough clean out of the machine as many times as the client has paid for. if they have four color variants but only pay for one transition, we'll do the clean-out for the color they specify or whatever makes the most sense. it's hardest to make a clean white or clear record, but easy to transition out of that. whenever you see a record with what looks like a peacock feather or parabola of another color in it, that's from a little bit of the last color still being in the nozzle of the machine. those marks can stick around for hundreds of records. So that's what that is... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thieves Posted November 9, 2010 Author Share Posted November 9, 2010 How long does it take to set up and clean up a job? Do you fill up a hopper with a vinyl color and then press all of your current orders that want that color continuously instead of cleaning the press after every job? man i wish we had presses specifically for certain colors, but we don't. we do a thorough clean out of the machine as many times as the client has paid for. if they have four color variants but only pay for one transition, we'll do the clean-out for the color they specify or whatever makes the most sense. it's hardest to make a clean white or clear record, but easy to transition out of that. whenever you see a record with what looks like a peacock feather or parabola of another color in it, that's from a little bit of the last color still being in the nozzle of the machine. those marks can stick around for hundreds of records. oh but for transition between colors, a full clean-out of the machine can take anywhere from 45 minutes to a couple hours, depending on how finicky the machine is being. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thieves Posted November 9, 2010 Author Share Posted November 9, 2010 Name a few records that you liked that you've done! the one client we have that always impresses me is st. ives records. they only do really small runs and they go as inexpensive as possible (100% recycled material, they screen their own covers, etc, etc) and they seem to get the biggest ROI of any of our clients, plus they stuff they put out is just consistently fascinating. i was particularly impressed by the new viktor sjorberg record. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djones0930 Posted November 9, 2010 Share Posted November 9, 2010 I love this thread! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
donlombardo Posted November 9, 2010 Share Posted November 9, 2010 http://www.myspace.com/viktorsjoberg ? Seems like a Swedish dude. Cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thieves Posted November 9, 2010 Author Share Posted November 9, 2010 oops, yeah I'm a terrible speller. that's him Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
donlombardo Posted November 9, 2010 Share Posted November 9, 2010 Cool... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gabpower Posted November 9, 2010 Share Posted November 9, 2010 Wow! I've been waiting for this kind of thread for so long! Thanks for the amazing info! - Do you have a few unique pieces that you made for yourself? (you don't really have to respond to that one if it's not safe) - I heard that molten vinyl releases a very toxic substance in the air. Do you wear masks or the air is adequate? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theinkd Posted November 9, 2010 Share Posted November 9, 2010 can i order a small run of around 300 10" directly from your company? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jasonskanks Posted November 9, 2010 Share Posted November 9, 2010 i dont think that they do 10" records. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gmoney Posted November 9, 2010 Share Posted November 9, 2010 I expected this thread to be stupid. I was wrong. Thread backed. Thanks man for the info - good stuff! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottheisel Posted November 9, 2010 Share Posted November 9, 2010 Right now, you guys are the most expensive plant out there behind RTI. I've been dying to check you guys out, but have a hard time justifying the dramatic increase in cost's compared to our current plant.Any plans on possibly dropping things to a bit more competitive edge? I know both me and a lot of other labels I have spoken with have the same concerns. It's always awesome to check out a new place, especially a owner operated place, but it's also extremely risky from a label perspective when we want to deviate from our current, trusted plants to try out the new guy on the block. Any plans on possibly price matching or beating labels current preffered plant rates, in order to drum up some new label business? This is not meant as crap talk in the least, I have heard nothing but excellent things about you guys, but the pricing makes it a tough sell for those of us who have been using the same plant for a long time. I take that striked out part back, that sounded rude, and after thinking a bit, it is probably not absolutely correct, but it is up there.. As thieves mentioned, they do the whole "one-stop shop" thing, printing covers, download codes, etc. all in-house. However, tey have absolutely no problem with a customer not using one of those services and will subtract from a quote accordingly. For example, I have a 7-inch by a band called Heks Orkest at Gotta Groove right now, and we had it mastered by Salt in NYC (who also cut lacquers). Matt at GGR had no issue subtracting the cost of that from the final total (and I actually ended up saving something like $30). But yeah, anyone with pricing questions should definitely email Matt at [email protected]—dude is always on top of his email, and is super-friendly to work with. I'm definitely a Gotta Groove customer for life, it feels great to support local business! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thieves Posted November 9, 2010 Author Share Posted November 9, 2010 Wow! I've been waiting for this kind of thread for so long! Thanks for the amazing info!- Do you have a few unique pieces that you made for yourself? (you don't really have to respond to that one if it's not safe) - I heard that molten vinyl releases a very toxic substance in the air. Do you wear masks or the air is adequate? It would take a lot of effort/time to make something special/weird so no, anything I might have from the plant is pretty standard, although happy mistakes happen somewhat often. the vinyl is only toxic if it burns. at a molten, but not burning state, it's perfectly safe. we do have some intense ventilation in place for those rare instances when vinyl ends up burning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thieves Posted November 9, 2010 Author Share Posted November 9, 2010 salt is one of my favorite mastering houses btw. their stuff typically presses well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thieves Posted November 9, 2010 Author Share Posted November 9, 2010 although we just got a DMM (well, not technically, we don't have DMM-brand-approved molds on our machines) job from abbey road and it was the best sounding, easiest to press set of stampers ever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steviex2shoes Posted November 9, 2010 Share Posted November 9, 2010 Right now, you guys are the most expensive plant out there behind RTI. I've been dying to check you guys out, but have a hard time justifying the dramatic increase in cost's compared to our current plant.Any plans on possibly dropping things to a bit more competitive edge? I know both me and a lot of other labels I have spoken with have the same concerns. It's always awesome to check out a new place, especially a owner operated place, but it's also extremely risky from a label perspective when we want to deviate from our current, trusted plants to try out the new guy on the block. Any plans on possibly price matching or beating labels current preffered plant rates, in order to drum up some new label business? This is not meant as crap talk in the least, I have heard nothing but excellent things about you guys, but the pricing makes it a tough sell for those of us who have been using the same plant for a long time. I take that striked out part back, that sounded rude, and after thinking a bit, it is probably not absolutely correct, but it is up there.. As thieves mentioned, they do the whole "one-stop shop" thing, printing covers, download codes, etc. all in-house. However, tey have absolutely no problem with a customer not using one of those services and will subtract from a quote accordingly. For example, I have a 7-inch by a band called Heks Orkest at Gotta Groove right now, and we had it mastered by Salt in NYC (who also cut lacquers). Matt at GGR had no issue subtracting the cost of that from the final total (and I actually ended up saving something like $30). But yeah, anyone with pricing questions should definitely email Matt at [email protected]—dude is always on top of his email, and is super-friendly to work with. I'm definitely a Gotta Groove customer for life, it feels great to support local business! Did you just sort of announce one of the 2 new releases YCR is doing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aarondanger Posted November 9, 2010 Share Posted November 9, 2010 You didn't say no... i don't feel like losing my job, either. Touche. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuck Posted November 9, 2010 Share Posted November 9, 2010 I love this thread! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
icecream Posted November 9, 2010 Share Posted November 9, 2010 do you know off hand the lowest amount of records for a single pressing the plant would do ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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