2014 is gonna be a trainwreck in domestic vinyl pressing

[raidenradio]

Most of the stuff I order from US is already crap compared to the same album EU presses, so I say its not.

 

lisen er bruv u gt 1 chanc to stp bak if u dnt wnt to get dekd bash ye fookin ead in n mi crew's gt cred jus finshd dekin sum othr smrt kunts recknd they had a chans, ur choic do u lyk livn if not u w8 m8 we gun bash ye riel gud knok ur fukn ead off aye JUS U W8 M8 JUS U W8

[Shelby]

If you cant afford to press it, dont press it. It is a slap in the face of the consumer when you take their money months in advance, dont tell them anything when it gets delayed/you havent finished the layout/havent approved the inserts/etc etc, not to mention not putting it out at all and just keeping the money.

As a consumer, it is not my job to keep your business afloat, that is your job, and one of the risks of being a small label is that you may lose money on some releases.

Stick with amazon and walmart, consumer.

[mindovermatter]

My two cents:

 

- I used to go through Rainbo.  I drove to their plant once to pick up some records instead of having them shipped and saw their production line and storage.  Let's just say that I wasn't curious why more than a few of that release had big scratches and quality control issues.  Also, my customer service rep totally sucked.  No communication, almost 5 weeks for tests and another 2.5 months for final product with no returned emails.  If they weren't hunting me down for payment at the time production was over, I would've thought they went out of business.  Then they messed up two of my 7" singles for Bad Rabbits.  Down with Rainbo!

 

- to sacredheart:  you must not know much of anything about being a "consumer" - your ONLY purpose as a consumer is to keep businesses afloat!  You CONSUME (see also: BUY) and that money contributes toward P&L, margins...the works.  A preorder is just one method among many to get you to buy products to contribute to that.  Some do subscriptions, some do "limited edition" variants.  Same cow, different spots.

[jhulud]

 Same cow, different spots.

 

[dreamover]

 

- I used to go through Rainbo.  I drove to their plant once to pick up some records instead of having them shipped and saw their production line and storage.  Let's just say that I wasn't curious why more than a few of that release had big scratches and quality control issues.  Also, my customer service rep totally sucked.  No communication, almost 5 weeks for tests and another 2.5 months for final product with no returned emails.  If they weren't hunting me down for payment at the time production was over, I would've thought they went out of business.  Then they messed up two of my 7" singles for Bad Rabbits.  Down with Rainbo!

 

 

I've heard many horror stories. I would definitely not press there. 

[kamalatapes]

I thought vinyl was in demand? Shouldn't that mean, more workers at Rainbo to meet the cuts/oversee everything?

[companyinkrecs]

I've heard many horror stories. I would definitely not press there. 

 

 

Rainbo is a gigantic operation and I'd assume most people with horror stories are judging by a small sample size, which doesn't say much for Rainbo's ability to make a first impression, but worth noting I guess. I usually hear the opposite in that when people see Rainbo's operation, they understand why shit takes 100 years to complete. 

 

I press with Rainbo no fewer than 120 times a year and I've used pretty much everyone that presses vinyl on either side of the pond and I stick with Rainbo because they are the best for me. They are probably best suited for high volume customers and that's why the fuck the little guys at times, but I think they definitely mean well. 

[somethingvinyl]

I remember the good ol' days when everyone and their brother/sister didn't give a shit about records.  I got so much rad stuff for cheap and PO's were short to nonexistent.  Sigh....I miss those days, though my collection is worth a ton now that so many folks care, so there's that

 

I started buying records in 1998. I got lots of things cheap to reasonable. But I remember seeing a lot of this shit back in my teenage days (93-97) and overlooking it because they were CDs. Could have bought so much for reasonable retail prices.

[rochambo]

I put out a 7" in 97 and it was about a month turnaround time from when I sent in the DAT tape. It was also a fuck load cheaper to put out a record then.

[Bladewillisisdead]

 

As a consumer, it is not my job to keep your business afloat

 

That is literally what being a consumer means.

 

 

As long as I end up getting the record I honestly do not care how long it takes. Yeah, preorders that stretch into almost a a year long wait suck, but shit happens. 

[anthemforadoomed]

Jesus there's a lot of paramore fans on here.

[sacredheart]

 

- to sacredheart:  you must not know much of anything about being a "consumer" - your ONLY purpose as a consumer is to keep businesses afloat!  You CONSUME (see also: BUY) and that money contributes toward P&L, margins...the works.  A preorder is just one method among many to get you to buy products to contribute to that.  Some do subscriptions, some do "limited edition" variants.  Same cow, different spots.

 

 

A consumers only purpose is not to keep a business afloat. Also, a company needs to earn your business, they arent entitled to it. If I buy a Ford and have nothing but issues with it and the dealership dicks me around, I am not going to buy another Ford. If I preorder a record and the label takes forever to put it out, misses repeated deadlines without informing me as to why it is late, and puts out a sub par product, they arent getting my money again. It isnt my job to make sure they dont fail, they should stop overextending themselves to the point that they are going to fail if they dont scam people out of money. 

 

Look at Suburban Home/Vinyl Collective. Virgil had a small label going for close to fifteen years, then when vinyl started getting huge again, he started overextending himself, licensing expensive stuff, overstaffing his company, missing deadlines, moving to more expensive rent place, etc etc. Soon enough, he started to bleed money and would do anything to stay afloat. Not my issue that he made bad business choices while chasing more money and he deserved to fail because of how he ended up screwing bands and customers out of money.

[Guest]

lol

[Shitty Rambo]

That is literally what being a consumer means.

 

 

As long as I end up getting the record I honestly do not care how long it takes. Yeah, preorders that stretch into almost a a year long wait suck, but shit happens.

I feel like the 'artistic-integrity' dedication make this stuff marginally acceptable in this market and it's becoming a bit redundant. I understand shit happens, but let's be realistic here. It shouldn't take a band/label more than 30 seconds to type up an email informing their fans of a delay.

I'm not going to defend crying over delays, but a little transparency could go a long way. It's one of the main reasons why I only PO'd a handful of albums this year.

[flood]

If you cant afford to press it, dont press it. It is a slap in the face of the consumer when you take their money months in advance, dont tell them anything when it gets delayed/you havent finished the layout/havent approved the inserts/etc etc, not to mention not putting it out at all and just keeping the money.

 

As a consumer, it is not my job to keep your business afloat, that is your job, and one of the risks of being a small label is that you may lose money on some releases.

 

 

How is it a slap in the face to state the business proposition of "prepay for this item, and at somepoint in the future you will receive it". You realize thats pretty much how venture capitalism works right? people give money to companies to allow them to put together projects in hopes they are successful and then everyone involved wins. Kickstarter/pre-orders are just that on a very micro level.

[booyahachieved]

Here's an idea, dont do pre-orders till you have the shit in your hands.

 

Maybe if we lived in a perfect world, LOL... Try telling that to Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo when they're putting out new consoles or to a major book publisher who has a major release coming up.

[SmokedDecline]

The thought of starting a plant keeps popping into my head.  A new, top quality plant would have every connection it needed, just from this board alone, to get going. Crazy to think about. Let's do a preorder subscription and get this show on the road...

[flood]

i have a pair of friends who were seriously looking into this, and even had meetings with a mutual friend of ours who was looking to move a 15k hand operated press. The problems being... the equipment does not exist, and pretty much isnt being made anymore. From what i gather theres only one operating DMM system in the US and the church of scientology owns it. Theres only a few actual plants that can run high capacity output... rainbo, united.. and i don't know for sure but i'd imagine Erika,(im not familiar with what gotta groove has).. most of the others are small operations with hand presses.. so that seriously limits what kind of output you can run through.

 

secondly.. its a HUGE endeavor.. and then you're at the mercy of the few people that can do lacquer cutting.. and the even fewer that can do it well.  And from having grown up in a family own photoprinting company....  obsolelte technology doesn't exactly have spare parts widely available... everytime one of our huge ass machines broke..we had to get something professionally machined, search far and wide for the spare parts, or ghetto rig the hell out of it... and let me tell you.. rolling pins, clothes pins, and paperclips were making up a lot of those machines before the shop closed. So you're working without a net.. if the shit breaks.. most of the guys who do this buy up broken machines and cannibalize them

[valve]

Rainbo is a gigantic operation and I'd assume most people with horror stories are judging by a small sample size, which doesn't say much for Rainbo's ability to make a first impression, but worth noting I guess. I usually hear the opposite in that when people see Rainbo's operation, they understand why shit takes 100 years to complete. 

 

I press with Rainbo no fewer than 120 times a year and I've used pretty much everyone that presses vinyl on either side of the pond and I stick with Rainbo because they are the best for me. They are probably best suited for high volume customers and that's why the fuck the little guys at times, but I think they definitely mean well. 

 

I don't think the Beatles vinyl box set were pressed by "little guys". Everyone I know that bought that box received shit pressings.

[Buffbloom]

Can you please take "Trainwreck" out of this title so I stop checking it for Boys Night Out news?

[AlexH.]

From what i gather theres only one operating DMM system in the US and the church of scientology owns it.

Wait what

[companyinkrecs]

I don't think the Beatles vinyl box set were pressed by "little guys". Everyone I know that bought that box received shit pressings.

 

Never heard that, what was shit about them? 

[companyinkrecs]

I don't think the Beatles vinyl box set were pressed by "little guys". Everyone I know that bought that box received shit pressings.

 

And also, I meant they fuck the little guys with customer service, shit happens with "shit pressings" at times to everyone. But to each's own with which plant is best of course. I'm sure Capitol has its reasons for sticking with Rainbo for X amount of years. 

[smeepo]

I thought vinyl was in demand? Shouldn't that mean, more workers at Rainbo to meet the cuts/oversee everything?

You'd think.

 

Except Rainbo could also cut corners on quality to keep the costs of high-volume production down, since a lot of people who buy vinyl buy it for the novelty of being vinyl and either a ) won't actually listen to it. or b ) listen to records in a cheap turntable. Those people will buy vinyl regardless of how it comes off the press.

 

I don't think the bigger labels (Rise, Hopeless, Fearless) care too much about how their vinyl releases sound since they throw majority of their releases on vinyl these days, and I highly doubt they use analog masters.

[serum7]

The problem is you only have X amount of pressing equipment. A plant can't go "Wow, we're doing really well, order another press!" because there is no other equipment out there. You would think when faced with these delays that they could go "Ok, we'll bring on more people, press around the clock" but from a profit stand point they can easily give out these time estimates, or keep giving label delays with the current staff and still make money. 

 

Luckily, I think 2014 is the year of the mini disc. So I think it's a little early to worry about this.