One off vinyl producers
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@chinacat Mar 2022
Curious if anyone here has ever had a one off vinyl produced of their music? There are a few companies on the web offering them, anyone have any experience with them?
This was my first FAWM and thought it might be fun when folks come over and want to hear my tunes to put an LP on the turntable. -
@eargoggle Mar 2022
Yeah I did one of those, sent them a phone recording actually, and it was pretty cool! Leesta Vall Sound Recording is the one I did.
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@phenola Mar 2022
I did, about 20 years ago, when you actually had to track down a real-world studio that had a cutting machine. Funnily enough one of the places that would do it back then was Abbey Road in London, although I ended up not using them because they were quite expensive.
Do the online sites actually cut vinyl, or is it acetate? Acetates ("dub plates"), which is what I got made in London, have quite a limited lifespan. -
@guatecoop Mar 2022
@chinacat I've had records cut before, both of my own band and records that I recorded for others. The acetates ARE very fragile, yes.... We have a really good mastering company here who has a Nuemann lathe and they do the cutting themselves for a fairly reasonable price. Obviously they do the mastering specifically for vinyl. I'm sure that there are places that will do less than 10 pressings, but that will cost you some cash. The mastering studio with the lathe is called Cauliflower Audio. I really like working with them.
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@mosley Mar 2022
Last year I did a short run of vinyl for a
concept art piece, I used a place called Tangible Formats and they did a good
job. One thing to be aware of is that all small batch vinyl places are doing lathe cuts, which are a very different thing from pressed vinyl, and are never gonna be the same level of audio quality as pressed vinyl. If the goal is to have a physical copy of the music, then you’ll be happy with the end product, but just be prepared for a bit more surface noise and lower volume than a traditional pressed vinyl record.
Here’s a link to the video about the project, there’s a shot in there of the actual cutting process too :-)
https://youtube.com/shorts/Yr41jMgthD4
One of the nine people I sent it to was @fuzzy who sent it to a fellow FAWMer, and it ended up in the hands of several other FAWMers, so maybe they can chime in about the audio quality and how the vinyl holds up after a few plays…my project was more about the sharing of an object than about the audio quality, which is why lathe cut vinyl was fine. -
@chinacat Mar 2022
I knew this crew would have good info! Thanks, @eargoggle, @phenola, @mosley, & @guatecoop. Good to know the difference between acetates and lathe cuts (seems the places I'm finding mostly do the latter). Also useful to understand the quality issues. My FAWM demos are pretty rough to start with, so seems like worthy of an experiment to see how they translate when cut to vinyl. I've set aside some time in late March to remix and master my tunes and I've been reading up on how to best master for a lathe cut (sounds like going Mono might be the best choice actually), so thinking about putting together a set of tracks for streaming and a separate set to have turned into a vinyl for the fun of it.
Thanks again, everyone! -
@guatecoop Mar 2022
@chinacat I had one of the records from @mosley and it sounded incredible (I had to pass it on to another friend, as that was the deal), but I also own the latest double album and comic book by @eargoggle and that is fantastic, too! So, those two definitely have a very current, and successful experience with getting their music on vinyl. Both highly recommended.
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@ampersandman Mar 2022
I gave our singer a lathe cut of our band’s songs. There’s a shop in Berlin where they cut the record right before your eyes which is exciting to look at. The sound quality was not that great I have to say.
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@nadine Mar 2022
One of my friends produced a vinyl last year and we had a LONG chitchat about the mastering process. As producer can do this on your own when you know how to tame dynamic ranges, stereo images and frequency ranges. There are videos or it on the internet. But there's a high risk that your press goes wrong if you rely on a CD / digital master.
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@elainedimasi Mar 2022
Glad to see this conversation. There's always those folks who love having a physical object. Last time I released recordings was in 2009-2010 and I was able to find a small shop in Pennsylvania to print me glass-mastered CDs. I still have a few left, they've lasted as long as any other commercial CD I have. A computer duplicated type CD might still play after 5 years, or it might not. I looked for the company again about 10 years ago and it was gone. I don't think anyone glass-masters CDs in small batches for indies any more, but I'd love to be wrong about that. Vinyl is fun but the record player takes up space in a small apartment, and doesn't work very well in the car... I'm almost wanting to try an experiment offering cassette tapes! The machines that play them are getting scarce, but if it's pretty it can hang on a christmas tree or something! - Though as for that, so can a bad CD or record...
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@metalfoot Mar 2022
I'm curious if anyone's tried out Kunaki's one-off LP maker - $33 per unit is not bad compared to what I've priced out elsewhere.
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@chinacat Mar 2022
@metalfoot Very interesting, they hadn't come up in my searches. That's >50% cheaper than I've seen from other places.
Checking out their website and reading some user experiences it looks like they cut exactly what you provide them (it's all very automated) and ship fast. It seems like most other places at least do a bit of "mastering" to try and make sure the product that comes out sounds good (that might include mono'ing the bass, de-essing, and applying RIAA EQ curves).
Been reading a bit about mastering for Vinyl too and think I get the basic ideas :). For $33, I just might have to give that a try and see how it comes out.
