Vinyl Pressing Plants In Short Supply
With vinyl sales growing strongly over the last 6 years, it's not a surprise that vinyl pressing plants appear to be in short supply. Yet vinyl sales aren't enough to spark a resurgence of vinyl pressing equipment manufacturers and so, as some old equipment is sold for parts, the tools of the trade are also beginning to disappear. To make matters worse, most easy to find lists of vinyl pressing plants are out-of-date and incomplete.
Vinyl's popularity has resulted in a mini surge of interest in vinyl pressing plants. For example, a vinyl pressing plant was used as a humorous backdrop for a Jack White Record Store Day promo video.
Detroit's Last Vinyl Pressing Plant
A recent piece on Vice's Motherboard on the shortage of vinyl pressing plants includes the above video and gathers together information from the last few years.
They tell a story of competitors buying failed pressing plants to gather parts to new plants opening that always have more orders than they can fill in a timely manner.
Given the limited supply of vinyl pressing plants, indie labels putting out vinyl may well be able to sort things out through word of mouth, online or off. But it would be nice to have an up-to-date list that would be updated in the future as well.
This is the most complete list I could find and it was last updated in 2012.
@Buzzsonic has a Vinyl Pressings Twitter list that features many currently active pressing plants but is limited to those with Twitter accounts.
These are the only two that also mentioned Polysom, a vinyl pressing plant in Brazil that was featured in Wax Poetics,
More:
- Vinyl News: Ambassador Jack White, Beat Delete Crowdfunds OP Vinyl, We Buy White Albums
- Vinyl 2013: Top Selling Albums, Best Cover Art
- Halloween Vinyl Releases: John Carpenter's Halloween, Mondo Zombie Boogaloo & More!
Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (Twitter/Facebook) is relaunching All World Dance. To suggest topics about music tech, DIY music biz or music marketing for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
