The vinyl advocacy group speaks with optimism following the devastating blaze at Apollo Masters earlier this year.
The Vinyl Alliance, an advocacy group comprised of several industry organizations, issued an official response to the recent fire that destroyed Apollo Masters in California earlier this year. The incident raised concerns about the future of vinyl production as Apollo Masters was the primary source of a critical lacquer used in vinyl record creation. Still, the statement released by Vinyl Alliance is optimistic.
“There are already alternatives available,” says the group’s president Günter Loibl, “which will help bridge the shortage of lacquer discs. This can also be an opportunity to embrace new technologies and to strengthen collaboration within the industry.”
Within hours after the fire, Vinyl Alliance members got into contact with each other to discuss possible repercussions. Simultaneously, start-ups and individuals reached out to share their ideas. Soon it became clear that the impact on the industry will be limited in the long run as there are alternatives and options available to deal with the temporary shortage of lacquer discs:
MDC, the remaining manufacturer of lacquers, is rationing supply to satisfy the demand of as many customers as possible
Direct-to-Metal-Mastering (DMM) is a working alternative, which does not require a lacquer and is available worldwide
Several start-ups are planning to manufacture lacquers, and they are expected to enter the market in the coming months
New technologies such as HD Vinyl – a modern way to produce stampers without lacquers – are in development
Scott Hull, a mastering engineer in New York, remains calm: “For the time being we have to be more careful with how we use lacquers, but I doubt that the consumer will feel the shortage before our industry will come up with a solution.”
`Heinz Lichtenegger, CEO from Pro-Ject, believes in the future of vinyl: “Perhaps we can find a silver lining in this tragedy. Vinyl is an amazingly durable medium for music that has stood the test of time. We have seen cassettes, 8-Tracks, micro-cassette, reel to reel, Mini-Disc, LaserDisc, CED discs, etc. come and go, but the vinyl LP is more cherished than ever. It is a format important to the industry, to the artists, and to millions of fans! “
The main concern at this moment belongs to the employees of Apollo Masters. “They are the ones directly affected by this tragedy “, says Zack Tipton, CEO of Vinylize. “Our thoughts go out to them and their families.”
We will continue to cover the Apollo Masters fire and the vinyl industry’s response to its destruction in the coming weeks. Follow Haulix on Facebook and Twitter for more information.
Mandatory Credit: Photo by Petr David Josek/AP/Shutterstock (6681855e)
In this picture taken, a worker checks a pressed record at vinyl plant in Lodenice, Czech Republic. As vinyl records make a global comeback in popularity, a little-known Czech company is riding the market surge to establish itself as the world's biggest record manufacturers, with plans to expand in North America and Asia. GZ Media, based in a small town south west of the Czech capital, has made deals with all the major music labels and is running its plant day and night, every day of the year - even on Christmas - to satisfy booming demand
Czech Republic Vinyl Revival, Lodenice, Czech Republic
A recent fire at Apollo Masters in California has left the future of vinyl record production in a difficult position.
Vinyl is back. To be more specific, vinyl is experiencing a new wave of popularity, which has been building in waves of the last decade. More vinyl records were sold in the last decade than in the two decades that preceded it, and until last week the likelihood of sales continuing to grow was very high.
Then the unimaginable happened.
According to the Desert Sun, a three-alarm fire broke out on February 6 at the Apollo Masters Corp., a decades-old company that produces a lacquer formula for making master discs, which are critical for the creation of vinyl records. Employees were inside when the fire started, but everyone was able to escape unharmed. The facility was destroyed.
SR 243 closed south of I-10 due to fire. Use alternate routes. Unknown duration. pic.twitter.com/muPVeCfTHj
Apollo Masters was the “primary or possibly only supplier of the styli” that is used in the vinyl pressing process. The loss of the company’s facility is placing an enormous strain on the vinyl industry. Other businesses are allegedly working to enter the lacquer business, but the wait between planning and executing that work could take some time.
“From my understanding, this fire will present a problem for the vinyl industry worldwide,” Ben Blackwell, co-founder of Third Man Records, told Pitchfork in an email. “There are only TWO companies that make lacquers in the world, and the other, MDC in Japan, already had trouble keeping up with demand BEFORE this development.”
“I imagine this will affect EVERYONE, not just Third Man Pressing and Third Man Mastering, but to what extent remains to be seen,” he added. “I don’t want to be an alarmist. But I’m attempting to be realistic as opposed to Pollyannish.”
Pitchfork also points out that the Twitter account for Duplication, a Toronto-based vinyl/CD/DVD duplication, pressing, and printing company wrote, “Disaster for the vinyl pressing industry,” and “There will be a lacquer shortage, and possibly plants having to close or scale back operations for a while.”
It’s unclear if any artists depend solely on vinyl sales for income, but many in the rock and metal world have seen a healthy boost of revenue because of vinyl’s popularity. An industry scale back would impact artists at every level, but let’s be honest: Major labels have negotiation power that smaller names do not. It’s most likely that indie artists and labels will be the ones who feel the pinch of this crisis.
Follow Haulix on Facebook and Twitter for more information as new details become available.
Bandcamp is setting itself further apart from other streaming services with the reveal of a new way to fund and release vinyl.
Vinyl sales have surged in recent years, but cost of pressing remains high. Could Bandcamp’s new service be the solution DIY artists need?
Bandcamp has announced a new service that allows artists to launch crowdfunding campaigns for vinyl releases. Once a campaign reaches its minimum goal, Bandcamp will press and ship the vinyl record directly to fans, which saves artists time and lowers the risk involved in vinyl production. Artists will maintain full control of the record’s design as well as its price, though the cost will depend on the design, number of discs required, quality of sound, and other factors. The service—which aims to streamline the “financing, production, and fulfillment of vinyl records”—is set to launch for all artists and labels later this year.
The ‘Kickstarter for vinyl’ service was revealed by Bandcamp earlier this week. In the post, Bandcamp stated that sales of vinyl records on the service have grown 600% in the last five years, and every month another 3,500 unique vinyl albums are added to the site. While that figure is impressive, the announcement also says that only 9% of the albums with sales on Bandcamp in 2018 offered a vinyl version. The company hopes their new service will encourage more artists to explore vinyl pressing, as well as offer fans a chance to fund new pressings of records that may otherwise never be pressed again.
The reasons more DIY and independent artists don’t press vinyl are numerous, but cost is the biggest factor. A run of 500 records can easily costs thousands to press, and that isn’t accounting for postage to ship the albums to fans or the cost of packaging for those shipments. That price is too high for many artists, especially when it means taking a change that fans will actually buy the album once it is complete. Bandcamp’s service not only streamlines production and distribution, but it eliminates the risk factor entirely by funding production through fans. The worst that can happen is that a campaign does not raise the funds required for production, in which case an artist will have to rely on other means of getting physical media to fans.
Bandcamp launched its first brick and mortar store earlier this year. Whether or not releases funded through its new service will appear in the shop remains to be seen.
Hello, everyone! Thank you for taking a little time out of your schedule to spend with us. We haven’t run as many advice columns as we typically do this week, but hopefully the appearance of this article will make a difference. Vinyl is big right now, but it’s not as big as everyone seems to think, and as a result it can cause serious problems for unsigned bands seeking to press their next release.
This blog exists to promote the future of the music industry, and to do that we need input from people like you and your music-loving friends. If you have any questions about the content in this article, or if you have an artist you would like to see featured on this blog, please contact james@haulix.com and share your thoughts. We can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.
Before we begin I just wanted to say that this article was inspired by the news that the soundtrack to Forrest Gump is being pressed to triple disc vinyl in the near future. That said, it’s written with the hope of saving unsigned artists from taking on unnecessary debt for the sake of coming across as cool or hip.
It’s impossible to search for news on the music industry without stumbling across articles highlighting the continued decline in record sales. In fact, the only area of music sales that has seen any kind of consistent growth in recent years has been vinyl. Yes, the format many once thought dead has made a resurgence, causing labels of all sizes to begin pressing many more albums each year than the year(s) prior. What was once a popular trend amongst indie labels has now caught the attention of majors, thanks in part to events like Record Store Day, and as a result the market has become flooded with albums that, at least in my opinion, never really needed to be pressed to vinyl in the first place. More importantly, this upward trend in vinyl sales has led many unsigned artists to press their own records without the support of a label. I’m as big a fan of DIY artists as anyone you are likely to find in 2014, but as someone who owns a small record label and understands the costs associated with these releases I believe there are far better ways artists could be investing their money.
Vinyl is selling well, yes, but the total sales for every vinyl record sold this year will still account for less than 10% of all the money made from music sales in 2014. Of that 10%, the vast majority of the profits will go to major indie artists and labels who can afford to press so many records that their break even points are extremely low. The mom and pop record labels will follow them, making whatever they can scrape together after covering costs, and after them will be the indie bands that were so popular they found a record deal somewhere in the middle of the year. The point I am trying to make is that there is no real money to be made in this area of music, especially for bands who are likely still struggling to make enough playing shows to support a full US tour. Playing music should never be about making money, of course, but if you want to get ahead you need to learn to consider your efforts – at least in part – as a business. In order to have a successful business you need to grow, and in order to do that you need money. Not a lot of money necessarily, but some, and if you have the funds available to afford a small (300-500 copy) run of vinyl then you have enough to make a big impact on other areas of your business.
How much money are we talking? A typical 300 copy run of 12” LPs with one variant color, basic packaging, and full color jackets will cost you somewhere between $2000 and $2500. A 500 copy run will likely fall in that same range, but if you want high quality audio (180g) or special packaging (gatefold, multiple discs) that rate goes up. This is also before we take into account the cost of shipping materials such as boxes and tape, or the amount of time you will have to spend packing and shipping the records when they come in. I know you don’t consider the time you spend packing orders as something that costs anyone any money, but there is a value to that. The time you spend working on things like merch is time not spent honing your craft.
Let’s forget about the money for a second. Do you have space to store and keep vinyl? Even small runs will fill a few large boxes, and unless you sell out right away you are going to have to keep those records stored somewhere cool and safe. These are not CDs, and as such they cannot stay in your van or trailer in between gigs. Records can be warped from heat, even if they’re not directly exposed to the sun, and that is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to things that can ruin an album before it’s even spun. Are you ready to take on the commitment to preserve these records until they’re sold? More importantly, is that a commitment you should be taking on at this time?
The only independent artists who should be concerning themselves with vinyl are those who have found a label willing to press their work and those who have found a way to make music their full time career. If you’re not at that point, don’t let a lack of vinyl be the thing that keeps you up at night. If fans express a desire for vinyl releases, be honest with them and explain the situation. Who knows? You may find that they support you enough to help pay for such a release through Kickstarter or Indiegogo. Even if that happens however, I urge you to think twice about where and how you invest your money. Vinyl is pretty and yes, it sounds great, but is pressing your first or second recording as a group really going to aide you in furthering your career?If so, will it have a better impact than, say, funding a tour or even additional new recordings? Weigh all your options before moving forward, and never be afraid to be honest with fans about the reasons for your decision.
