wildman Posted February 7 Share Posted February 7 Hi, We are looking at doing a vinyl pressing for our upcoming album and have found this: https://www.cramduplication.co.uk/vinyl-pressing Its the best for reviews on Trustpilot (not that this is the benchmark of course). Has anyone used them, or know of a better company. I did a search here and the last conversation I found was in 2016 so wondering if there is anyone with more up to date experience in this area. We know its not going to be cheap - likely around £2,000. Cheers, John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted February 7 Share Posted February 7 One of my bands uses Cram for our CDs and we have nothing but praise for their services. However I can't speak for how good vinyl organised through them will be, although I suspect that should we decide to realise something on record in the future they will be our first choice. The problem with vinyl still is that there a relatively few cutting facilities and pressing plants, so nearly everyone offering vinyl will be out-sourcing the actual production, and where that production takes place may well change depending on cost and capacity. Although all the brokers I've used for vinyl in the past 15 years have been UK based the actual production took place in The Czech Republic, France and labels for one record were actually printed separately in the far-east. The waiting times for getting your pressings back have increased significantly since I last was involved in putting a record out. And if your production schedule in any way overlaps with the run-up the Record Store day then forget it! Getting test pressings done is an absolute must. Don't skimp no matter how much it adds to the final price and production time, and check them all before signing off. One thing to look out for and bear in mind when making an order, is that vinyl is bulky and heavy to ship. Because one of my bands wanted to do something a bit out of the ordinary when it came to the packaging we ordered our records in paper sleeves only, with the packaging being produced separately and we would assemble the final product. On both occasions the shipping cartons were too flimsy to properly protect the contents and we ended up with some damage. 500 copies of a 12" album was delivered on a pallet that had been smashed to pieces by the time it arrived at my house. Luckily it looked a lot worse than it actually was and we had to get the broker to send us an additional 100 paper sleeves to replace the ones that had been damaged. All the actual records except one were OK. However had this happened to records in their sleeves I would have been demanding a complete repress of the whole job. Loosing 20% of our stock would have have serious consequences for how were would have been able to price the records, because the actual production cost is just a fraction of the over cost of making a record, all of which ideally needs to be recouped. HTH. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wildman Posted February 14 Author Share Posted February 14 Hi, Thanks very much for your response - really helpful! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodwind Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 These are UK based factories: The Vinyl Factory https://thevinylfactory.com/plant/ Press On https://pressonvinyl.com/ Seabass Vinyl https://seabassvinyl.com/ Vinyl Press https://vinylpressuk.com/ I think there are a couple of other small outfits as well. I would do extensive research into any of these if you do go for a UK based company. Think hard about the mastering as well. The advantage of using a UK based pressing plant is it makes it far easier to have your lacquers or DMM cut by a UK mastering engineer. Getting a vinyl release together is very costly. Don't rush. Have a plan about what you want to achieve with the record, but also enjoy how exciting it is to have such a large physical product. All the very best with it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wildman Posted March 19 Author Share Posted March 19 Hi Woodwind, So sorry I didnt reply until now to thank you for your help and advice! We have been doing a lot of research and now decided to go with Cram. But its not cheap. The issue is we have 53 minutes which is a little too long for a single and too short for a double. Going for a double really pushes the price up and as a new band we cant really justify it. So choices are to drop a couple of tracks, take the chance that we can squeeze 53 minutes onto a single disk without compromising the sound, bite the bullet and go for the double or give it all up and nurse our bruised vanity! Thanks again for your help! and Best Wishes, John 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dad3353 Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 51 minutes ago, wildman said: ... a little too long for a single and too short for a double... Maybe speed up a couple of the longer tracks to get the overall playing time right..? If the pitch goes up a little on those tracks, it shouldn't show, as long as it's not 'Pinky'n'Perky' speed. Just a thought. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 (edited) 1 hour ago, wildman said: We have been doing a lot of research and now decided to go with Cram. But its not cheap. The issue is we have 53 minutes which is a little too long for a single and too short for a double. Going for a double really pushes the price up and as a new band we cant really justify it. So choices are to drop a couple of tracks, take the chance that we can squeeze 53 minutes onto a single disk without compromising the sound, bite the bullet and go for the double or give it all up and nurse our bruised vanity! When I last had an album produced on vinyl the recommendation was for no more than 12 minutes a side and to have a a running speed of 45RPM rather than 33. Longer running time and slower playback speed would result in reduced audio quality. Our album had a total time of just under 34 minutes, with roughly equal length sides cut at 33RMP, and there is noticeable difference in quality between the vinyl and CD version. IMO 53 minutes is really going suffer with just two sides to play with. Have you had you recording specifically mastered for vinyl? We had two separate masters done one for vinyl and one for digital, and if I was doing this again now we would have 3 - Vinyl, CD and iTunes. Also has Cram discussed the running order with you? There are certain compromises that need to be made regarding song placement with respect to the fact that the last track on one side of a disc has to extract the same amount of information from less than half the groove distance of the first one. This is why fast, loud energetic tracks are placed at the start of each side and the last track is something much more relaxed and downtempo. We ignored this on the last album I made and the final track on side two suffers as a result. Edited March 19 by BigRedX 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaleASmith Posted April 10 Share Posted April 10 Although I have no experience of their services, I do know that https://seabassvinyl.com/ in Scotland started up last year and have recently handled pressing for Fish. Their prices look competitive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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