Friday, 12 December 2014

The Biggest Music Comeback of 2014: Vinyl Records

Sales of LPs Surge 49% but Aging Factories Struggle to Keep Pace

Quality Record Pressings general manager Gary Salstrom, left, and owner Chad Kassem. Some QRP-pressed albums include the re-issue of the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s ‘Are You Experienced?’ and ‘Sukierae’ by Tweedy, a side project of Jeff Tweedy, of Wilco, and his son.
Vinyl records hang on the wall at Quality Record Pressings, part of Acoustic Sounds, in Salina, Kan. in November. Acoustic Sounds, which started in 1986, re-issues old albums, records artists and sells music. The company started pressing its own records four years ago—it’s one of the nation’s newer plants.
Record-making is surprisingly complex. Before LPs can be produced in mass quantity, originals must be made. Music, recorded either on magnetic tape or digital media, is fed into a computer-controlled cutting lathe. As part of the mastering process, the lathe engraves a single, continuous groove—an impression of the recorded sound—onto a lacquer-covered aluminum disc. This disc then goes through an electroforming process, shown above, that ultimately results in a mother record and stampers that will be used in presses to make records.
Quality control is essential, otherwise entire runs of records could be scrapped. Here, Stan Bishop, a plating technician, checks a plate after sanding it, to make sure it will sit flat.
Mother plates sitting on a rack.
Chad Kassem, owner of Acoustic Sounds, said he started QRP partly because it was taking way too long for record presses to process the orders Acoustic Sounds was sending them. To speed things up, he started his own plant—but now he’s finding himself delaying his own Acoustic Sounds orders to focus on those of clients.
Pellets of raw vinyl are fed into record-pressing machines like this one, melted down under intense heat, pressed with stampers and cooled in a steel mold that gives the record its round shape. Here, a record comes off the press. QRP can make about 6,000 records a day on its six presses.
Freshly-pressed records are separated by dividers.
Rob Jordan, a press operator, stacks records that were just pressed.
Another employee, Josh Hill, loads records onto a conveyor to be shrink-wrapped.
Tina Tanner, who works in packaging, checks the records for imperfections before putting them in a jacket. QRP says that its rejection rate is 2%.
Rows of records wait to be shipped.
Quality Record Pressings general manager Gary Salstrom, left, and owner Chad Kassem. Some QRP-pressed albums include the re-issue of the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s ‘Are You Experienced?’ and ‘Sukierae’ by Tweedy, a side project of Jeff Tweedy, of Wilco, and his son.
Vinyl records hang on the wall at Quality Record Pressings, part of Acoustic Sounds, in Salina, Kan. in November. Acoustic Sounds, which started in 1986, re-issues old albums, records artists and sells music. The company started pressing its own records four years ago—it’s one of the nation’s newer plants.
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Vinyl records hang on the wall at Quality Record Pressings, part of Acoustic Sounds, in Salina, Kan. in November. Acoustic Sounds ...
Record-making is surprisingly complex. Before LPs can be produced in mass quantity, originals must be made. Music, recorded either on magnetic tape or digital media, is fed into a computer-controlled cutting lathe. As part of the mastering process, the lathe engraves a single, continuous groove—an impression of the recorded sound—onto a lacquer-covered aluminum disc. This disc then goes through an electroforming process, shown above, that ultimately results in a mother record and stampers that will be used in presses to make records. CHAD PILSTER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Quality control is essential, otherwise entire runs of records could be scrapped. Here, Stan Bishop, a plating technician, checks a plate after sanding it, to make sure it will sit flat. CHAD PILSTER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Mother plates sitting on a rack. CHAD PILSTER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Chad Kassem, owner of Acoustic Sounds, said he started QRP partly because it was taking way too long for record presses to process the orders Acoustic Sounds was sending them. To speed things up, he started his own plant—but now he’s finding himself delaying his own Acoustic Sounds orders to focus on those of clients. CHAD PILSTER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Pellets of raw vinyl are fed into record-pressing machines like this one, melted down under intense heat, pressed with stampers and cooled in a steel mold that gives the record its round shape. Here, a record comes off the press. QRP can make about 6,000 records a day on its six presses. CHAD PILSTER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Freshly-pressed records are separated by dividers. CHAD PILSTER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Rob Jordan, a press operator, stacks records that were just pressed.CHAD PILSTER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Another employee, Josh Hill, loads records onto a conveyor to be shrink-wrapped. CHAD PILSTER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Tina Tanner, who works in packaging, checks the records for imperfections before putting them in a jacket. QRP says that its rejection rate is 2%. CHAD PILSTER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Rows of records wait to be shipped. CHAD PILSTER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Quality Record Pressings general manager Gary Salstrom, left, and owner Chad Kassem. Some QRP-pressed albums include the re-issue of the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s ‘Are You Experienced?’ and ‘Sukierae’ by Tweedy, a side project of Jeff Tweedy, of Wilco, and his son. CHAD PILSTER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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Nearly eight million old-fashioned vinyl records have been sold this year, up 49% from the same period last year, industry data show. Younger people, especially indie-rock fans, are buying records in greater numbers, attracted to the perceived superior sound quality of vinyl and the ritual of putting needle to groove.
But while new LPs hit stores each week, the creaky machines that make them haven’t been manufactured for decades, and just one company supplies an estimated 90% of the raw vinyl that the industry needs. As such, the nation’s 15 or so still-running factories that press records face daily challenges with breakdowns and supply shortages.
Their efforts point to a problem now bedeviling a curious corner of the music industry. The record-making business is stirring to life—but it’s still on its last legs.
Robert Roczynski ’s dozen employees work overtime at a small factory in Hamden, Conn., to make parts for U.S. record makers struggling to keep abreast of the revived interest in LPs. Mr. Roczynski’s firm says orders for steel molds, which give records their flat, round shape, have tripled since 2008.
“They’re trying to bring the industry back, but the era has gone by,” says Mr. Roczynski, 67 years old, president of Record Products of America Inc., one of the country’s few suppliers of parts for the industry.

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Many producers, including the largest, United Record Pressing in Nashville, Tenn., are adding presses, but there has yet to be a big move by entrepreneurs to inject capital and confidence into this largely artisanal industry. Investors aren’t interested in sinking serious cash into an industry that represents 2% of U.S. music sales.
Record labels are waiting months for orders that used to get filled in weeks. That is because pressing machines spit out only around 125 records an hour. To boost production, record factories are running their machines so hard—sometimes around the clock—they have to shell out increasing sums for maintenance and repairs.
Large orders from superstars create bottlenecks, while music fans search the bins in vain for new releases by The War on Drugs, a Philadelphia indie group, or French electronic duo Daft Punk. More requests for novelty LPs—multi-colored, scented, glow-in-the-dark—gum things up further.
Nick Blandford, managing director of Secretly Group, a family of independent labels, in Bloomington, Ind., is putting in orders now to make sure his artists’ LPs are in stores for next year’s “Record Store Day” in April.
To get more machines, record-plant owners have been scouring the globe for mothballed presses, snapping them up for $15,000 to $30,000, and plunking down even more to refurbish them.
Ryan Raffaelli, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School who studies what he calls “technology re-emergence,” is familiar with this industrial netherworld.
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Wednesday, 26 November 2014

Top Classic Jazz CDs

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