Advice please ... vivid vinyl

[Happy Jack]

In the (entirely hypothetical) case of wanting to press a vinyl EP with four tracks on it, what should we be thinking about, where should we go for the pressing, do we need sleeve design, what sort of numbers are we looking at?

We're starting from a position of complete ignorance (so don't worry about teaching us to suck eggs - you won't), and from a tiny budget.

 

[meterman]

There are many companies that offer vinyl pressing options. Depending on how many copies you’d like to press, and what spec you are looking for (coloured vinyl? Gatefold sleeves or white bags? Plain b&w labels or full colour? etc) there are loads of companies you could choose to go with.

One of my bands has had a couple of ltd edition 4-track 7” EPs out in the last couple of years and they definitely were worth doing. Fair do’s we are signed, so didn’t self-press, but it’s not too difficult a process and I’m looking at doing a self-press 7” for a side project I’ve got.

It seems off puttingly expensive when you’re looking at the costs upfront, but generally you break even at around 100 sales. Gigs, social media, Bandcamp etc all mean that you can sell physical copies of your music direct to your fans nowadays, so doing a short run of vinyl shouldn’t be too much of a risk.

Can pm you some links if you want?

 

[Happy Jack]

8 hours ago, meterman said:

Can pm you some links if you want?

That would be great - thanks!

[LukeFRC]

@boroman is who I would ask...

[meterman]

5 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

That would be great - thanks!

Okay, great, I’m just getting ready to go out now but I will PM you later today with some stuff that might be helpful.

It’s not a big super complicated thing to do btw, most companies will advise you on how to prepare your masters and artwork to be release ready. Anyone with the spare £££’s can make a record.

[Happy Jack]

11 minutes ago, LukeFRC said:

@boroman is who I would ask...

Where can I find him?

😉

[LukeFRC]

48 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

Where can I find him?

😉

as seen on basschat!

[BigRedX]

13 hours ago, Happy Jack said:

In the (entirely hypothetical) case of wanting to press a vinyl EP with four tracks on it, what should we be thinking about, where should we go for the pressing, do we need sleeve design, what sort of numbers are we looking at?

We're starting from a position of complete ignorance (so don't worry about teaching us to suck eggs - you won't), and from a tiny budget.

The Terrortones had our SpiderQueen EP pressed through Media Hut and the SnakeOil For Snakes Album by Mobineko, and unless they have changed the cutting and pressing plants they use to rubbish ones since we had ours done I can recommend either.

The reality of the record manufacturing process these days is that very few of the brokers advertising vinyl production actually do their own pressing and nearly all of it is sub-contracted out to pressing plants in Europe (Czech Republic and France in our cases). However given Brexit and the various customs delays and additional charges associated with it this may no longer be the situation. Certainly before the beginning of 2021 all the UK pressing plants were vastly more expensive than the places we used. That may not longer be the case.

From an actual production PoV there are a couple of things to be aware of. There is a trade-off between audio quality and running time on vinyl and also the closer you get to the label on a record the lower the quality of the audio. IIRC the recommendations we got for our pressing were not to exceed 4 minutes per side for 7" and 12 minutes for 12" (both at 45rpm) if we wanted the best quality audio signal on our records. In practice one side of our 7" EP was 5' 30" and each side of the album was 18 minutes and the audio hasn't suffered significantly within the limitations of the medium. Don't bother with the extra expense of "heavy-weight" pressings, it's for vinyl snobs only. Besides compared with the typical records of the late 70s and 80s the current standard of 120 gram vinyl is already a massive improvement.

The big problem you will have with producing vinyl as opposed to CDs is how long it takes. SpiderQueen took just over 4 weeks from submitting the audio and sleeve artwork to receiving our records, but by the time we did the album that had increased to 12 weeks turn-around. There are places offering quicker lead times , but all charge a premium. Also if your are looking at getting your record produced anytime during the run up to "Record Shop Day" forget it. The pressing plants are all booked solid with limited edition releases form the major record labels and one-off pressings won't get a look in.

When it comes to packaging you absolutely need to have a well-designed and eye-catching sleeve. This is one of things that you use to persuade people to buy the physical product rather than just stream it or get a digital download. These days short run printing is cheap, so there's no excise for not having a picture sleeve for your record so you don't have to act like the Desperate Bicycles when it comes to producing your record. Most definitely the days of ordering records in just plain paper sleeves and then wrapping them in a photocopied sheet are long over (unless you are specifically trying to recreate that late 70s DIY vibe). If you can do/afford something more than just an ordinary printed picture sleeve, that will help your record to stand out - The Terrortones had an 8-page comic with SpiderQueen and SnakeOil For Snakes comes in a clear plastic cover with the band and album name printed on it and then with 5 double-sided insert sheets to give a variety of alternative front covers depending on your mood. While you don't need a graphic designer to do your sleeve design it is worth showing the final artwork to someone who is a packaging design professional to make sure that you don't get any unpleasant surprises when your design is printed.

Don't put any cover versions on the record, you'll need to pay for a MCPS licence before you can get the records pressed for any if you do, and get all the songwriters of the tracks on the record to join the PRS.

Any more questions just ask away.

Edited February 26, 2021 by BigRedX

[LukeFRC]

45 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

If you can do/afford something more than just an ordinary printed picture sleeve, that will help your record to stand out - The Terrortones had an 8-page comic with SpiderQueen and SnakeOil For Snakes comes in a clear plastic cover with the band and album name printed on it and then with 5 double-sided insert sheets to give a variety of alternative front covers depending on your mood. While you don't need a graphic designer to do your sleeve design it is worth showing the final artwork to someone who is a packaging design professional to make sure that you don't get any unpleasant surprises when your design is printed.

If you (ie the OP) do need design help with it I would suggest one of two approaches.... 

A: Decide what you want yourself as a band... and work out the best way to accurately explain that to a designer to artwork for you. Moodboards, examples of typefaces you think work, colour swatches are all good - but it's essentially you saying "we want this" - and the person's job is to make what you want. 

B: Find a designer you think is sh!t hot and view their sleeve design as part of their creative process much as writing the songs was the bands. You might have ideas about feel, how you want it to fit in the genre, a Pinterest board of cool things as inspiration or examples of the designers past work where you can go "something like this, but...." but ultimately it's up to the designer to work as a partner. 

I've done both, both are cool. Mixing the two is not fun for anyone
 

Edited February 26, 2021 by LukeFRC
(Should clarify I've done both from the POV of the designer - not band)

[BigRedX]

One other thing I forgot to mention. You will need some form of digital version to go with a vinyl-only release. Either a CD included in the packaging or a link to free download. You'll find that very few people actually play the records they buy but simply add the digital version to their computer or phone. These days the free download is the way to go. If you sell your record through Bandcamp they will give you 200 download codes for free and you can buy more at starting at 100 codes for $3. 

Edit: and get your EP on all the streaming and download services using an Aggregator. Some take a very low percentage of your sales and streaming income but require you to pay a yearly subscription in order to keep your music available on line. Others charge a one-off fee for your music to be available for ever but also take a higher proportion of any income generated. Have a look at what the various services charge and pick the one that you think will shut your band the best. I have music available on-line through CD Baby, Catapult and Distrokid. However unless you have a video that goes viral to go with the release don't expect to make much money from on-line sales. Ultimately The Terrortones made less than 5% of the total sales value of our music from on-line (both physical mail order and streaming/downloads). The other 95% came from selling actual records and CDs at gigs (remember them?). In fact none of my music available for download/streaming has yet recouped it's initial Aggregator set-up fees. However as a promotional tool it is pretty much required.

Edited February 26, 2021 by BigRedX

[BigRedX]

And finally (I really do think that's it unless HJ has any specific questions that I haven't addressed), when you get your tracks mastered make sure that they are optimised for cutting to vinyl.

There are certain things that are perfectly acceptable for digital reproduction that will render your record either uncuttable and/or unplayable. Things to watch out for a extreme low frequency boost and anything involving phase differences across the stereo field - vinyl being a mechanical playback medium absolutely hates phase changes that occur across the stereo field. A quick and dirty check for stereo phase problems (although it won't pick up everything that will be problematic for vinyl reproduction) is to play back your recordings in mono. If any effects or instruments either disappear or become significantly louder when you do this then there is a stereo phase problem. It is better to catch as many of these as possible before you have the tracks mastered as there is nothing worse than being told by the mastering engineer that you need to have stuff remixed because the current versions aren't capable of being cut to vinyl.

Also you should have separate masters made for your digital versions - i.e. for submitting to your Aggregator for iTMS, Spotify etc. as well as for making promo CDs if you need these. Ideally get them "Mastered For iTunes" which should compensate as far as possible for changes to the mix caused by lossy compression used for downloads and streaming. Any mastering service that tells you you can use the same masters for both digital and vinyl isn't worth bothering with and you should look elsewhere.

[boroman]

7 hours ago, Happy Jack said:

Where can I find him?

😉

Here I am - take a look at my profession @ www.beevinyl.com

If you have any questions, let me know!