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We get a lot of email from bands and other labels asking who we use for our vinyl pressing, tape dubbing, printing etc, so I thought I’d put it up here for anyone that finds it useful.

Vinyl

We have used Disc Manufacturing Services for all our vinyl so far. They were recommended to us and they’ve been amazing. They will match other prices, be patient with newbies like us and listen to the tracks to give an opinion on whether they will press OK (vinyl can be funny with certain frequencies etc). Dave at DMS has genuinely gone out of his way to help us with our lack of knowledge and stupid questions.

We upload tracks (WAVs or AIFFs) and the label artwork (PDFs from their templates) to Dropbox, then send a link to Dave. Label artwork has to be supplied at the same time as tracks, as the labels are pressed with the vinyl, rather than stuck on later. Full colour labels cost a bit more than black and white ones. Roughly two weeks later we get 5 test pressings in the post. These are to check that we’re happy with the pressing and there are no problems with either sound or imperfections in the plates. Once we approve them by email, we get sent the full pressing of records, after roughly another two weeks. Vinyl pressing can take a long time, and times vary greatly depending on time of year etc. Don’t ever plan to get records back in 4 weeks. Vinyl pressing is like printing: the more you buy, the cheaper each unit becomes. Pressing 300 vinyl is not much more than pressing 100.

Remember that vinyl has duration limits. As a rough guide, from United:

• 7″ – 4:30 minutes per side @ 45 rpm; 6:00 minutes per side @ 33 1/3 rpm
• 10″ – 9:00 minutes per side @ 45rpm; 12:00 minutes per side @ 33 1/3
• 12″ – 12:00 minutes per side @ 45 rpm; 18:00 minutes per side @ 33 1/3 rpm

If we were in the US, we’d definitely get our vinyl pressed at United. We had a tour of the place recently, and they really love what they do, and put a lot of work into making it great.

Tapes

We get our tapes from Tapeline. They have always given us exactly what we want and are cheap too. Times can vary wildly, so ask them first. Tapeline will supply exact lengths of tapes. You don’t have to buy C60s or C90s. They also supply them in lots of different colour options. You have a few choices with tapes.

Dubbing

You can either pay for Tapeline to dub (record the audio onto) your tapes, or buy blanks and dub them yourself from a CD or another tape deck. Having them do it means you have to sit and do it by hand and the sound quality will probably be a bit better.

Artwork

You can have your tapes professionally printed, for a price. Tapeline will supply with a template and you send them back finished artwork which they print. This also will make your order take longer. They also sell A4 sheets of tape labels, so you can print them on your home printer and stick them on. If you do this, wait till you get the sheets and measure them to make a template. All the templates i found online were the wrong size. The other option is just write on the tapes with permanent marker.

CDs

We have never done CDs. If you are doing them, Disc Manufacturing Services do them. If you are doing anything more than a few demo songs, please consider getting proper CDs pressed rather than burning your own CD-Rs. CD-Rs have a really short shelf life. They degrade and they scratch easily, and unlike records or tapes, when it’s scratched, it just doesn’t work any more.

Sleeves

We try and do something different with each release, and we haven’t done any ‘normal’ printed cardboard sleeves yet. I’m sure DMS offers that service so ask them about it.

For vinyl we get our records packed in paper inners, or in plastic sleeves if we need them. We did fabric sleeves for the Trapped in Kansas / Yahweh 7″ using a cheap roll from eBay. We had a 12″ sleeve printed by Newspaper Club. I hand screen printed the Lady North / PAWS 7″ sleeves at Edinburgh Printmakers. For the Conquering Animal Sound / Debutant 7″ we had the vinyl packed in plastic sleeves and then got the top part printed by what is now The Online Print Company. They’ve always been really helpful for Gerry Loves work as well as other jobs I’ve used them for.

For the Wounded Knee tape, we bought the cardboard sleeves from Tapeline which are supposed to be for sending tapes, and cut to exactly the right size. We then got stickers printed by Solopress for the front. Solopress are good quality, cheap and fast. The only problem with them, in Edinburgh at least, is that they use Citylink couriers, who only seem to employ the worst, most useless, inept, uncaring degenerates. If you really do need your artwork the day it’s supposed to be delivered, ask Solopress if they can use another courier. For the Field Mouse / The Japanese War Effort tape, we bought packs of handmade Indian paper in A5 sheets form our local art supplies shop, which is exactly the right size to wrap a tape in. Then we used more Solopress stickers on the front and tied it together with hemp string from the art supplies shop.

A word about artwork

Getting artwork done in the right formats at the right sizes and resolution is hard if you don’t know what you’re doing. Please try and get someone who does know their stuff to check your files before you send them off. Always ask the company if they have templates you can use. Always return files in the same format they sent them to you. Always make sure artwork is at the resolution of 300 DPI (sometimes called PPI). Try printing it out to see if it’s the right size. Always send artwork in CMYK format. Don’t scale images up by more than 20% (or at all if you can manage). Artwork is hard. Take your time, and plan time for correcting it if the company says it’s wrong.

Mastering

Recording Magazine explain mastering in much more detail than I could. If you are doing tapes or CDs then you may not _need_ to have the tracks mastered. You really, really should if you can though. If you are doing vinyl, you absolutely have to get the tracks mastered. Most vinyl pressing places will do this for a fee. We have had all our vinyl mastered by Sam McIntosh at 45 A-Side Recordings. Sam does an amazing job for us every time with a fast turnaround, and he’s cheaper than most of the press plants. Highly recommended.

Digital

We offer a free download with every record or tape when you buy it online from us. We use Bandcamp for this. They take 15% of your sales, but we think it’s worth it for the service they provide. It allows buyers to get an instant free download of what they just bought, in any format they want, with bonus material if we want. They can stream all the tracks there and then, and see photos of the records/tapes. They also allow you to generate download codes for your releases so you can create download cards to put in records/tapes for sale at gigs etc. You can print all the download codes from website and then cut them out, or hand write them onto different cards you have printed yourself, as we do. We just get these done at our local copy shop, black and white. You can also sell downloads directly with Bandcamp. The best part is you can style your page to look the same as the rest of your website if you have one, so people feel like they are still on your site.

There is probably a lot I’ve missed here, so please contact us if you have any other questions and I’ll add them to this post.

Buzzsonic has lots more vinyl info.

If you’re looking for more info on releasing stuff in general, Song, by Toad has a really good guide.