There are only 40 manufacturing plants in the world that are capable of quickly pressing a run of vinyl records – so it is always exciting to see new pressing plants spring forward. As reported on The Vinyl Factory, two new plants have opened their doors in the US in recent weeks.
The first plant, Cascade Recording Pressing, is situated in Milwaukie, Oregon (not far outside of Portland), and claims to be the first large production automated pressing plant in the Pacific Northwest. Interestingly, their genesis story was out of a frustration with overloaded record plants that have dissuaded smaller or more boutique labels from ordering runs of wax.
Cascade also has a complete breakdown of the cost of each element of a run of records – allowing labels and artists to see exactly how much they’ll pay without a lot of sales runaround.
The second record pressing plant is the new Burlington Record Plant in Vermont, started by two brothers Justin and Noah Crowther with a vision to do contract work for labels and then also helping local bands, labels, and producers. As Vermont’s Seven Days blog points out:
According to Nielsen SoundScan, vinyl LP sales increased 517 percent between 2007 and 2013, to 6.1 million units. In 2014, sales were up another 52 percent. Currently, there are just 16 record pressing plants in the U.S. And all, according to Justin, are “months behind” in production due to consumer demand.
That means there’s money in pressing LPs in 2015.
Read more: Is DJing With Vinyl Really That Expensive?
