Making Great Vinyl Records–United Record Pressing on Mastering For Vinyl

United Record Pressing has an interesting section on mastering for vinyl. There is plenty of advice there about the physical limitations of vinyl as a medium and what bands can do to make sure they get good fidelity from the finished product.

My only question about this section–having been written in 1997, is what has changed and updated since that time? Surely not the laws of physics with regard to how hot your master tracks can be before they overload and distort, or when too much treble becomes, er, troublesome. (Treblesome is not a word. But I almost used it here. Heh.)

Fortunately there are more recent discussions on the mastering to vinyl issue. Gearslutz.com has a thread from 2008 and another one here. CustomRecords.com throws its two cents worth in here, so you’ll have plenty to chew on. … Continue Reading

Selling Vinyl Records at CD Baby

Did you know you can sell vinyl records with your CD Baby musician account? I inquired about this many months ago and their policies have, I’m sure, been modified or had some extra details added since then, but the basic rules are thus:

1. You need at least five copies of the record to send to CD Baby for them to sell.

2. Send a CD version of the album so digital clips of the record can be made available to curious soon-to-be vinyl buyers.

3. Send artwork with the following specs to art@cdbaby.com–1000 x 1000 pixel tiff, 300dpi, and no compression.

4. The shipping costs are obviously more for vinyl than with CDs, so make sure you find out what CD Baby’s slice of the pie is–it’s going to be a bit more than the standard $4 per CD.

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Vinyl Road Rage–Austin and Beyond

by Joe Wallace

Brain fried from far too much driving. Here’s a gallery of images I’ve collected along the way, with some snarky commentary free of charge. I have gathered these images between Springfield, Illinois and San Antonio, Texas–and I’ve paid the price, let me tell you–my retinas are seared for life in some cases.

The name of this John Denver Album, in case you can’t read the type, is “I Want To Live”. Sorry matey, but you should have taken the bus.

I love this album cover. He looks like one of those plastinated dead bodies currently causing all the fuss on the museums. The bananas don’t look plastinated, though. Just very ripe.

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Top 10 Reasons Vinyl Records are Better Than MP3 Downloads

Vinyl records vs. MP3s? I own them both. Why are album versions of records better than their MP3 counterparts? The digital Black Flag vs. the original SST Black Flag recordings? Naked Raygun on your iPod shouldn’t sound much different than the vinyl record of the same album, right? Can you find Big Black on MP3? Here’s a a little list:

10.  You can’t accidentally delete a vinyl record. However, your cat may urinate on it. That won’t affect playback…unless you have friends over.

9. You don’t get the nice big cover art off an MP3 download. This doesn’t matter much for modern releases, but for those old, elaborate LP releases or soundtracks to sexy Italian horror and “sexual awakening” movies, big covers are nice. Especially for those Piero Umiliani soundtracks. There’s nothing more fun than a cheesy sexy 60s era album cover, is there?

8. Nobody tries to sue you for making a CD-R burn of some old dusty record in your collection. They’d love to try, but the RIAA would get laughed out of court faster than Rod Blagojevich proclaiming his innocence. Nice try.

7. Unlike an MP3, you can shatter a vinyl record and use the pieces to gash somebody in face when they make fun of your pants.

6. In Shaun Of The Dead, the heroes tried to kill zombies using 12-inch singles. Try doing that with an iPod and you’ll join the ranks of the undead faster than a screaming teenage girl in a filmy white nightgown.

5. George Carlin comedy albums just plain SOUND BETTER on vinyl.

4. You can actually clean a record album with soap and water. You can clean an iPod by…BUYING A NEW ONE.

3. Stores with high theft issues should stock vinyl. You can hide an MP3 player in any body cavity. An album tends to stick out of the most obvious places. Painful, too.

2. Vinyl records are better than MP3s because you can play them backwards and get the messages Satan wants you to hear. Try doing THAT with a downloaded version of Ashford & Simpson’s “Solid as a Rock”.

1. When you get bored, you can safely microwave an LP, put it on the turntable and play it for laughs. Put an MP3 player in the microwave and it will explode. Need we say more?

LP Mailer Resource: Sleeve City

I’ve played in my share of bands since 1992 and I never, ever wondered how a record album got mailed out once it was ordered. Even when I was tempted to start selling vinyl on eBay, I never got round to asking “Where the hell do you buy the mailers?” Part of that may have been due to the influence of my friends in Pink Filth, who simply used any cardboard boxes they could get from behind the supermarket. We used to have these box cutting sessions to mail out orders on the band’s label–slash up the boxes to size, bubble wrap the goods and coat them in cardboard.

Except that doesn’t quite work when you need a good first impression from an eBay buyer or other customers…so for the discriminating seller, there are places like Sleeve City (aka SleeveTown.com) that sell everything from cardboard mailers to heavy duty, white-label style LP jackets. You can also get gig cases for your vinyl…sturdy anvil cases with closing tops that hold 100 titles. This site is worth a look for anyone selling records.