The Vinyl Record Mirage - Part 2

Logistics, Financing & Mules with OCD

This is part 2 of 6 from this series. This is designed to be an educational resource and if one doesn’t want to learn anything they shouldn’t be reading. I’d request any feedback be kept until the final installment is posted as additional questions might be answered.

Bear in mind requests for any stories here to be removed will be ignored.

Part 1 can be read here.

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The realities of underground black metal vinyl production you are not aware of.

Where to start with this is very difficult so the aim is to basically go in chronological order from start to finish in the manufacturing process with one exception.

R-1: Record pressing is an expensive process with you being S.O.L if you end up having buyer’s remorse.

For the purposes of argument, we’re going to state the pressing of a very basically vinyl package of 100 units onto black vinyl is anywhere between 1350 USD to 2000 USD. This number covers production expenses, shipping plus labor (layouts, mastering, supplies or whatever you want) which is never factored in to the per unit price. People can obviously debate the technical specifics of this number, but a range rather than a specific price is better as the idea is to just frame this in a manner people can understand. I have met bands & labels who basically operate as if these records grow on trees without any concern of the costs involved which is a major problem for smaller labels looking to get into record pressing or bands who can’t get LPs done of their albums. For some people reading this, the range provided may not seem like a lot of money, but regardless of one’s economic status in life, the sum of money here for production needs to be treated as being expensive for reasons that will continually be fleshed out throughout the article. Starting at the payment step when paying can come at different points in the process may seem out of order, but if you don’t factor money into the center of any record expense it is doomed to be a major disaster that has led to many smaller labels either closing or losing all their momentum, which is actually worse than closing. Operations like Osmose are massive operations with paid employees whereas many of the people reading this article are outfits run by one person out of their home who doesn’t have access to the same options as bigger companies do.

Actually paying the pressing plant in itself is usually an ordeal because you either have to risk/leverage your personal credit rating against the record (pressing records from what I’m told is a great way to build credit, this is also how all these popup labels always have vinyl btw) project’s success, have some high paying job with a lot of extra spending money for your hobbies or turn your label into a profit generating business to pay for production. It’s also worth stating that depending on where you live you must be a formal business entity because of all the money involved for tax purposes and it is very helpful to receive an international freight shipment if the freight is being shipped to a business entity rather than a private citizen. Pressing plants will bill you for production one of three ways: 1. 100% Upfront (this is the best way to deal with this) sometimes without transport costs, 2. 50/50, 60,40, Deposit + 2nd payment at the end (or test presses) usually to deal with overrun and so they don’t lose money if they decide to down the job or 3. 100% at the end before shipment or after delivery like a home improvement contractor, this method is the stupidest option ever and I refuse to do business this way after one plant kept forgetting to invoice me for their services then assumed me to be a gypsy or a thief (you will insult any American if you question their integrity) when I complained that sitting on their money without proper knowledge of cost causing me numerous other accounting issues is not proper business sense. You also have numerous security measures in place to move larger sums of money both domestically and internationally that further complicate this process, (in the banking industry people have jobs specifically dedicated to moving large sums of money from one account to another) as you can’t normally just bill a $2,000+ charge to say GZ media in the Czech Republic without any explanation.

Acquiring the money for record production is also very difficult (it’s usually a process that is dependent on the economy and the exchange rate) and for people starting out saving money for months is tough because it can derail/steal momentum built by several smaller/cheaper releases. While I don’t recall any contact I had with the label Thorn Laceration Records in the UK, they went from releasing DIY tapes/CD-r’s in <50 units of bedroom BM bands to a 500 copy DLP production for a band signed to Candlelight Records (a closed cooperate level music entity) with zero plan for expansion and thus went bankrupt as the release didn’t generate an upfront return adequate in relation to the start-up expenses. I’ve heard horror stories from labels (Death Metal, a genre horrible for vinyl sales) who would press 1000+ to sell under 20 records which doesn’t justify studio costs, artwork or even shipments of record mailers, so ideally something pressed onto LP must be a viable project. Later in this article I will discuss why simply outsourcing a record release to larger companies doesn’t work even if it sounds good on paper.

While the specifics of how exactly any label pays for the manufacturing of their records is not something that should be publicly discussed given how everyone would just use that information to sabotage each other, it’s worth stating based on what I’ve already outlined that a vinyl record pressing is the type of expense one must plan out how to pay for. The most obvious way to pay for something like that is obviously selling other music-related goods (as you’re already set up as a business designated for music retail) or some other income from music-related activities, such as mastering work and/or royalties. In my experience loans, credit cards or other alternative types of funding methods (I know of one record where the woman who pressed it sold an extra truck she had on her property) have mixed results and are usually a loss to the person paying for something. About loans/credit card payments specifically, the problems with paying that money back usually show up later (in some cases years) down the road even if repayment is factored in at the time, which is generally why people end up hating these systems of personal finance that actually work when properly used. People are amazed at the output volume of these smaller “batch dropping boutique” companies that do not run distros wondering how they fund themselves when the truth is that the owners are usually paying for their activities out of their jobs and the owners of many of those label’s work in white collar sectors, hence why they conduct themselves in a manner that is completely out of touch with the reality experienced by people in the working class (like myself) who live paycheck to paycheck.

As I discussed at length in this podcast video, one should not attempt to finance record manufacturing with pre-orders. For importing existing stock, it is fine, but this process has proven to be nothing but problems when it comes to attempting production and has been referred to by customers as “Pre-order Hell” when something is basically indefinitely delayed after orders are taken. In the event of manufacturing failure the expenses, should the money have to be returned usually outweighing any upside to pressing the records. Certain larger labels take pre-orders very late in the process to keep some kind of fluid production schedule which is an entirely different animal than financing the entire manufacturing budget like a Kickstarter campaign. Bands who do not have the ability to generate a lot of large sales upfront are also prone to having their releases cancelled due to low demand when they might have been able to sell an entire pressing over a 10-year time span once the records exist. The main problem with a pre-order campaign now is that due to the numerous public disasters that have taken place, most people are now distrustful of the process and then usually forget about the release when it actually exists.

The bookend to this reality (which I added in during revisions to the article after it was completed) is that due to the expense involved, if there is some problem you’re usually stuck with the result. While I do know of one black metal record that due to a combination of that label owners O.C.D (apparently the first batch had some minor flaw that could’ve been corrected with simply including a CD with the records) which likely pissed off the pressing plant and a damaged press resulted in that label having to pay to have the records pressed again from scratch at a different plant, that is one out of how many records released a year? While I’ll discuss represses of stuff still in print in the very last “reality” of record pressing, most label owners are not going to see any justification to spend thousands of dollars again to correct errors nor will they press their own versions of something when a band either changes or tries to go back to their old label (this is why you don’t take a stepping stone deal as the grass isn’t always greener on the other side) if they have a bad experience elsewhere. A friend of mine currently is owed nearly $5000 in royalties from a label he did a release with because that label’s owner basically bit off more than he could chew and isn’t smart enough (nor would anyone help him because of his reputation) to ask for a life preserver so now my friend is basically waiting for small stipend payments from a guy who has basically shut down like a overwhelmed child. In the event of a bad deal (which is any type of deal that results in any kind of negative outcome) where some party feels wronged by the process, common logic would suggest that the best (and sometimes only sensible solution) would be for another company to just redo everything, which for record deals isn’t possible. For the record, like any multi-person job, the best solution to prevent this is to have the right people in the right roles so to speak.

Stuff like this is also why artists who are prone to have O.C.D over one small detail or aren’t mature enough with life to roll with the punches shouldn’t have records released of their music. One of the recent releases Asrarlabel bootlegged was apparently never released because the person who had authority over the music didn’t like his guitar sound and thus somebody else just pressed the LP using a retail bought source. Many artists find themselves scrambling after the fact to have records done for stuff they released without being correctly attached to it, when they didn’t have the correct work ethic at the beginning of the process to avoid a disastrous end. While on the surface records may be flashy pop for a quick shot of online hype, they are not the short-term product many people assume them to be and are instead something favoring a more long-term approach which brings me to Reality #2.

R-2: The pre-production process for vinyl records is slow.

Record pressing is also usually a slow ordeal (it takes an experienced operator 8 hours to press 500 records) favoring only the most patient of adults. A vast majority of preventable delays occur (what the plant does is out of your control) in the pre-production process due to both fundraising issues (R-1) and all the other people/moving parts involved with project, be it the band, graphics/mastering techs or any other parties. I have met several bands (some active for decades) that can’t conduct themselves with the correct discipline nor do they have the type of discography required to justify the weight of the production cost and all the work involved before you factor in all the other people who usually have to be brought in to work on the project. This is why vinyl record projects have high chance of getting “locked up” with delays for in some cases years (you see this a lot with splits, music made by people with extreme mental impairments or projects that aren’t actually viable) for reasons that are mainly outside of anybody’s direct control. These delays can also be very costly as you’re either waiting around for a return on investment or must in some cases wait an entire calendar year to write off business losses. Expenses along with this simple concept are why the vinyl record format must be put on a pedestal above other formats and not everything a band has ever recorded should be pressed onto LP.

The terminally slow pace some of these projects move ties up resources for a long time that could likely be shifted towards something that would yield a quicker return which is something that one must be prepared for before undertaking a record project. This is further compounded when multiple other reissues/formats are in the works as it ideally makes the most sense to do all three formats at the same time as the vinyl record is released, which also is the most difficult thing to get done with the longest manufacturing time. Split releases (which ideally should not be released onto LP unless it is seven inch) with multiple parties involved also take longer as extra attention must be paid to the product to justify an LP pressing. It is not entirely uncommon for everyone involved in a record project to have full competent capacity but some little detail (usually a frivolous extra expense) curses the project into being delayed for years until it is corrected with financial burden (should money have already been invested) being a protracted problem. The logical end to this is “black hole” projects doomed to generate no major return nor can be cancelled, which usually leads to the project being placed on indefinite hold.

Most pressing plants like “cookie cutter” projects where they do not have to think to much about what is going on, whereas many black metal recordings have rough edges to deal with, especially if the material has some political context to the work. Should samples have to be edited out, if portions must be re-recorded because parties involved don’t consent to their contributions being used or licensing contracts must be paid (some places will require you to turn in copyright paperwork to press there) for things like cover tracks, it can take months/years for these things to work themselves out. Patience and keeping your O.C.D in check (music has an unlimited amount of cancelled projects, bootlegged releases or stuff wallowing in obscurity because somebody has a small issue with the recording that only they hear) are trademarks of adulthood and many of the musicians out there today lack the level maturity needed to see these thing come to fruition. One of the records we’re going to press this year has been going in a circle for years because the artist refused to remove the Sunwheels from the label images and because the color effect we agreed to do became extremely difficult to replicate.

Vinyl specific mastering for black metal usually doesn’t alter the recordings to much in comparison to the CDs (not that people listen to many of these things enough times to notice difference) so normally you can just have the entire thing mastered once for LP then use that source for a CD. It is very important, however, that the music is mastered before production (primarily to remove the rough edges and to have basic EQ done, volume leveled out with proper panning etc.) and this is also when many of those O.C.D issues can be fixed. Years ago, I attempted to release the 1389/GBNS split onto vinyl (thankfully this didn’t happen) and was told by somebody looking at the audio the GBNS portion (very low-quality MP3’s likely recorded with a phone) was too degraded to press onto LP. Noise/PE music (intros/outros/interludes) can also go into specific frequency ranges that can’t translate correctly onto records, which subsequently need to be re-recorded thus delaying everything. This is also why you listen to your test presses, so you can make sure the correct audio, in its entirety, was used. Fun fact: There exists a 2 copy press of the Su Asti/Thule-Jugend seven inch I released with only the two Su Asti tracks because somebody at a pressing plant in New Jersey (ran by Mexicans which has sense closed) couldn’t read that I uploaded one folder for Side A and another for Side B when I sent them all the files.

Proper artwork is a must have for a record project as that is mostly what sells a record, it is more important than the music. Multi-page booklets, elaborate inserts and/or gatefold jackets add expenses to the projects and ideally you want to have something people are willing to show off online (thus putting something that’ll get somebody’s profile shut down is a bad idea for sales) to their friends. Usually someone outside the project has to be brought in to provide artwork and as these people don’t make enough money doing this, they are usually slow/unprofessional operating (one kid I paid for a cover simply never did anything for months then looked like a deer in the headlights when I wanted the money back because he forgot to do what I paid him to do) like hobbies. If the band is extremely difficult to deal with, then the process takes even longer to get done. Graphic Designers usually also have to be paid to design the layouts because most basic computers, even with photoshop installed on them don’t have the specific memory requirements to make everything in the required sizes.

R-3: Dealing with pressing plants is a pain in the ass and you also must know what to order when setting everything up.

There are basically two kinds of pressing plants that you’ll deal with including brokers, which are basically like dealing with a plant anyway. The first is commercial level plants/brokers who take work from mainstream clients to have a high output volume. These are my preferred choices to deal with as you’ll get your stuff without a bunch of dysfunctional bullshit, they know what they’re doing, don’t ask a bunch of questions and they have enough staff to get you through the process. The flaws with mass production results in more potentially defective copies (surface noise, warped vinyl from the factory or quality control issues) nor will they blow you to get your business (this is a big deal to indie music nerds who believe in pampering everyone) as to them, you’re just an account number. The second kind is indie level plants which are more suited to the kinds of people who think that the people they pay should worship the ground they walk on. The main problems with these are that you have to put up with their bullshit (one place here I stopped dealing with that great turnaround times and decent yet limited qualities but were extremely picky about what they would work on, so if you didn’t follow their beck and call, you would get kicked out of their group) and their usually limited staff is more politically motivated. Many of these new plants being built designed specifically to cater to black metal would fall into this category and while on the surface it sounds like a cool thing, it’s just a form of hype where the pressing plant overshadows what was pressed. D.I.Y resources opened specially to cater to extreme metal out of people’s garages are high risks for ripping you off or questionable work ethic as they could be storing the plates/files for your work to pump out bootlegs decades from now or to sell under the table in violation of your wishes because they would be more apt to know it’s value compared to a massive factory primarily focused on Jazz records.

It’s important that you know what to order and what country (or studio) the pressing plant has their lacquer cutting/metal work done at. If you’re pressing super sketch music, the cutting usually needs to be done in house, not outsourced to say Germany or leftist trans music studio. Many of the extra bells and whistles out there (specialty metallic colors which effect sound quality, color combinations, effects (smoke/swirl/galaxy effects & glow in the dark records require the record being exposed to direct sunlight to activate them), picture LPs, gatefold jackets, interior color flood & metallic printing) are designed for 500+ pressings, not for UGBM. The process to create many of these effects is also proprietary in some cases, with one plant not being able to duplicate the work so thus you usually must go back through wherever it was originally made at for something specific. While I did a specific video on pressing quantities to explain in depth that concept, smaller presses usually can’t have a bunch of elaborate extras or the list price passed to the customers is too expensive. For 10” & 7” it’s very easy to get over a dollar a minute and while people are going to try that with 12” records, I highly doubt it’ll ever come to pass. Record weights must be factored in as well because certain countries do import taxes by weight which means 140g records that are prone to warping are your only option.

Most pressing plants in the United States do not have in house printing equipment (or they do stupid stuff like design their own pantone system for printing the labels) and thus everything is usually run through one of 3 companies with the main one manufacturing all their stuff in globalist conquered Canada. This process makes inserts more expensive (which is usually why lyrics aren’t included) to have which makes a sheet of useless band photos that everyone drools over not worth the extra money required to make it. Typically, most printing places require 300 jackets (smaller runs use a different quality machine that is a lower quality) to be made regardless of how small the order is and most pressing plants usually like a minimum of 300 records of the same color/kind because of how they must properly cool down a record press. While demand for variants has allowed for advancements in technology (it’s still expensive with a lot of overrun and environmental waste) the actual demand for many of these records is not enough to justify their mass production or some of these extras people have become accustomed to.

Salesmen at a pressing are only concerned with telling you whatever you need to hear to get you to order something and you should never ask them for advice on anything unless it is something like asking if a particular color is in stock. You should never pay them to promote you, your band is not going to fly there to live stream the pressing process for an interactive fan segment, get involved in any secret buyer programs for higher volume and never go back to any plant where the sales rep asks a bunch of questions (one guy emailed me 4 times in a week’s timespan when I told him I would only respond on Fridays multiple times) beyond the capacity of an order taker. If you invent some cool effect they want to use for a promotional catalog, you should request that they just make one with a white label on it and says it’s a royalties concern with how the band is compensated. While people should not hide where their releases are manufactured at for the purposes of some kind of elitist snobbery, you should never ask or let someone know you know where they press their stuff at and you should also never refer anyone anywhere because you can be held liable (I was held liable for 3000 USD in debts somebody fled because I sent them to a pressing plant) if they do something or something they do could change the plants operating terms in a way that impacts you negatively. To close on this subject, if a plant’s operating procedures are impacting your business to the point where it causes issues you (my taxes for last years were completely screwed up because I held $2,000 dollars in savings past the end of a business quarter because we were never invoiced on time) need to deal with, you can not change the plant and your job at that point is to professionally close deals out, then find another pressing plant without expending too much energy on why something is the way that it is. It is also beneficial to remind everyone that one should not keep all their eggs in one basket when it comes to manufacturing.

R-4: There is an entire cottage industry in both the logistics and import taxes of moving records from place to place that nobody talks about with some countries/continents lacking the infrastructure to import large amounts of records.

People like me who live behind computers without going to concerts (been active in music for 20 years, been to less than 8 concerts with only one being a UGBM show) aren’t weird to support music this way, but plenty of people travel across the country or to concerts in Europe, basing their entire lives around these activities. Some of those people can make extra money by acting as record mules, smuggling records/products across international borders in their luggage to bypass import fees or high transport costs. The high cost of sending records from place to place (a pallet can easily cost 1000 dollars to ship) is a big problem as it impacts distribution in addition to the original manufacturing. Larger boxes also increase the chance for a customs inspection, where they open everything and just assign whatever dollar value they want to import it, if it is legal to import in the country it’s being sent to. Workarounds like this are usually a mistake/mixed results (one mule I knew basically lost her income source because her contact at the airline who had a free flight discount lost their job) and it is much easier to just do everything legally with a proper value fitting the size of the box being declared, in short, just pay your damn taxes. In 2023 I did a distribution deal where the vendor sent several LPs through an extremely outdated shipping method (mBags) so US customs lost part of the shipment because nobody in the postal service or customs knew what to do because the last time this shipping service was used was in World War 2. After having to refund everyone’s pre-orders (with both me and the middleman I was dealing with at the time being extremely pissed off over everything) I lost a lot of business, that vendor’s distribution deal basically went down the toilet and to this day I have no idea if the records ever actually arrived here.

While every country has their own issues to work out, we’re going to focus mostly on South American countries to provide examples to the scope of this issue. Brazil has the highest import taxes of any country with a large metal scene (South Korea I think is higher but the scene is very small) and the customs authority there rejects most shipments unless they are legally declared as merchandise with receipts included with the invoicing, if it passes through one can find themselves paying 30+% in both federal and state taxes. Currently I have a storage unit with boxes of records for a Brazilian band that are basically deadstock that I’m giving serious though to purging at a loss, because the only place in the world where there is demand for these records is in Brazil (however they can’t import them) and it would be cheaper for a company there to start over with their own pressings with the vinyl plant in Brazil, with mine being discarded due to a wasteful effort. Argentina has a similar problem with numerous restrictions on import/export/taxes where one band had to pay a price higher than a one-way airline ticket to receive their royalty copies. Mexico (unless one has the business capital to pay a specialty broker (Argentina also has these) to work with GZ media on whatever it takes to actually import large volume record shipments there) & the entire continental area of Central America lack the necessary infrastructure to support the type of international freight requirements required for LP shipments so this entire area of the world will never be able to have records until somebody builds a pressing plant in Mexico from the ground up or smuggles them across the border in the cartel tunnels.

At this point you’re probably asking how one imports vinyl records? Well, anything over 200 records usually must be transported via pallets delivered by a freight carrier and/or shipped in several boxes. International shipments (from either Europe or China to the USA) must be transported via pallets on an airplane, sea options exist that are supposedly cheaper but the heat from long term storage in the cargo hold warps the records and are subject to maritime (things like the Strait of Hormuz) delays. This results in high shipping prices, international taxes and requires assistance of a customs broker (many countries have outside brokerage firms who charge unreasonable fees to clear your stuff) to help you file the paperwork correctly to pay fees. UPS, FedEx & DHL have fleets of semi-trucks/brokers under their employment to deal with all this for you but if some third party agency or trucking company (which in the United States could be a pickup truck capable of holding 1 pallet in the back with the DOT information written out by hand on a piece of paper taped to the window) is used you will have more fees and risk associated with getting your shipments to you. One pressing plant I used decided to complain to DHL through their cooperate agency (when I instructed them it would just be easier for me to drive to collect everything) in their local country over a delivery problem which just resulted in them being placed on some kind of blacklist because the local fulfillment end here lied about the type of vehicles they bought for their drivers. I know of one company here who has to keep local contacts on retainers from the various freight companies just to manage getting his stuff on time without incident.

The mere act of receiving the shipment at your residence can be an ordeal because as anyone who works in a logistics warehouse will tell you, that entire industry is just “all gas, no brains” with people completely having their head up their ass. If you live in an apartment or some type of situation where you can’t be home all day to wait for the delivery driver, you usually must pay a third party to receive your stuff for you. I one time had to leave work early and stay overnight at a hotel in Sheboygan, WI (the asshole of Wisconsin) because the warehouse I was going to pay lied to me about being able to receive a shipment so it would’ve been return to Italy (such an event would’ve been more expensive than a hotel stay) as the local DHL contractor was unable to set up correct freight forwarding. In some situations, it’s cheaper for the pressing plant to loan you the money to clear your stuff rather than getting it returned there as you then usually get billed import taxes when it’s returned to the plant. If whatever shipping service you use is common (UPS, FedEx or DHL) but you live in some remote area or they don’t do enough service to justify a full delivery route, they will outsource it to third party contractors who basically do whatever they want up to and including assigning their own tracking/scheduling.

Once you have the records you then must deal with the excess stock and if you live on rental property that refuses to allow for your register/operate a business (most trailer courts) where you live, then you must rent a space somewhere to store everything. This could be a retail store, somebody else’s basement or more likely a storage unit (storage must be indoors, I had to toss 150+ 7 inches stored outdoors because they were ruined by exposure to subzero temperatures) that now becomes a monthly expenditure. Fixed monthly expenses prevent you from completely shutting down everything during periods of low economic activity (which is the best way to operate) or some other outside factor preventing you from correctly servicing your customers. This all happens before you account for all the additional shipping supplies you must purchase to distribute records (bulk vinyl mailers come in 100-pound cartons) and an automated postage system for large amounts of orders. Shipping large amounts of records to customers usually requires the usage of a delivery company different than the postal service and is very expensive which rules out trades or small volume wholesale orders (unless you have a business shipping contract) if you aren’t a full-blown business. Pressing plants are also usually leery of dealing with first-time customers who are unaware of all the difficulties with this stuff as they don’t have the time/desire to hold people’s hands through the process unless the stuff is going to be returned to them.

To be continued….