Daphne & Celeste make a come back with ‘You & I Alone’ produced by Max Tundra. The track marks the first release for the ‘Ooh Stick You’ singers in 15 years. The 7″ release has been manufactured by Well Tempered and pressed on transparent yellow vinyl along with a 4-lug knock out centre. You can read more about the knock out centre here. “It would have been easier to pick someone really respected like Charlotte Gainsbourg … but this was…
Although most of you are still thinking about your Christmas and early 2015 schedule, it is wise to start planning your Record Store Day – RSD2015 release for 2015. For those of you not planning on releasing a record for RSD2015 you should bare in mind that manufacturing times during this period become longer. Record Store Day 2015 will take place on April 18th and finished product will need to be with your distributor ideally last week in March. To ensure…
Here at Well Tempered we work with the three best pressing plants in Europe to ensure that your records are pressed to schedule and cost, and also of optimum quality. The standard turnaround time from all three suppliers is seven weeks from receipt of lacquers – this is industry standard. We hear that a lot of artists and labels elsewhere are getting frustrated with production times of up to twelve weeks. This should not be the case, there is simply…
In the run up to Christmas the pressing plants will get very busy with orders from the major record labels with their Beatles reissues and Metallica box sets. It is important to plan your release schedule properly and make sure your December releases don’t end up materialising in 2015. At Well Tempered we work towards our standard production time of seven weeks from receipt of lacquers, with your test pressings being delivered three weeks into that seven week cycle….
Here at Well Tempered we always advise on checking your test pressings thoroughly before the finished run of artwork copies is pressed. When Approving Test Pressings you are approving the work that the cutting engineer has done, and also the galvanic process at the plant. But what exactly are you checking for? Years ago an acetate would be cut by the engineer at the time of mastering, so the artist would be able to check the test press against this….
According to The Independent, “Manufacturers are struggling to keep up with the resurgence in vinyl records” In other words, the vinyl manufacturing industry is having serious difficulty keeping up with demand. I’m not sure that the plant owners would agree with The Independent that the machinery they are using is old and creaky, but the message is sound – lead times are increasing, and this is kicking down the supply chain and hitting the labels. What used to be a four…
Those of you not familiar with the traditional music distribution model of the physical format might at some point consider it a good idea to attempt self distribution. Many labels see growth in their direct-to-consumer sales month on month, hear about store closures, and wonder whether or not distribution could be done themselves. The thought of an extra £1 per unit on every sale is an attractive one, and the idea of being self sufficient in this day and age…
DMM (Direct Metal Mastering) became popular during the 80’s but was soon less favourable as more cutting engineers went back to lacquer. It was co-developed by Neumann and Teldec, and instead of engraving the groove into a soft metal lacquer-coated aluminum disc, a DMM lathe engraves the audio signal directly onto a hard metal copper-plated master disc. The difference between a DMM cut and a lacquer cut is that the DMM is more precise, with sharper transients and better image “edge…
It is often thought by many that a record pressed onto Heavyweight 180g Vinyl produces a better sounding product. This is certainly not the case. Some think that a Heavyweight 180g Vinyl 12″ for example would have a lower noise floor than a standard 140g, it doesn’t. Others think that a 180g 12″ has deeper grooves than a standard weight 12″, this is simply not true. Whether you have your record pressed on standard weight vinyl or heavyweight, the pressing will use…
The ‘dinking’ of a 7″ is the process used to punch out a large centre hole in a record. The process was first introduced in USA so that dinked 7″ records could be played in Jukeboxes. Traditionally the large hole indicated that the 7″ was a 45rpm single. Jukeboxes were by far the most popular way to listen to music during the 1940’s and 50’s so 7″s pressed in the USA were by default pressed with a dinked or large…