There’s been much talk here about digital distribution and even vinyl records and its true enough that digital distribution has demystified music distribution for the diy label and artist but the reality is that (legal) download services still only have a third of the full retail music market share, so CDs, (at least for the time being) and even vinyl are still around and wont be going anywhere for a while yet.

“Digital sales now account for an estimated 15% of the global music market, up from 11% in 2006 and zero in 2003. In the world’s biggest digital music market, the US, online and mobile sales now account for 30% of all revenues” IFPI Digital Music Report 2008

We’ve already talked about vinyl pressings and it has looked a little bleak for quite a while with stories of closures of vinyl distributors. Which has once again bought up the ‘vinyl is dead’ catcalls. But, despite the sometimes negative outlook there is a renewed interest in vinyl (which I wrote about here).

“Chain stores don’t know what to do with vinyl and I would rather indie stores make money off of my products. Nearly all of the records have been sold through the Vinyl Collective website or through mom and pop retailers..” Virgil Dickerson - Surburban Home Records

Vinyl or CD?

Well, how much money have you got? Manufacturing a vinyl record is much costlier than a CD. 1000 CDs in jewel cases, retail ready will cost around $1200 from somewhere like Discmakers. 1000 vinyl albums would be more than double that from somewhere like UR Pressings in Nashville.

Unless you have a major following (then you wont be reading this anyway) then 1000 vinyl albums (or singles for that matter) is probably over doing it a little. 500 still works out at around $4 per unit for vinyl. Its less than half that for CDs. Consider that if you’re worried about being able to shift 500 hard copies then maybe you should stick with the download option.

Where To Sell?

If you have a good live following and play regular then 500 sounds like a number you could sell via gigs, your website, a link on your MySpace page and mail order (CD Baby and Amazon Advantage are the two outlets that spring to mind).

Follow Virgil Dickerson’s advice (see above quote) and stick to indie stockists for shifting vinyl singles. Hopefully there will be an independent retailer left near you that you can approach. If not send a copy to a key retailer and see if they’ll take 5/10 copies.

Whats a key retailer? Any well known music store in a big/happening city. Rough Trade and Pure Groove in London would be two. Fat Beats (in NY and LA) would be one, Grooveman in Miami Beach would be one so would Amoeba in LA.

All the mentioned stores have a ‘buzz’ surrounding them, all have a bit of a scene around them. They’re hangouts too. Like good record stores used to be.

Of course this is no definitive list. Make your own. Do your research in your own particular music genre (and even left field artists have their outlets). Read MP3 blogs, artist blogs, make notes, use Google!

If you sign up for (CD) distribution via CD Baby, part of the deal is that your release (and you do need that barcode to get in there) gets added to the database at national distributor Super D who cover over 2000 stores in the USA.

Another way of an indie artist getting into retail chains is via FYE’s Localeyez program.

Be Aware!

I’d warn anyone against sending their whole pressing run (CDs or vinyl) to one distributor. Chances are you can shift that short run yourself anyway so instead send a box or two to outlets that can get you into key markets or exports. If you’re in Florida and you lost 20 units to a distributor in LA, you can live with that. If you had the whole run sent there and something goes wrong, you’re screwed.

Trying to get a distributor interested is not much different than trying to get signed to a label. Instead of sending your music to a record label, you’re sending your music to a distributor.

And again, here, do your research when looking for a distributor. Larger distributors wont really consider one off releases from bands or artists without a track record. Look at independent records or artists that you like and find out who distributes them. Find their MySpace page, email them. Make sure you get through to the person at the distributor who is most likely to be into the music you are pitching.

I’ve listed a good list of distributors to start you off here:

UK

Load Media- Drum&Bass, house, dubstep, reggae, breaks and garage
Toolbox Distribution - hard house, house
Plastic Head - (Extreme Metal to Hip hop, Techno to Reggae, Ambient chill out to Hardcore Punk
Proper Most genres
Kudos - Dance, soul
ST Holdings - Drum’n'Bass, Hip Hop, Breakbeat, Techno, House, Down Tempo and Dub Step
Shell Shock - Independents

USA

City Hall Records - Jazz, Blues, Rap/Hip Hop, and World Beat
Revolver USA Rock, punk, dance
Nail Distribution - Indie rock, indie pop, electronic, punk, alternative rock, avant-jazz, vintage funk & soul, classic punk, experimental, evil metal, sweater-core, strumpet core, hardcore, emo and just about any other edgy genre
Koch Distribution - all genres
Red Eye USA - all indie genres
TRC Distribution - DJs/dance
Thirty Tigers -
Sector Media -New York- Dance

Related Reading

Why Do People Buy Records? (MatadorRecords.com)
Find Music Distribution (About.com)
IFPI Publishes Digital Music Report 2008 (IFPI) 28pg PDF
Vinyl Roundup (Donewaiting.com)
Coalition of Independent Music Stores (CimsMusic.com)
Music Industry Statistics (Wikipedia)
The Vinyl Frontier (Test Industries)
Response to Wired’s “Vinyl May be Final Nail in CD’s Coffin”(IndieHQ)
USB Turntables Raise Vinyl From the Dead (Straight.com)

A film came through the post this morning from Netflix called ‘I’m Reed Fish’, which I can’t for the life of me remember putting in my queue. Anyway, it was one of those cute OK movies I guess, not great and not bad either. When a movie is like that I have this awful habit of watching with my laptop open, just ‘in case’, y’know. And sure enough that ‘in case’ arose.

It usually means I’m going to be consulting the IMDB with some query about the film, like location, who was on the soundtrack and any other trivia only a blogger would care about. The trigger that had me reaching for the keyboard was seeing actress Schuyler Fisk sing in a bar scene in the movie.

By the end of the scene I’d managed to ascertain (via the Amazon owned IMDB) that Schuyler Fisk was actually singing the song in the movie, she was Sissy Spaceks daughter and the track was the wonderful, “From Where I’m Standing” (and I’m not usually a folk fan).

Googling the song title got me the lyrics and also a link to a YouTube video of the song in question. Trying to get my hands on a copy of the track in question wasn’t so simple. Bizarrely (as the most memorable track on the soundtrack) the track doesn’t even get a mention on the official soundtrack CD or her MySpace page.

It pops up as a ‘demo’ stream on her artist website but seems that the track is held up in major label (Universal Music) album limbo.

Searching various BitTorrent sites got me zilch, but an MP3 blog search eventually found me the track I was looking for (apparently it was on a 2006 EP called ‘Songs For Now’.

I don’t know, bar two tracks on iTunes and a couple of appearances on soundtracks (except the one that mattered!) I wasn’t able to actually buy any other music. Anyway as an aside, I also stumbled across (her boyfriend?) Joshua Radin’s folky cover of Yazoo’s classic, ‘Only You’ too which was an unexpected gem. You’ll find it on his album, ‘We Were Here’, which by marked contrast you can get quite easily from Amazon either as a traditional CD or as MP3 download.

Related Reading

Schuyler Fisk MySpace (MySpace)
Netflix Fan (Netflixfan.Blogspot)
Orbit Rich Media Downloader (OrbitDownloader.com)

OK then, its nothing short of amazing that today, theoretically you can have your music on sale, worldwide in one of the biggest music retailers stores on the planet. Without a tour, without a manager and even without a record deal. You can be based in Brighton, UK (for instance) and someone in Alaska or Australia or Russia or wherever can download your music without leaving the house. You don’t have to leave the house to get in on sale either.

Also, if you signed up with a good distributor, you’ll be keeping around 75% of the retail price too.

I must admit, when I first saw my music on sale on the iTunes store it was exciting as it was another ‘career’ landmark for me. Still, as music career landmarks go it really was no comparison to the day I walked into the Virgin megastore on Oxford Street, London, the day of its original release in 1996 when the original version of the 99th Floor Elevators ‘I’ll Be There’, went on sale.

There it was, prominently displayed in a rack with all the other big 12 inch releases of the week. And there it was in the big HMV just up the road too. More importantly to me, there it was in stock and in the top 10 buzz chart in Trax Records in Soho, ten minutes walk away from the glare of the west end. A few days later ‘I’ll Be There’ had gatecrashed the national pop charts.

I used to spend a lot of money in dance music specialist Trax back in the days in the late 80s when I had to travel 160 miles by coach from my home in South Yorkshire, UK to seek out those elusive Euro imports and Belgian New Beat gems that only Trax had.

And there is the point of this article. In a world where you don’t even have to leave the house to get the latest 12 inch remix or latest indie release or even pay for music anymore, how do you as an artist make a difference when everybody is a digital record label and everybody can sit next to Elton on the virtual record shelf?

“Further hinting at physical music format’s dismal future, a new study shows 48 percent of U.S. teens did not buy a single CD last year. This means not ‘Graduation’, not ‘Kala’ and not even anything from that Soulja Boy guy. It means literally not a single one.” Brock Thiessen from the Exclaim.ca article, ‘Teens Not Buying CDs Anymore?’

“I think the time is not too far off where some releases come out on vinyl and MP3 only — no CD. But who knows.” Josh Maddel, Other Music on Wired.com, Jan 2007

If you’ve more than a just passing interest in the state of the music industry you may have noticed a recent surge of interest and press on the apparent vinyl revival. Recently a representative from Sony BMG, mentioned that his parent company is working on releasing its entire back catalog on vinyl. Even Warners interest in the format has been revived.

“It’s not a significant part of our business, but there is enough there for me to take someone and have half their time devoted to making vinyl a real business,” says John Esposito, president and CEO of WEA Corp., the U.S. distribution company of Warner Music Group, which posted a 30% increase in LP sales last year.

So, there’s no vinyl pressing plants left anyway right? Very wrong. There’s a handful of pressing plants across the USA, UK, Europe and even two active manufacturers in Australia.

“One thing we took away from the talk that I feel is pretty important is pressing size. Some efforts are getting to the point where the records aren’t going to hit store shelves anymore. We‘re past the point where it can be difficult to move 300 copies. You folks making vinyl should strongly consider even a slight increase in the number of copies made available.

The demand is there as well as the infrastructure to handle it. In addition, increasing the number of available copies should do well to keep the eBayers off for a while. If you can do 300 copies, you might as well do 500. If you know you can sell 500, it’s very likely you can sell 1000. ” Tonys Tales of Texas BB discuss the Vinyl Revival panel at SXSW.

Pressing up a release on vinyl is undoubtedly more expensive than CD but as a limited run single or album its more of an event and even a great PR exercise. Safely Meeting Record label boss Carlos Wells sums it up best here. “The vinyl, it’s more of an event. If you throw on a CD, you can almost toss it in from across the room.” A record, by contrast, is a process. “In 20 or 25 minutes you’re going to have to go over, take the arm off, flip it over. You wind up paying more attention.”

Creating a record is a complex process, but essentially breaks down into six separate steps. Taken from the Quick Press website here:

1. Mastering: A mastered DAT or CD is brought to a vinyl press.Two main changes must occur to begin the process of audio mastering:tonal balancing and level adjustment.

2. Cutting: Once the mastered version is finished, the track will be cut into lacquer.A digitally created track will be converted into an analogue wave for cutting lathe.Transferred through an amplifier, the wave travels down the arm of a diamond-cutting stylus and onto a rotating lacquer disc.

3. Stampers: The lacquer or vinyl master is delivered to the pressing plant.The plant completes the following steps:
*The vinyl master is covered with a thin spray and dipped in a bath of electrolyte. A current is passed through the solution and the silver-sprayed lacquer becomes coated in nickel which creates a negative image of the vinyl.

*A second generation negative is created and the nickel plate is peeled from this lacquer to become the stamper. The stamper represents a negative image of one side of the vinyl.
*Two stampers are needed to press up both an A and B sided record.

4. Test Pressings: With both stampers in place, a “puck” of vinyl is introduced into the press. Two labels are placed above and below the puck and the press is closed. In order to flow seamlessly into the grooves of the stamper, the vinyl is heated up to 200 C.

It is then rapidly cooled so that the vinyl can be immediately lifted out of the press. This whole process takes approximately 25 seconds. Normally, a short pressing of 10 copies is made first. These “test pressings” are sent to the record label for approval.

5. Labels: Many people are under the misconception that a “white label” is much cheaper than producing a professionally designed four-colour label. The real expense, however, comes from having the label incorporated into the vinyl. The colour of the label really makes no difference in this process.

6. Artwork: Image is key in almost every industry, making the music industry no exception. Great consideration should go into the label and its packaging, as well as the marketing accompanying its promotional push.

For a rough guide as to how much music you can fit on a vinyl record Nashville veterans UR Pressings have a useful FAQ and quick reference here:

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

And there’s more record manufacturing tutorials here and here.

California based Rainbo Records have several short run vinyl pressing deals which start at $1295 for 500 12inch singles and $799 for 500 7inch singles. Things like picture sleeves would add to that cost.

Some pressing plants, like UR are offering vinyl + digital package deals which includes a secure digital music hosting service, custom digital download coupons with unique one-time-use codes, packaged together. With the popularity of new USB turntables kids can plug their vinyl straight into their computer and rip to MP3 anyway.

As for vinyl distribution, well for these short runs a band or DJ would be better served selling discs at gigs and via mail order using Paypal and publicizing things on their MySpace profile and own website.

Such is the fragile nature of the vinyl distribution business that many of the once thriving vinyl specialists have disappeared, leaving a narrow selection of ultra niche companies and major label offshoots.

If you have a release in Florida you don’t want to be trusting your stock with a distributor thousands of miles away in California. Diy for short runs. Mailers you can get here, here or here.

“In the United Kingdom, where the CD single is basically dead, there is such a resurgence in vinyl that retailers can’t keep up with capacity. In the U.S., figures as high as 22 per cent are being floated about the growth in vinyl record sales.”
(National Post-March 17th 2008)

If you want to see what your tracks would sound like on vinyl you can get a one off 7″ cut for around $50 from Custom Records, who’ll even go as far as pressing it in colour vinyl and giving it a picture sleeve for an extra $58!

Part 2 To Follow

USA Pressings:
Dynamic Sun (East Newark, New Jersey)
Archer Record Pressing (Detroit, Michigan)
Erika Records (Downey, California)
United Record Pressing (Nashville,Tennessee)
Vinyl Record Pressing (San Fransisco, California)
Morphius (Baltimore, Maryland)
NSL Alpha Record Services (Plantation, Florida)
RecordPressing.com (San Fransisco, California)
Trutone (New Jersey, NJ)
Dungeon (Portland, Oregon)
Record Tech Inc (Camarillo, Califronia)
Bill Smith Custom Records (El Segundo, California)
Musicol Recording (Columbus, Ohio)

European Pressings
Key Production - London, UK
Curved Pressings - London, UK
JTS Studio - London, UK
MPO - France
Quick Press - London, UK
Portal Space Records - London, UK
Total Vinyl - London, UK
Record Industry - Netherlands
GZ Vinyl (Czech Republic)

Related Reading

Return of the Record: Vinyl Sales on the Increase (Amoeba.com)
Amazon Vinyl Store (Amazon.com)
Teens Not Buying CD’s Anymore? (Exclam.ca)
Hard to Find Records (HTFR.com)
Vinyl Gets its Groove Back (MIT via Time.com) pdf file. Slashdot response
Vinyl Maybe Final Nail in CD’s Coffin (Wired.com) Digg response IndieHQ response
Putting a New Spin on Vinyl Records (NPR)
How to Reissue a Record (Classic Records)
The Making Of Vinyl (Random Good Stuff)
Vinyl vs. iPod (The Huffington Post)
The CD is Dead… Long Live the New CD ? (LAist)
The End Of the Music Biz As We Know It (Forester Research)
The Inevitable March of Recorded Music Towards Free (Techcrunch)