advice on doing a vinyl run

[steevio]

speaking in terms of costs, try pressing 300 as this is currently the amount that will get you the best "price per unit" vs getting most of your records sold. 200 is almost impossible to make breakeven.

i agree but its also pretty much impossible to breakeven with 300.

it depends on your pressing plant, mine will press any quantity at the same price per unit and only charge £35 for the set up on repress.

personally i prefer to have alot more than i need, for the future, ive had several releases which suddenly became popular years later, its nice to have the back stock, and to have plenty to give away too.

i dont even bother to think about breakeven, but i agree 300 is a good quantity.

[::BLM::]

[/quote]i'd start with 200, and get a repress if they seem to be selling ok. it costs a little extra for set-up each time you repress (with my pressing plant its only £35 )

This is the best way to do things. Small intial pressing, with small represses. 500 like Steevio said it very optimistic. I think now most labels are doing around 300-500, with a small bunch doing over that.

[Brian Ffar]

I would also consider your primary market. If you plan to press 500 units, don't expect to sell more than 100 in the US, and even that number is fairly optimistic.

With that in mind, if you're going to sell records yourself, you'll have to eat the additional shipping costs t ship overseas.

Just something to consider.

Also, do you plan on having your music mastered for vinyl?

[Roual]

there's only 3 decent pressers in Europe: MPO, Record Industries and Vinyl Factory. Each of these have problems, but they're the best for quality of product and service.

i've only heard bad things about MPO. i'm sure there are some smaller less known pressers about who can do a good job.

i've worked in the industry for 12 years of which i spent nearly 4 years with MPO.

I'm not a massive fan of the company but their vinyl is of a particular high quality.

the smaller plants don't get anywhere near the three plants i mentioned for quality.

they've had problems since last year because a supplier of a chemical used for producing their metalwork went bust and the new chemical isn't as good

this has caused quite a few headaches, including mine.

when it comes to vinyl selecting a company that produces on quality should always be preferred to a cheaper option, hence why in my experience those three are the best

[Roual]

i dont agree about there only being 3 good PP's in Europe, my plant Portalspace in London is very high quality, but its not cheap,
but whats the point in cutting corners on something thats effectively an art project for the love, its certainly not going to make you any money.

it's one of the three i mentioned.

i do agree that quality is of the essence with vinyl.

you can try chris at all ears distribution or maybe spencer at PDD

[steevio]

i dont agree about there only being 3 good PP's in Europe, my plant Portalspace in London is very high quality, but its not cheap,
but whats the point in cutting corners on something thats effectively an art project for the love, its certainly not going to make you any money.

it's one of the three i mentioned.

i do agree that quality is of the essence with vinyl.

you can try chris at all ears distribution or maybe spencer at PDD

yeah sorry bro, i forgot they changed their name a while back.

[patrick bateman]

i've worked in the industry for 12 years of which i spent nearly 4 years with MPO.

I'm not a massive fan of the company but their vinyl is of a particular high quality.

the smaller plants don't get anywhere near the three plants i mentioned for quality.

they've had problems since last year because a supplier of a chemical used for producing their metalwork went bust and the new chemical isn't as good

this has caused quite a few headaches, including mine.

when it comes to vinyl selecting a company that produces on quality should always be preferred to a cheaper option, hence why in my experience those three are the best

We used MPO from 2004 and then the first 5 releases for Tic Tac Toe, and for each and everyone of those release they made mistakes. Dropped the master on the floor so a new one had to be made, misprinted something on the sleeve, did a bad print of the b side and so on and so on.
Of course, this didn't cost us anything, it was their mistakes, but it costed us a lot of time, which was super annoying.
That was why we turned to someone else.

[Roual]

We used MPO from 2004 and then the first 5 releases for Tic Tac Toe, and for each and everyone of those release they made mistakes. Dropped the master on the floor so a new one had to be made, misprinted something on the sleeve, did a bad print of the b side and so on and so on.
Of course, this didn't cost us anything, it was their mistakes, but it costed us a lot of time, which was super annoying.
That was why we turned to someone else.

I'm not a massive fan

I still use them and i've had issues but i like what i hear and can kick a few butts if needed.

the factory is in a rural part of France and it can be hit and miss with regards who you get for CS.

Generally moving to a good CS can improve the service.