May 22, 2014

Pressing plant = vinyl off life support?

There are very few vinyl pressing shops around America, and the ones that we do see are usually hidden from view.  Making vinyl is an old artform, and it is still something that cannot be taught by theory alone – it takes a careful eye and a careful ear to produce the types of record that are worth of being bought and kept for ages.  In the United States, there is a giant vinyl pressing plant located in the south, in Tennessee.  The news on this plant is not that it is shutting down, but it is in fact increasing in size to keep up with demand.

While one might think that this means that vinyl sales are blowing through the roof, the truth is that vinyl record sales are still far behind that of digital and online media sales.  However, vinyl record sales are steadily improving.  At the very least, this means that the use of it is not dying out as we might think.  Young and old are both intrigued by vinyl records and there will always be a small niche for it, even in digital times.  It’s just too bad that creating vinyl records is such a long and laborious process.