Premier Rock Forum

RECORD TECHNOLOGY INC. Camarillo, CA
http://recordtech.com

RTI only does 12-inch records. They are quite a nice company to work with, but they don't manufacture 7-inch records.

a recent invoice for a 500 7" pressing was about $43 from United. with the postal zones and past experiences (we generally press @ bill smith but are now doing some 7"s at united because you can save a few bucks), i'd expect you'd pay close to $100 to shipp 500 7"s.

in general bill smith does have a fair share of fuckups on the stuff i've had pressed there, but when they fuck up they admit it, and are appologetic and credit our account. a few times its come out in our favor (for instance once we ordered a small repressing of liek 200 lps on blue vinyl. they pressed them on black, we got the black ones for 1 cent each, and then they pressed the blue).

united on the other hand while they can be a better value for pressing 7"s, have done things like loose parts for pressing something, and then insist they never had them. also if you call bill smith and ask whats going on with a current order they try to actually find out. sometimes united just "doesn't know".

in general i'm surprised by the lack of professionalism at all pressing plants i've dealt with, and so shit like this is part of the game though.

I might add that from the four or five pressing plants I contacted asking for an estimate for 500 7" records + shipping to Brazil, only Bill Smith's bothered replying at all, but he couldn't be bothered to calculate the shipping either, I can't see what's the deal with that. Yay, nice trying to do business with assholes.

Another decent plant is Archer in Detroit:

http://www.archerrecordpressing.com/

bw

Bernardo wrote:I might add that from the four or five pressing plants I contacted asking for an estimate for 500 7" records + shipping to Brazil, only Bill Smith's bothered replying at all, but he couldn't be bothered to calculate the shipping either, I can't see what's the deal with that. Yay, nice trying to do business with assholes.

if you're going to be dealing with pressing plants, as well as people doing plating (and i'd recommend you use an outside source for plating), you're going to find a shocking lack of professionalism unless you go to the best. you can either compensate and deal with it, by going the extra mile to call places and follow up, or you can get miffed, or you can just pay extra money for better service. you get what you pay for. the people at say, United are idiots, i doubt they could successfully fry an egg. they're also probably the cheapest place to press a 7" in the US besides maybe Musicol. not saying this to be a dick at all, but it's something you have to consider. i'm sure the most expensive pressing plants (for instance Erika), are a little more on top of their game about emailing everyone back within 2 business days, but if you're trying to save money as it seems you are if you're concerned about shipping, you may have to be resigned to dealing with people that are a little more laid back.

one thing i'm not sure whether you're aware, but you probably are... is there's been a lot of fluff stories on vinyl making a comeback. for a while i didn't believe it, because I can remember seeing stuff like this as far back as 1994 when vinyl was barely dead, but it seems to be more real than ever. as a result, some dude emailing and being like "hey i want to press a very small order of black vinyl 7"s" is really not going to turn heads. especially when they have no idea if you're even a reputable person. you could get your shit pressed and then never pay for it for all they know. it happens all the time. I'm not saying that to discourage you, but I am saying it because you should view the current landscape realistically. bill smith has been so swamped lately that they've been running out of certain colors of vinyl from time to time. i know some people at "established" indie labels who've been doing good business w/ pressing plants for years, that have had to wait much longer for new releases to be pressed because major labels and indies backed by majors are ordering more vinyl again and not all of them have their own pressing plants anymore. in other words, everyone is doing more business, and there aren't that many places to do business and they're kind of backed up.

sorry for the large post.

Thanks for the input, but truth is I emailed all these places (United wasn't one of them) back in january or february, and, as I said, had only one response at all (which took about two weeks, if I remember well), it's not like I'm freaking out because I didn't get my estimates in three hours, I was just impressed that next to no one bothered replying to me at all. I'll try Archer as well, but right now it looks like the record is being made in eastern europe, as US pressing plants don't give two shits about getting my business anyway. And I know of lots and lots of brazilian artists and labels who are hungry for a pressing plant, as it's been around one year now that you're shit out of luck if you hope to release something on vinyl in south america. I just find it bullshit behaviour, and very insulting. Which is nothing new to brazilians trying do do business with US companies, actually.

it sounds like you've already made up your mind, but let me just say, the records produced in the czech republic are the worst. they're done via direct metal mastering which is a different plating process and often leaves records, especially rock records sounding very "cold" and or "flat". i'm sure someone here with a better knowledge of plating could explain it better than me. i've heard DMM is supposed to sometimes sound better with jazz records, I don't really know, I only listen to moron music. like i said sounds like you've made up your mind, but everything i've heard from that place (gz/recordpressing.com/pirates press it's all the same plant) is absolute junk. i have a couple horror stories but i'm not gonna type them out right now.

That's good to know (well, "disturbing" is more like it), but it's not like having the records pressed in the US (which was my preference to start with) is a choice, you know. What do I need, references to get an estimate? Am I trying to press a record with the soup nazi? "What? Shipping to Brazil? NEXT!". I'll look into a couple more options, though, thanks for the info.

Oh, btw, it's a grindcore record.