Vinyl record sales up 49% in US but where are the new machines?
Vinyl records have made a big comeback in the US in 2014, with more than eight million sold this year, up 49 per cent from the same period last year.
The buyers are younger people, who choose the old-fashioned records because of, among other things, the perceived superior sound quality of vinyl, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
However, the WSJ has pointed out that one problem major problem is that while new LPs hit stores each week, “the creaky machines that make them haven’t been manufactured for decades”.
Just one company supplies an estimated 90 per cent of the raw vinyl needed by the industry. America’s 15 or so still-running factories that still press records face daily challenges with breakdowns and supply shortages.
Robert Roczynski ’s dozen employees work overtime at a small factory in Hamden, Connecticut, making parts for US record makers struggling to keep abreast of the revived interest in LPs.
His firm says orders for steel moulds, which give records their flat, round shape, have tripled since 2008.
“They’re trying to bring the industry back, but the era has gone by,” said Roczynski, 67 years old, president of Record Products of America, one of the country’s few suppliers of parts for the industry.
Many producers including the largest, United Record Pressing in Nashville, are adding presses.
But entrepreneurs still haven’t moved to inject capital and confidence into this largely artisanal industry, according to the WSJ.
“Investors aren’t interested in sinking serious cash into an industry that represents 2 per cent of US music sales.”
Record labels are waiting months for orders that used to get filled in weeks. Pressing machines produce only around 125 records an hour. Record factories are running their machines so hard—sometimes around the clock—they have to shell out increasing sums for maintenance and repairs.
Large orders from superstars create bottlenecks, while music fans search the bins in vain for new releases by French electronic duo Daft Punk or The War on Drugs, a Philadelphia indie group.
More requests for novelty LPs — multi-colored, scented, glow-in-the-dark — add to the problems.
To get more machines, record-plant owners have been scouring the globe for mothballed presses, snapping them up for $15,000 to $30,000, and paying down even more to refurbish them.