Jack White Starting His Own Vinyl Pressing Plant

Frustrated with the long wait in to get records pressed, Jack White’s new Third Man Records pressing plant is scheduled to open in February in his native Detroit. The company has installed 8 new energy efficient presses capable of outputting up to 5,000 discs every 8 hours. The company also hopes to add 50 jobs to a city that desperately needs them.

Although the plant is primarily for the releases from Third Man artists, it will also be available for outside work. The company will continue to maintain its longstanding relationship with United Record Pressing in Nashville to handle any overflow.

White is proud of the fact that the plant made every effort to be environmentally sustainable, which includes a closed-loop, chilled-water system that maximizes water sustainability, state-of-the-art temperature control, and noise control of the loud machinery.

There are only 20 record pressing plants in the United States (including Third Man when it comes on line), and just about all plants are currently backlogged by an average of 4 months. Obviously this prevents getting a release quickly to market, which is why Third Man decided to make the rather sizable investment in its own plant.

The major labels actually make up a great deal of the vinyl orders these days, as many new releases also get a vinyl version as well. This makes it very hard to squeeze indie labels and artists into the cue, so at least for the moment, any new plant that comes online should have no trouble finding enough work to keep itself busy.