There May Still Be A Backlog, But New Vinyl Pressing Plants Are Coming On Line
Any artist with a desire to release a vinyl record faces the hard reality of a long wait time, with some quotes as long as 12 months out! Of course, that just doesn’t work when it comes to marketing your latest product, but the good news is that help is on the way. Some of them may be small, but there are a host of new vinyl pressing plants about to come on line, which should help ease the backlog.
One plant is a new ground-up construction with 8 vinyl presses in Oxnard, California built by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab and its parent company Music Direct. Unlike many plants that use older recycled machines, the presses are brand new and are manufactured by Nashville’s Record Pressing Machines. The plant is slated to come on line in 2023.
Another is a 14,000 square foot facility in Denver built by VMP that’s slated to come on line in late 2022. No word on the number of presses it will house.
New plants in the UK and Berlin will also help ease the back order strain.
Don’t Get Your Hopes Up
What’s interesting is that most of the new plants being built are fairly small as compared to some of the huge label-owned facilities of the past. Also, many of them are aimed more at filling in-house orders for custom labels rather than for outside orders.
All that should help, but a big problem in catching up the back orders is still the supply chain. Getting the vinyl pellets, which is the basic material that vinyl records are made from, is still subject to manufacturing and shipping delays.
Still, the new plants should help take the strain off the existing 29 vinyl pressing plants still in use in the United States. The bottom line is that you’ll still have to wait for your vinyl records, it probably just won’t be as long.
