I Visit A Record Pressing Plant, Part I

|October 28, 2013 | I Visit, Travels

Most of the work I’ve been doing recently has had to do with vinyl – mastering, mainly, and editing, and general grunt-effort – but, records, who could have predicted that? If you’re interested in the projects I’m involved in, I’ve been posting pictures on Instagram. Yeah, yeah, I know – I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about. It’s fun, although I don’t think it’s as fun as Vine. I’m among the minority about that, apparently.

It was because of this record ( and, wow, what an extremely fancy item it is, and check out the pretty colors the vinyl comes in ) that I found myself in Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago. One of the exciting things I got to do was tour the Erika Records plant – something I’ve always kind of dreamed of. I’ll keep it brief, in the interest of getting this post up, but I have to say that Erika’s owners ( Liz and her husband Chuck ) really impressed me – with their wonderful hospitality, and their ethics, which include emissions standards which go above and beyond California’s tough ones, and their commitment to American jobs. And they must be doing something right, because the place was hopping.

Liz Dunster, owner of Erika records

This dollop of vinyl, called a puck, will become an album

I watched this guy press purple records, then turn around to trim and stack them

Liz’s son János checking 180g discs on an electronic scale

Drums of fine vinyl shards, reclaimed from rejected pressings

Bags of fresh red vinyl pellets

Coming in part II : picture discs, funny shape discs, covers, and the cutting room.