Releasing music on vinyl isn't just for bigger artists

Releasing music on vinyl doesn't just have to be for bigger artists. There is an alternative way to making vinyl called lathe cut records. Here in the UK I work with Lathe To The Grave quite a bit, and there are people doing this all over the world. Compared to traditional mass produced vinyl. These are cut one at a time and they're designed for shorter runs of anything between one to a hundred records. Over that, you'd probably be better off looking at the traditional way of making records. But they are great because you can make a small, limited run and they're something special for your fans to buy.

I know for artists, budget is always a factor so if you don't have the money upfront you can set up a pre-order through Bandcamp or crowdfunding. Because of the backlog with vinyl production, it's pretty common for people to wait three to six months to get the record that they've bought. So you can set up that pre-order to help you fund the record and get an idea of the demand beforehand. A lot of places that make vinyl have quite a long waiting list, so it's a good idea to get in touch beforehand, just to get an idea of how long that's going to be.

When you're doing your research, you do need to be careful. I've seen people out there offering lathe cuts that only have a mono lathe. So you want to make sure the place you're using can do stereo cuts. It's also quite normal for lathe cut records to be a little bit quieter than traditional records, but they shouldn't be that much quieter or noisier in comparison, so read some reviews if you can find them. I've mentioned this before, but because of the way vinyl is made and the way it plays back, you do need dedicated vinyl masters, so talk to your mastering engineer and make sure your music is properly prepared for vinyl.

If you aren't that familiar with vinyl records is they're very fragile. So when you're posting them out, you want to get dedicated vinyl mailers, which you can get from the post office or eBay, just to make sure your records don't get broken when they're in the post.

Infra Violet - Dream Tether being lathe cut by Lathe To The Grave.