Post
by kidlogic » Thu Feb 18, 2010 12:45 pm
Trust me man, I was a vinyl junky for years... cost me a relationship and 10s of thousands of dollars (by my estimate)... but the industry is changing. To only release on vinyl in this day and age is a mistake, unless you really only care about getting your stuff out to a very small portion of the record buying public.
I was a buyer for dubstep and drum and bass at a record store here in Los Angeles for just over 2 years. When I started, I had 5 or 6 distrubutors to choose to order from. Of those 5 or 6, only 3 carried dnb and at first none carried dubstep (this was in 06). When I quit, there were 2 distros left that had not gone out of business or switched to other goods (CDs, gear, clothing). When I moved to LA in '03 there were over 20 record stores that stocked vinyl. There are currently 3 left. Tower and Virgin have gone out of business in the states, not to mention EVERY mall based music store I can think of (Sam Goody, FYE, etc). Other than Amoeba Records, Grooveriders Records and Dr. Freecloud's in LA, the only place you can buy vinyl are resale shops, thrift shops and fucking Hot Topic (and only horrible emo and punk re-issues there). Thats in LA, the place where most major record labels are based in the US. Its depressingly sad. Its not just LA either...
No matter how well its doing in the UK, thats greatly reduced the demand for vinyl. Decreased demand leads to decreased supply. Decreased supply means less plants pressing vinyl, less plants pressing vinyl means the ones that still are are getting more work than they can handle. That greatly increases the amount of time its gonna take for each label to get their stuff in and out of the pressing plants. That creates a backlog of forthcoming releases on each label, so when you send your stuff to them, they already have 10-15 releases planned on their schedule.
So lets say, best case scenario - you send them something, they listen, like it and decide to release it - its gonna take a year and a half minimum for your stuff to finally come out on test press, with another few months to see how it does, before finally coming out two years after they first listen, which is presumably at least a few months after you sat down to write it. So something you wrote today probably wont see store shelves till 2012. Think about dubstep you were listening to two years ago, and what you were writing two years ago - now think of what you'll be writing in two years and how much more you're probably gonna want that released than the stuff you're writing now. With how vinyl has gone in the last few years, who knows how much is even gonna sell over the next couple years and how many plants are gonna make it that long...
Or... you can release it digitally and have it in the stores in two weeks, build up a reputation through sales and have a bit more clout to get on those labels that release vinyl, and if you're doing well, maybe get bumped up the release schedule a bit since you've been a proven seller.
The large backlog is also a reason why you're not getting many responses. I forget where I saw it, but there was a great thread on getting labels to listen to your stuff and how to go about it. In the post someone mentioned how there are labels who wont write you back even if they love your stuff and play it around the office if their release schedule is too backed up. Sometimes they dig your ideas, style, etc, but dont think what you sent is up to par, so they wait for you to send them something that is - but they arent gonna tell you that, because they want to see if you're gonna stick with it and keep sending them stuff, and if you progress as you do. The author of the post mentioned a friend who had been sending stuff to the same label for 3 years before they finally contacted him back about releasing his stuff.
Ive looked into pressing a run of vinyl myself as well, and to be honest, although the run itself isnt that expensive, shipping it to the distro can be - if you think postage on an order from Chemical is bad, think about sending 500 to a distro. Not to mention the promo, sending out test presses, dealing with invoices...
You're only hurting yourself by sticking to the vinyl only thing in my opinion, no matter how admirable it may be. Even if you only use it to build your way up to vinyl releases, it will only help to release digi as well and especially at first.
Of course, when it all comes down to it, its about what you want as an artist. Im not saying you have to release digi to be competitive or successfull... This is just stuff Ive learned, experienced and heard over the years in regards to this topic, and Im in no way an expert or label head.
