[siforster]

Funnily enough, one of the writey things I have in the pipeline is about black vinyl...

It does show a positive shift in vinyl sales that more people are asking for, and more labels are supplying, black vinyl. There's certainly something to be said for coloured records when there is an artistic call for it (which is of course why we're tapping away on here!) but the whole "colour for the sake of colour" is fading away and the trend seems to be heading towards buying a record because it's a record rather than it looks pretty or it might have resale value. And, maybe then, some labels (mostly the ones with more money than sense already) can start dropping the price below "what we can fleece the collectors for" comedy prices.

[Re-animated Cat]

Interesting, Si. I hope you're right about the return of black vinyl, but I'm just not seeing it at the moment. Plenty of decent small labels are still going for the "first 100 on coloured vinyl, 400 on black" strategy and that's totally fine, it does seem to work. Anything that keeps small labels in business is a good thing. However, I know lot of labels are beginning to struggle with this because the black vinyl portion isn't selling - people would rather wait for an opportunity to buy the "limited" version from a marketplace. Interesting to hear your thoughts on all of this. Be sure to post a link to your article when it's done

[siforster]

I suppose it's a question of scale - back in the day, it was a couple of thousand on coloured, several thousand on black so everyone was catered for if they were quick enough and of course there seemed to be no end of shops selling records (I bought my first single from Boots - a pharmacy, for the benefit of those in the former Empire and beyond - which for some reason The Guardian once asked me about). One thing about all this coloured vinyl thing of yore as I remember it - and maybe Spencer could confirm/deny as a longterm vendor of such things - is that coloured records were mostly the preserve of 7 and 12" singles rather than albums (the latter which seemed to get more *spit* pic discs than anything else).

[dumaisaudio]

Aside from Spencer pondering the Back To Black Sub, he's also making Clear the "standard" color, meaning after the color variant sells out, it's the clear pressing widely available. I forget where clear fits into that scale of sound quality to vinyl color, but it strikes a nice balance between quality and the demand for something other than black vinyl.

As a consumer, I get caught up in the color hunt too. If there is a limited color available as well as black, I'd rather get the color pressing. For some reason when it's just black it does kinda feel not as special. That being said, it all depends on the release. I recently bought Slayer's reissues of Regin/South/Seasons, and was actually glad that I didn't get the random red color in any of them, as I preferred to get black for those. I think Waxwork has stuck a nice balance with their Rosemary's Baby release. There are several random variants, and clear is the standard. Which ever version you get, it's cool looking. Death Waltz is also going this way. Ultimately there will always be complaints from certain people, but these companies have to follow what the majority of people want to stay in the business. They could press lots of copies on black and it would sound better, and then they may be stuck with lots of stock sitting around because of that.

I will add my two cents about the colors though. My first DW purchase was the Escape From New York soundtrack, black vinyl. After I got addicted and started getting everything, I ended up getting the repress on solid orange and sold off my black copy (wish I hadn't now actually) so that I had a color version of each DW release. But I did that at the time because they were both really quiet pressings, the orange not having any more noticeable noise than the black pressing. With Prince of Darkness, my blue copy does have quite a bit of surface noise that isn't present on my black copy. I think we can rate colors all day long, but some of it also just has to do with what they do at the plants with the colors, and some will turn out better sounding than others depending on a variety of issues.

[crazybeats]

I think the majority of people after coloured records couldn't care less what is on, they could be blank for all they care, they don't give a shit about the music or label or where it came from, it's the fact that they can make money from it or collect it.

For music fans, those that buy it because of the music, black always wins and it always will because it delivers, it does the job.

[ghostfires]

I really and truly disagree with the assertion that those buying color vinyl means you don't care about the music. That is a poorly thought out statement, and sounds like it comes from anger based on missing out on too many limited editions, and trying to take the high road of "black is always best." Some of us just want the music any way we can get it. I get that 180 gram black vinyl is the best, but some of us honestly don't care about the very best. Some of us enjoy the limitations of the medium, regardless of whether it's new or old music.

I have plenty of colored vinyl that sounds great. I have yet to have anything sound really crappy on colored with the exception of picture discs. I don't skip on an album if I can't get it in color variant, but I do enjoy getting a special edition. Some of us just simply like to have great music on a really cool looking slab of vinyl. Why in the fuck is it such a concern of yours as to how I or anyone else prefers to listen? Mind you're own business and spend more time listening, less time bitching about what other people buy.

[Re-animated Cat]

Yeah, a bit of a rash statement there crazybeats.
It goes both ways really - coloured vinyl can be really cool, depending on the release and how it's marketed. It can really suit a soundtrack because of its associations with the film. It's just a neat addition. However (and I think this is what crazybeats was getting at, but please correct me if I'm wrong), the thing that's annoying about the whole coloured vinyl thing is that it's overdone and being cynically used by certain buyers and labels to raise value and collectability prematurely. It just feels wrong when a brand new release is fetching huge prices within one or two weeks of being released. As for me personally, I like a bit of both - some records I like coloured, some I definitely prefer on black. I will never buy a picture disc under any circumstances. It really depends on the album we're talking about. Somehow for me, soundtracks in particular don't require the highest pressing standards to be enjoyable. Typically soundtracks don't have the same dynamic range as say, many experimental records coming out today. For those, black vinyl is more necessary.

[Re-animated Cat]

Also, black doesn't necessarily always win. There are many, many factors that go into the production of a record - the colour of the vinyl is really secondary when compared to good mastering, source format and pressing method. It's not as simple as saying one is better than the other. Many black records sound like absolute turds, of course. But very generally speaking, black vinyl is capable of being better than coloured.

[dumaisaudio]

Exactly, black vinyl doesn't mean anything if it's made from the commercially available CD. Sadly, that's all too common these days (I've even had labels admit that to me when I asked about what they were pressing reissues from). If labels don't press the vinyl from good source material, it makes no difference what color it's on. Luckily, none of these soundtrack labels are guilty of this (aside from perhaps Mondo and the Halloween release), as it seems like they're all working directly with artists and the original masters.

[ghostfires]

I understand there is frustration with the secondary market with vinyl these days...I listen to more genres of music than I care to name, and it seems that is the case with every kind of music. Anyone here into black metal could attest to that. If you miss the initial release of a new album, you might be paying $20-50 more the day after it sells out. Soundtracks are the same way. You have to see this as part of any emerging, or in this case reimerging market. There will be the initial blast of all kinds of awesome shit, and very limited. Then the market demand grows so extra pressings are made...half the audience wants black, half wants color...the labels scramble to meet the demands so they can succeed. Then the category will inflate to new levels, more bullshit is made just to be a part of the market...that's what is happening right now with these awful, over-priced soundtracks from major movie companies and record labels. Let that shit fall off, people will lose interest over time, and the market will calm back down. The small labels dedicated to releasing the real deal time and time again will be here no matter what.

[crazybeats]

[quote=9809]I really and truly disagree with the assertion that those buying color vinyl means you don’t care about the music. That is a poorly thought out statement, and sounds like it comes from anger based on missing out on too many limited editions, and trying to take the high road of “black is always best.” Some of us just want the music any way we can get it. I get that 180 gram black vinyl is the best, but some of us honestly don’t care about the very best. Some of us enjoy the limitations of the medium, regardless of whether it’s new or old music.

I have plenty of colored vinyl that sounds great. I have yet to have anything sound really crappy on colored with the exception of picture discs. I don’t skip on an album if I can’t get it in color variant, but I do enjoy getting a special edition. Some of us just simply like to have great music on a really cool looking slab of vinyl. Why in the fuck is it such a concern of yours as to how I or anyone else prefers to listen? Mind you’re own business and spend more time listening, less time bitching about what other people buy.
[/quote]

I like how you start out plausible and then the further you type the angrier and angrier you get rather than just standing up for yourself and saying you're right crazybeats, I only buy them because I like them rather than because I absolutely love the music and have heard the music prior to buying it and am going to get hours and hours of enjoyment for the rest of my life listening to this record.

It's none of my business at all but quite frankly vinyl is starting to become something to collect rather than listen to. I hope sales drop off massively in the coming years because maybe then it will go back to being what it was intended for, a format for listening to music rather than something to sit on a shelf and be admired but by only yourself and the other people lucky enough to get one. Am I angry to have missed out on any releases? No. I can pick up any release from any label anytime I want. As for the ones that sold out? I allowed them to sell out. I could have bought one just like anyone else but it's disheartening, very very disheartening when the first thing people ask about with releases and it's not just soundtrack releases, there are others too and the only thing people care about is the colours and numbers pressed, they could not care less about what is on it because it's not there to listen to. It's there to brag about, it's there for a quick picture on Instagram and that's it for a few weeks because there's no time to breathe, it's on to the next release, they keep coming non stop.


Major labels are a problem also with their pricing but thank goodness most are just doing regular black pressings. In recent years one of the big soundtracks I really wanted was Moon from 2009. I bought that for £12.99, same price as the CD. But 2009 was really the tipping point for the vinyl pricing. If that album had been released now it would be at least double that price for no other reason other than 'vinyl is popular again'. The thing with that soundtrack was that it wasn't pressed by a big label in large numbers but it was available in all the usual places. Even now I see DW releases in HMV which is a big high street store that sells music and video in the UK. One store I went to in my town, John Carpenter had his own section and it was the DW soundtrack releases of his films then in the regular Soundtracks section they had other LPs from DW and other movies and the prices were no different to any other online store. That's the way it should be done.

[chandler75]

I think for 95 % of people on this board, the music comes first, the collectibility (variants/colors/great looking packages/numbers pressed) come second. But who says the two things can't go hand in hand?

I think a reason why it seems that most discussions on this board are about the collectibility part is because it's easier to discuss than the music. Not everyone can write eloquently about the musical elements. I know what I like, I might even be able to put a few words behind it, but I rarely know what instruments have been used, how they interact etc. I can, however, discuss what color variant looks great and which releases I'm excited about.

[ghostfires]

Haha so you're only happy if big label stores sell small label albums at cheap prices on black vinyl only? And you only want to buy one album a year?

Well for EVERYONE else...I think we'll stick with enjoying the albums we buy the way we buy them, wherever and however we buy them. Perhaps you should look into checking into an old folks' home and perhaps give up worrying about the rest of the world and what they do every day.

I would never admit you're right, simply because your premise is that anyone who buys colored vinyl doesn't care about music. That's an ignorant statement that has zero basis in fact. You just sound like a miserable, angry person. If you don't even want to buy but the Moon soundtrack...what in the hell does it matter about what other soundtracks people buy? I understand you're using that as an example, but if all year one year you wanted to buy one soundtrack...that doesn't mean you appreciate music more than other vinyl buyers, that simply means you bought less. You're applying an anti-consumerism, hipster mindset to the purchase of art simply because you seem to dislike people a lot, and really are more excited to disapprove of everything they do. That's very sad because you'll actually end up missing out on a ton of music by acting that way.

If you only cared about the Moon soundtrack in 2009 means that you missed out on Gianni Rossi's Gutterballs soundtrack! That's a shameful miss for anyone into soundtracks, especially anyone into horror.

[karloffsidekick]

[quote=9809]Some of us enjoy the limitations of the medium, regardless of whether it’s new or old music.[/quote]

That's like a car dealer saying "isn't she a beauty.....purple metallic speckled paint that glows in the dark! She won't do more than 40 miles per hour and every time you try to turn right she stalls, but you enjoy the limitations of some automobiles, right?"

[NathanLurker]

not really, Automobiles are a pratictal tool for movement, music is a more abstract thing, I listen to noise and black metal tapes and I can certainly appreciate the concept of noise on an art medium. an automobile that can't give you transportation to a satisfactory degree isn't really an automobile anymore heh

[karloffsidekick]

[quote=9827]an automobile that can’t give you transportation to a satisfactory degree isn’t really an automobile anymore heh[/quote]

If a brandy-new album that I just paid good money for from a label can't give me sound quality to a satisfactory degree, it's really just a frisbee I don't care how pretty it is. Actually, screw "satisfactory", the sound on it had better be smokin'.

I do get the first part of your statement, but in this "noise music" that you listen to the "noise" is selectively added and mastered to give you the most "noisy" bang for your buck. When unintentional noise that occurs because of shitty, or perhaps let's say less than optimal, materials used in the manufacture of said vinyl (I think that's what young people refer to them as) it's a different kettle of fish.

[siforster]

Well. Thanks everyone for helping to flesh out whatever it was I was going to do! It's taken on a life of it's own, so I'll try to do a thing in a while that'll move much of this to a thread of its own. Or I might accidentally delete it. Either way, it'll clear this bit up for more questions for Spencer.

I appear to be doing a lot of work today, it really doesn't become me...

[deathwaltz]

Here are my thoughts (for what they are worth)
I have worked in the music industry since I was 14 in some way or another..
When I started to buy records as a kid I had all manner of coloured vinyl and picture discs , I have Alarm records shrinkwrapped with t shirts , Psychedelic Furs 7 inches with playable sleeves & all the flexipop records...
Gimmicks have been around as long as vinyl itself.
I guess the thing is that with the vinyl resurgence over the last 7 years lots of new people have discovered the format and understandably they want something exciting and unique from it , hence the coloured vinyl boom that has gone hand in hand with Record Store Day etc.
I don't really give a monkeys about colours when it comes to listening to records although when I wan't to sit and watch a record give me a colour anyday
I gave this some thought last night and we will start pressing 100 copies on black starting with the first release of Sub 4 BUT I can bet you that these will sell out and get flipped as they will be the rarer press, which in turn means we'll get hate mail / death threats etc . So we can't really win....
One other thing and this is not a slight on anybody but the amount of very rude emails we get from people telling us our records are 'shit' is staggering , one thing the vinyl boom hasn't done very well is communicate to people that

A) you really need to be playing your records on something decent - portable decks with crappy needles destroy vinyl and when arms don't have weights etc they skip like crazy

B) vinyl has always had imperfections , I started buying vinyl when I was 8 years old and even then in the golden age you'd get a record home that jumped , crackled and had hiss.

It seems to me that the new found rise in vinyl has also made everyone an audiophile (or they think they are an audiophile) when most likely they are playing their records on gear that is well below what is considered audiophile quality.
Like I say this is not a knock against anyone , more of an observation from a label owner, record store clerk & Record Store Day organiser.....

[deathwaltz]

I do always try to put a lot of thought into the colours we use , which is why I give them names (They are my children ) haha
Certain effects that I love eg: the Haze effect we used on Donnie Darko and The Fog is awesome but because of the way it is pressed (manual press) it leaves grit and dust so we won't use that again.
I had a great visit to our plant on friday and actually pressed some records myself - full report coming soon with pics / videos. Even for an old dog like me it was very enlightening.

[NathanLurker]

I agree with you that labels should try to provide the best audio quality they can, although thats more of a pressing/mastering/source material issue than a color issue I think. It is also noteworthy that I think it's not any album that you'd want to experience some surface noise on. Classical music, for example, is probably best heard on lossless digital format or very clean vinyl with minimal noise. just like any technical music album. Think about progressive/experimental rock or metal.


But some albums are enhanced by a bit of noise. When I listen to my Jazz Noire compilation of music from the 40's, a little bit of dust noise actually scratch an itch of nostalgia factor because I remember noir movies with scenes of characters listening to dusty records or some horror movies where a records skips for dramatic effect. and it is not the same if the noise is intentionally recorded in the track. I think the surface noise from the limited edition of "The Hills Have Eyes" actually fits the theme or radiation and mutation and therefore might enhance the listening experience, the mood,the memories that comes up.



My point though is only relevant to someone who'd be attracted to this idea. that's why it's great to have different colors available. black vinyl please yes. it sounds great and I don't want all my album to have a certain degree of surface noise. I want to be able to pick good sound quality when a record needs to be listened to as it is, or pick a colored split GITD record, knowing that there's a bit of surface noise, but knowing that it's part of the life I want to give to my listening sessions of another record. I want a "Re-Agent green" record for Reanimator even though it's slightly less good than black vinyl.

I wouldn't pay on second market ridiculous prices for the color though. If I miss on a limited edition, well, standard edition is just perfect too.

[siforster]

Ah - which reminds me, an actual question again!

I see from various posts that you have your stuff pressed in the Czech Republic, is this because those guys are particularly skilled at getting the results you want, or is it because UK facilities are pricey/crap/non-existent? I've done a bit of reading into the machinery side, and it looks like no new equipment's been made since the '80s - which makes me wonder what'll happen if vinyl sales carry on going upwards and there's no new places to make them...

[crazybeats]

I think there is a small group of people that sell on Discogs and Ebay and they buy these releases for that reason alone and it's always well above what they paid. Because there is so few places to buy new music now online and in the high street, a lot of people just automatically go to Ebay or Discogs if they don't have a record store near them. So if something sells out they don't think to look around or maybe they don't know where to look and so they end up on those two marketplaces.

It's not the fault of the labels making those limited records or even the people buying them apart from those wanting to profit from them but IMO it starts making records look like collectables rather than listening formats and I think the bigger labels have cottoned onto that and now when you get a big selling artist who's in the charts with their album it's a big deal it's on vinyl when 5 years ago it would have been on vinyl anyway and no one would have bothered.

I'm a big fan of chart music. I just am and back then you could buy most chart music as 7" singles and 12" singles and there was promos and white labels. And apparantly those are the years when sales were at an all time low lol. But for someone like me it was great buying singles every week and buying the odd album but I didn't understand why as vinyl started getting more and more popular up until today why chart music took a back seat, the 7" and 12" formats were no longer catered for. That's obviously a gripe I have with the really big record labels, why they released so much music on vinyl during the years where sales were low yet when the sales are huge they hardly release anything, it's left to the smaller labels to lead the way.

You do need to have good equipment to get the most out of it. For years I had a setup that wasn't the best at all then in 2010 I made a huge upgrade and I haven't look back since. There's not a lot of new records I've bought that have had bad surface noise, only really second hand ones. I'm a big fan of Record Store Day but do you not think when you look at some labels like Warner Bros who always stand out to me as having releases every year, do you not think why don't they do that more often? Don't you think they could look at their portfolio of artists and at least once a month release a 7" single for release? Even if it was far less than the numbers they press for RSD, just a single every now and then, no big deal made just let it out there for people to buy. Not everyone likes Itunes. I think people would still buy physical singles if the choice was there.

[ghostfires]

@karloffsidekick - you've obviously never had the pleasure of listening to my sun-warped copy of Brian Eno's Ambient For Airports.

I've explained my point several times on this forum and elsewhere in greater detail than I will here, but basically I enjoy the limitations of the medium because of it's affect on the music. It creates an experience. Rather than popping in a CD in your car while driving around town, or throwing on a CD or DVD in the house to listen to while cleaning or doing work...putting on a vinyl record is an experience, for me at least. It is an adventure every time, it is exciting, and it is memorable. I do not care about how perfect it sounds...I care about the experience and the actual music itself. To me, the art (jacket, vinyl, colors, etc) is all part of the experience.

Yes I want my newly released albums to sound good, but do I care about them being perfect? No. Like it is mentioned above, vinyl is a flawed medium to begin with. Should you listen to music the way I do? I don't care! That is the whole point to this. If you want to buy 180 gram black vinyl every single time because you're obsessed with the quality of the music, go for it. If I want to buy colored vinyl and enjoy the flaws in it...let me do so without the constant bitching/criticisms.

[crazybeats]

Of course you can ghostfire, no one's trying to take your records away from you don't worry lol.

[seb]

Ah, it's good to be back on the forum after a week of packing and shipping. I think I have a couple of kg's of cardboard dust in my lungs.

Interesting to see all these opinions on here about the subject. I won't elaborate since I already gave my two cents on black/color/mastering/… a couple of times on this board.

As a label I see three groups of customers actually.

- The audiophiles who buy only on black or solid colors.
- Those who want a good sound and a good looking record
- Those who go only for the limited and crazy vinyl setups.

I think there is nothing wrong with any of the above people. Al though I think the last group will disappear with time and move on to the next big thing.

Ironically all the talk about the 'lesser' quality of the GITD variant of The Hills created such a buzz that I get tons of mails daily from people asking if I still have GITD available. Guess they are part of the last group.

But that's ok, I don't judge them or question their integrity. Some people collect records for the 'art' or 'design' aspect. That does not make them fake or flippers. Maybe they buy the record and blast it all day on their iPod's?

One thing that does not sit quite right with me is that I have people ordering the black vinyl to listen too because the GITD does not meet their audio standards. They tell me they don't mind. But I do, not comfortable with the thought one needs to buy two copies of my releases to enjoy it to the full extend. I do love those people for their dedication, a really humbling experience for me!

We will still do all these crazy things with color set ups. But GITD is out of the picture for sure. As a result, ironically this lesser sounding variant will be the most collectable one. And that says a lot.

I have to agree with so many things in Spencer's post above.

- As a label you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.
- People are sometimes so aggressive in their mails… if you ask us nicely we will fix your problem. No need to bark.
- Invest in good turntables, speakers,… even the best record will not meet your demands on crappy gear.
- Vinyl always had faults and crazy set up since the beginning. There were always imperfections and crazy things.

Keep the fire burning and defend your beliefs… but be nice to each other. Remember : if you are both posting on here you probably have more in common than you think!

Seb