Ever wondered how vinyl records are made? Austin's only record-pressing plant showed us
AUSTIN (KXAN) -- The demand for vinyl records has been surging over the last several years, reaching a peak last year.
Vinyl records can be found anywhere, and their sales surpassed CD sales last year for the first time since the 80s, a report from the the Recording Industry Association of America highlighted.
If you visited the Austin Record Convention in May, you probably saw that demand at play firsthand. Nathan Hanners, the convention's director, said it was one of the largest conventions in its history.
But have you ever thought all the way back to the beginning of vinyl records and wondered 'how are records made?'
Austin's only vinyl pressing plant, Gold Rush Vinyl, walked KXAN through the answer to that question.
Gold Rush was at the record convention in May, selling bouquets of plastic-looking flowers and telling table visitors about their business.
The flowers are made out of vinyl record scraps, the people at the table explained. When records are pressed, there's a strip of excess that gets cut off. Turning the excess into flowers, or other decorative knick-knacks, is something the team at Gold Rush does to cut down on waste and repurpose unused plastic.
The flowers are the end of Gold Rish's record-pressing process, but what's the beginning? Robbie Carroll, a press operator at Gold Rush walked us through the entire thing.
How vinyl records work
If you've ever thought, "How does a disk of plastic have music on it?" you're not alone. Carroll explained that, essentially, there are vibrations that can be visualized as musical waveforms contained within the grooves on a record. The vibrations, when hit by the needle of a record player, translate audibly to the sound of music.
One side of a record contains a singular line that circles inward to the center and holds the vibrations. The gaps between grooves on a record indicate when a song ends and another begins.
A vinyl record is basically a copy-paste of "stampers," which contain the music information that gets pressed into a vinyl. They're called stampers because they stamp music onto vinyl over and over, Carroll explained. The silver disk shown in the above video is one of the stampers for the job Carroll was working on.
"It's kind of like a negative, and what gets pressed is the positive, essentially," Carroll explained.
Pressing process
The making of a vinyl record starts with the stampers being loaded into a pressing machine, as well as small pellets of plastic vinyl. The machine heats up the pellets, then creates a puck, which is pressed between the stampers into a disk -- the top and bottom labels of the record are pressed on during this process. About an inch or less of excess plastic protrudes from the edge of the disk and gets cut off (this is what Gold Rush uses to craft those flowers). The machine then stacks the finished records on a spindle.
Caren Kelleher, founder of Gold Rush, said one thing that goes into record-making that most people wouldn't know is that vinyl is a "peculiar" medium.
"Getting the music files and art files ready can be a lot more tedious than people expect. I'm grateful to have a team here that is ready to jump in and help our clients -- but especially first-time vinyl-makers -- with this process and its intricacies," Kelleher explained.
Gold Rush Gold Machine
Bringing to life the name "Gold Rush," the company recently added a gold-plating service.
Ray Blevins, the production director at Gold Rush, explained that the "Gold Machine" works to plate records in 24-karat gold and other metals, such as aluminum and rose gold.
Pricing for gold-plating services starts at $279. Gold records are currently available for purchase, and special order requests are available online.
The end of the process: Reducing, reusing, recycling
Something Gold Rush does to try to mitigate plastic waste is reusing the plastic strips that are leftover as scraps when a record is initially pressed.
Grace Ramadan explained the process of turning those strips into roses, rose bouquets, succulents or other knick knacks.
Something else the company does to cut back on plastic waste is offer "random" color vinyl at the same or lower prices as black vinyl. Kelleher said this option gives clients the chance to have interesting color mixes while helping Gold Rush reduce plastic waste by using up remnant colors.
Why Gold Rush opened
Kelleher told KXAN she opened Gold Rush in 2018 after working in the music industry her entire career because she realized how pivotal the medium of vinyl was becoming.
"I've been lucky to work in music my whole career, but it was my experiences managing bands and then leading music app partnerships at Google that showed me how critical vinyl was becoming to the music industry -- especially independent musicians who were touring and selling merch to make a living."
"Before opening Gold Rush Vinyl, I learned how hard it was for these DIY artists to get records pressed and saw an opportunity to help that by opening a pressing plant here in Texas."
Gold Rush presses hundreds of thousands of records each year, and about half of the company's clients are from Texas, Kelleher said. They also press for international labels and artists who need vinyl for when they're touring the United States.
Kelleher said the best thing about Gold Rush is the people; both the staff and clients.
"We have such an incredible team here and they are so dedicated to making sure the products we make are ones that artists will be proud of. There's nothing quite like having a client come to the factory to pick up their vinyl and seeing their reaction when they hold their record for the first time."
Gold Rush has 10 full-time employees and anticipates hiring more people over the summer after undergoing a recent expansion.