Companies invest in new capacity to meet demand for vinyl records

Vinyl's back, baby.

Major recording artists are singing the praises of vinyl albums, sending record-pressing companies into overdrive to overcome a burgeoning production backlog. It's a plastic explosion.

In April, four companies announced they are planning major expansions to keep up with consumers' and artists' demand for the distinctive sound — some say the texture — of vinyl records. Or, as one expanding record presser phrased it, "to feel the humanity in a record."

Memphis Record Pressing LLC launched a $30 million expansion that will triple the company's production space and double its staff — a move it claims will make it the largest vinyl record maker by volume in North America. MRP will be able to produce 125,000 records a day, the company said in a news release.

"This expansion will provide much-needed relief to the enormous backlog in the vinyl industry that's been driven by historic and unprecedented consumer demand," MRP co-founder and CEO Brandon Seavers said in the release.

The expansion includes construction of a 33,000-square-foot press operation next to MRP's headquarters in Bartlett, Tenn., and renovation of a 100,000-square-foot warehouse 13 miles away in Memphis proper. The warehouse will allow the company to greatly expand packaging operations and should open in June.

"Our plan, once the new building is complete — hopefully in October, though we have experienced weather-related delays — is to start bringing six new machines online a month for six months," MRP publicist Mark Jordan said in an email. "With our existing 16 machines, we will have 42 machines in all with a production capacity of 125,000 records a day."

Obtaining so many presses would seem quite a feat, given the industrywide shortage of machines.

When LPs fell out of favor in the 1980s, replaced first by tapes and then CDs and DVDs, there was little need for the compression molding machines that had been used to produce vinyl records.

That has certainly changed. Now the scarce machines are very much in demand and new ones can't be made fast enough. In 2020, vinyl outsold CDs for the first year since 1986, when cassettes were still king with 53.9 percent of the total sales volume for all formats, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.

But Jordan said MRP isn't worried about its supply of machines. The company will get its equipment via GZ Media Group of Loděnice, Czech Republic, one of the world's largest vinyl record makers. At the same time, GZ Media is launching its own U.S. company, Nashville Record Pressing (NRP), and is affiliated with Precision Record Pressing of Burlington, Ontario.

"We refer to Precision Record Press[ing] and NRP as sister companies that in partnership with GZ Media in Czech Republic make up GZ North America: separate entities, global coordination and cooperation," MRP's Jordan said.

GZ is investing $13.3 million to start NRP, and it expects to create 255 jobs over five years. Its affiliate, GZ Vinyl, even makes its own vinyl compound.

United Record Pressing LLC of Nashville is also expanding to the reported tune of $15 million to double production. The company said it will be adding 48 presses and, eventually, 200 workers.

Meanwhile, record-of-the-month club Vinyl Me, Please of Denver just announced it will build its own "experiential" vinyl pressing plant there. The company previously has contracted work to record pressers — including GZ Media — but now will have its own 14,000-square-foot "audiophile-grade" facility.

When the site opens by the end of the year, it will host tours and special events for music fans. In addition to record-pressing operations, the facility will boast a bar, listening area and a "chief groove officer" — David Rawlings, co-founder of Acony Records.