New vinyl pressing plant to open in Sydney

With capacity to press three million records per year.

A state-of-the-art vinyl factory will open in Sydney this June, Tone Deaf reports.

The new plant will include full analogue mastering, a Neumann disc cutting system, stamper making facility and fully automated record presses. There will also be a manual press for specialty records (like picture discs, split and splatter colours) as well as a record jacket making machine.

Vincent Chen, who previously worked as a mechanical engineer at Germany’s leading printing presses, will manage the yet-to-be named factory. “We are bringing European quality record pressing back to Australia”, he Chen said. “There will be no further need to manufacture product overseas and pay for air freight or endure long turnaround times.

We have assembled a specialist team with previous technical experience to make this a reality – our plating manager was head of EMI’s plating department before moving across to EMI’s CD factory Digital Audio Technologies Australia to head up the plating department there.

“He uses the EMI formulas which he has adapted over his many years of experience for best quality. Our disc cutting engineers spent many years cutting No. 1 hits so there is no learning curve as there is with other new plants around the world.

“We sourced the plant and equipment that we wanted from nine countries because we knew what we were looking for”.

Last year, a new pressing plant opened in Adelaide with the promise of providing a “more boutique” service than the major alternatives.

In other pressing news, Jamaica’s last vinyl factory, Tuff Gong, will start manufacturing records again soon.