Vinyl was never in trouble: United Record Pressing’s Jay Millar on expanding America’s largest pressing plant

Originally published on FACT.

America’s largest record pressing plant discusses its expansion.

Nashville-based United Record Pressing, the world’s busiest vinyl pressing company, responsible for Jack White’s recent world-breaking vinyl extravaganza, recently announced they are expanding their plant this year with 16 new presses, doubling up their capacity.

In an interview with Billboard, Jay Millar, the plant’s director of marketing, discusses the expansion while also breaking a lot of misconceptions about the long-standing ‘vinyl’s back’ stories and how the rise of digital music consumption fed vinyl’s steady growth in recent years.

On how much they press a day:

About 30-40,000 records a day. That’s with 22 presses. [But] it varies. It’s gonna be quicker to do one order of 5,000 than five orders of 1,000 because of set up times, making sure everything sounds good. So the days can fluctuate a bit.

On digital feeding vinyl LP’s growth:

It’s just been a shift in the public’s perception. It’s been a wonderful, chance happening that the rise or emergence of digital slowed down the 12″ jukebox single, and also brought the renewed interest in something tangible. While it hurt what was keeping the plant running in the ’90s, the LP market exploded as people wanted a deeper connection to their music than they were getting from a digital file.

On Record Store Day:

I would say Record Store Day is a result of the rise in vinyl. From my own experience, it was the emergence digital music players that brought on the rise in vinyl. It’s people wanting to have that “deluxe” experience. I compare it to going to the movie theatre versus the DVR.

Read the whole thing over at Billboard.