Making Vinyl Past Events
Making Vinyl Europe
In-Person Event
Sept 28-29, 2023
Haarlem, (Greater Amsterdam) Netherlands
C0-located with the Haarlem Vinyl Festival
This year’s conference prioritized critical themes, emphasizing sustainability, environmental responsibility, industry expansion, and revolutionary manufacturing techniques. Attendees were immersed in discussions about the pressing need for sustainability in vinyl production. Amidst vinyl’s resurgence, the conference explored eco-conscious solutions to ensure its long-term viability. Informative sessions tackled sustainable sourcing, recycling initiatives, and environmentally friendly manufacturing practices, fostering a collective commitment to greener vinyl production.
Making Vinyl Minneapolis
In-Person Event
June 7-8, 2023
Minneapolis, USA
Marking our sixth year, Making Vinyl Minneapolis will focus on the business aspects of sustaining profitable growth amid rising prices, considerable supply chain issues, and raw materials shortages.
2023 also marks the 75th anniversary of CBS Labs on June 18, 1948, officially unveiling the Long-Playing (LP) record at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. The conference also coincides with the June 7 birthday of Minneapolis native Prince, who died in 2016. Prince would have been 65 years old. His records – catalog and vault revelations – continue to be big sellers on vinyl.
Making Vinyl Europe & Physical Media World
In-Person Event
September 1-2, 2022
Offenbach, Germany
The MEDIA-TECH Business Forum & ‘Making Vinyl’ were back In Offenbach (Frankfurt), Germany, on September 01-2, 2022. Returning to Germany and co-producing the Making Vinyl Europe & the Physical Media World Conference for our first in-person event since Berlin 2019.
The conference program of our Offenbach event promises to provide:
announcements regarding pressing capacity expansions from long-established pressing plants and newcomers
news about how the vinyl industry continues to pump our record-setting volumes
meeting consumer demand, considerable supply chain issues related to raw materials shortages, and increased prices
the latest projections for market growth that shows no signs of slowing down, despite the substantial challenges
technological breakthroughs in making the record manufacturing process more efficient and sustainable
factors for the unexpected uptick in compact disc demand
breaking stereotypes of gender and vinyl
Making Vinyl Industry Insider
In-Person Event
June 23-24, 2022
Nashville, Tennessee, USA
The pandemic interrupted Making Vinyl’s continued growth since 2017 as the only B2B conference dedicated to all aspects of record manufacturing.
Our Nashville event promises to provide the latest information on how the vinyl industry continues to pump our record-setting volumes, amid consumer demand, considerable supply chain issues related to raw materials shortages, as well as increased prices.
Making Vinyl Nashville conference will be held at a new pressing plant, The Vinyl Lab and plating facility/demos tours of Welcome to 1979, the renown vinyl mastering and plating facility, will be offered.
Incidentally, The Vinyl Lab is one of three new plants coming online or already operating in Nashville, joining the long-established United Record Pressing, further indicating the bullish view market forces have for vinyl’s future.
Vinyl Postcards
January 19, 2022
This is a Timeless Media introduction video answering questions about the new Vinyl Postcards, the company, the production process, and their plans for the future.
Speaker:
Kenneth Winkler
Media-Tech Business Forum
Web Series: Episode Six – Record Store Day in Europe: Progress Report
January 19, 2022
If you sum up the state of Vinyl today in one, it’s RESILIENCE.
Over the past 15 years (decade in Europe), Record Store Day propelled the global rebirth of the format as the current preferred physical music carrier and a year-round phenomenon that celebrates record store culture.
In the last two years, it’s not only withstood but grown substantially sales-wise, despite:
- A worldwide pandemic that is still leaking havoc in everyday life everywhere
- Global supply chain issues that hamper the movement of materials and finished goods
- Rising costs for consumables including PVC, packaging cardboard, etc.
- A single lacquer supplier in Japan to accommodate everyone’s manufacturing
- Safety protocols (see #1) resulting less foot traffic at retail and more e-commerce
Pressing plants are as busy as they can be to keep up with consumer demand, which shows no signs of slowing down. How do we keep this momentum going? We hear from leading European RSD representatives how they’re faring and preparing amid an uncertain environment in a discussion moderated by Making Vinyl co-founder Larry Jaffee, author of the forthcoming book, Record Store Day: The Most Improbable Comeback of the 21st Century, to be published globally 23 April 2022, coinciding with RSD’s 15 anniversary.
Speakers:
Megan Page @ Record Store Day United Kingdom
David Godevais @ Record Store Day France
Jan Köpke @ Record Store Day Germany
Esther Vollebregt @ Record Store Day The Netherlands
Media-Tech Business Forum
Web Series: Episode Five – 2021 Year End Wrap Up
December 14, 2021
In this session, we celebrated all of our achievements during the year, discussed the challenges in 2021, and discussed what 2022 would bring for all of us. Cameras were on, and we all had a great time.
The event itself took place in our space, a wonder. me
Media-Tech Business Forum
Web Series: Episode Four – Did anyone say Compact Disc? CD: Dead or Alive?!
November 9, 2021
Is now the time to reconsider CD? With extended lead times in vinyl manufacturing & material shortages, many artists are now reassessing the compact disc as a way to fill their need for physical media. Our next webinar will plunge into the benefits and new opportunities that are immediately available compared to vinyl.
Speakers:
Sven Deutschmann, CEO, Sonopress GmbH
Connie Comeau, CFO, The ADS Group
Christoph Diekmann, Managing Director, Addvalue Consulting
Kenneth Winkler, Vinyl Postcards
Bryan Ekus, President, Colonial Purchasing / Making Vinyl
Media-Tech Business Forum
Web Series: Episode Three
The Resurgence of the Audio Cassette
September 1, 2021
Vinyl isn’t the only physical format that has made a comeback. This session will take a deep dive into cassette culture, sourcing, manufacturing, and why this format has a certain attraction that streaming hasn’t been able to duplicate.
Speakers:
Alon Avnon – Chairman, Recording The Masters
Steve Stepp, President, National Audio Company
Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow, Author, Personal Stereo
Antonio Scotti, Vice President, Tapematic
Matthew Lyttle, Engineer, Golding Products
Moderated by: Bryan Ekus & Larry Jaffee, Making Vinyl
Media-Tech Business Forum
Web Series: Episode Two
Vinyl: More Sustainable Than You Think
July 28, 2021
Yes, its primary consumption may be derived from fossil fuel, but today’s record is not like yesteryear’s from the perspective of raw materials including lead-free PVC and recycled paper. Hear from the environmental-minded record label, pressing plant, PVC supplier, a Vinyl Institute, and a professor who has proven that digital music leaves a bigger carbon footprint than physical media.
Program
Viny Sustainability Update: Domenic DeCaria, The Vinyl Institute
Panel Session:
Sharon George, Keele University
Nike Koch, Sony Music
Matt Earley, Gotta Groove Records
Ugo Berardinelli, CAF Srl, Italy
Moderated by: Larry Jaffee, Co-Founder, Making Vinyl
Media-Tech Business Forum
Web Series: Episode One
The State of Physical Media: Executive Update
June 29, 2021
We kicked off our monthly webinar series that focuses on all formats of physical media. This new series called “Physical Media World” will provide insights into the packaged media industry, as well as movers and shakers of the record manufacturing industry.
Market Presentation by: Alexandre Jornod, Lead Market Analyst – Music & Audio at Futuresource Consulting.
Click here to download the pdf presentation
Panel Session:
Karen Emanuel, CEO, Key Production (London) Ltd.
Sven Deutschmann, CEO, Sonopress GmbH
Justin Kristal, President, Copycats
Nike Koch, Director of Operations, Sony Music
Moderated by: Bryan Ekus, President Colonial Purchasing & Co-Founder of Making Vinyl
ASK THE MASTERING ENGINEERS – IN EUROPE
September 24, 2020 – Virtual
This 1-hour European edition is fast-paced and will help demystify the vinyl record cutting process. Get customized answers to your specific situation to ensure high-quality pressings every time.
Moderated by: Scott Hull, Masterdisk
Panelist: Darcy Proper, Valhalla Studios; Rainer Maillard, Emil Berliner Studios; Rinus Hooning, Record Industry
#makingvinyl #masterdisk #recordindustry #emilberlinerstudios #valhallastudios
DESIGNING FOR MUSIC
August 27, 2020 – Virtual
Interview with Legendary award-winning album/45 designers SPENCER DRATE with JUDITH SALAVETZ.
This show is part of The Making Vinyl interview series, interviewing the significant people in different vinyl areas.
The show title “DESIGNING FOR MUSIC” (1992) originated from their FIRST authored sold-out book profiling the best music packaging designers worldwide with their work and they both included.
‘Making Vinyl’ DJ with BreakBeat Lou, DJ Z-Trip, DJ Cut Chemist, DJ Shortkut & Stokyo
June 01, 2020 – Virtual
Moderated by: Chuck One, Stokyo
Panelist: BreakBeat Lou, DJ Z-Trip, DJ Cut Chemist, & DJ Shortkut
The DJ nightclub market saved the vinyl format during the wilderness years. Hear from some of the luminary spinners who know how to get people to move on a dance floor and a significant turntable manufacturer catering to the professional DJ market.
SCHEDULING YOUR VINYL RELEASE
July 01, 2020 – Virtual
A conversation around what to know and do to make sure things go as planned and what to do if they seem to be headed in another direction.
This session will address how to plan, budget, and ultimately have your record land in the hands of consumers.
Moderation by: Chuck Gorman, Industry Consultant
Panelist: Melanie Pillette, Better Noise Music; Alex Cushing, Hand Drawn Records; Gene Zacharewicz, Music Industry Pro
AFRICA’S LOST RECORD PRESS REUNION!
Postponed – New Dates TBA.
A gripping true story that documents the amazing discovery of Africa’s last record factory. Locked away for twenty years, the fully functional machinery sat forgotten until Gordon Wallis stumbles across it in a desolate industrial site.
Listen to those that lived the wild elephant encounters, robberies, near-death experiences, and chaos that ensued as the giant machines are ripped from their dusty grave in a desperate attempt to give them a new life in Europe.
How to Produce Your Vinyl Records Without Any Money
June 25, 2020 – Virtual
Are you an artist or a label? Learn how to produce your records without spending any money. Are you a vinyl factory? Learn how to improve your conversion rate to have more quotes signed. You’re interested in stopping waste, stock, and overproduction in the vinyl industry? We have a solution for you.
Presented by: Alexis Castiel, CEO & Co-founder, Diggers Factory
ASK THE MASTERING ENGINEERS
June 24, 2020 – Virtual
This 1-hour session is fast-paced and will help demystify the vinyl record cutting process. Get customized answers to your specific situation to ensure high-quality pressings every time.
Moderated by: Scott Hull, Masterdisk
Panelist: Margaret Luthar, Welcome to 1979; Clint Holley, Well Made Music; Greg Reierson, Rare Form Mastering; Noah Mintz, Lacquer Channel Mastering
#makingvinyl #welcometo1979 #wellmademusic #rareformastering #lacquerchannelmastering #masterdisk
How Delays Between Vinyl Mastering & Electroplating Can Result in A Rejected Test Pressing
June 09, 2020 – Virtual
The single most significant factor that affects the quality of a pressing is the time between when a lacquer is cut and when it is processed in electroplating. Lacquer age effects, called Springback, were common in the 1960s and 70s. During this time, the industry was aware of this phenomenon, and safeguards were built into the process to avoid drastic quality degradation. Welcome To 1979 took a scientific approach to Springback and can showcase how powerful it can be in an attempt to bring this knowledge back into the mainstream. Lacquer Age will be explained, our experiment detailed, and sound clips played.
Presented by: Chris Mara, Welcome to 1979
Download the audio files: https://spaces.hightail.com/receive/SmgXs
Discovering California Soul
June 03, 2020 – Virtual
For over 14 years, Cliff Beach has been releasing some of the best up-and-coming artists from Los Angeles, including Brian Sturges (Wall Of Flesh Soundtrack), Alex Nester of (Urban Renewal Project), Honey LaRochelle (The Brand New Heavies), Mestizo Beat, and his projects The Moon Crickets and Cliff Beach. He will share his learning experiences in great making CDs and vinyl from start to finish, how to use streaming services like Spotify to promote your music in the digital age and why he feels vinyl has a resurgence and has a bright future ahead.
Making Vinyl Hollywood
October 14-15, 2019
W Hotel / Hollywood California
Making Vinyl Berlin is the premiere B2B vinyl conference featuring top executives from the world’s leading pressing plants, as well as agile newcomers in the market, and other professionals throughout the vinyl value chain. Talks include experts on mastering, plating, packaging, raw materials suppliers, machinery vendors, and more.
Keynote speakers: Michael Des Barres, Bernie Grundman, Steve Vai
Making Vinyl Berlin
May 2-3, 2019
Meistersaal / Hansa Studios
It’s fitting that our first Making Vinyl conference in Europe takes place in Berlin, following two U.S. events in Detroit that also celebrated the manufacturing rebirth of the vinyl record. They’re practically twin cities that had fallen in disrepair, but embraced its rich artistic culture to lift themselves out of their urban decay. Both Berlin and Detroit are globally recognized as leaders in the techno DJ genre, which helped keep vinyl alive when most even in the music industry thought the format was as good as dead and buried.
“There’s been a Detroit-Berlin connection since the early 1990s,” explains Detroit DJ Juan Atkins in a magazine article. Detroit’s Cass Corridor 15 years ago wouldn’t be a neighborhood that you would want to wander around, musician/ entrepreneur Jack White told the first Making Vinyl audience in November 2017. Industrial-minded Jack helped to gentrify the area by putting his Third Man Pressing in his hometown of Detroit instead of his current base in Nashville.
We’re so fortunate to be holding this event at the majestic Meistersaal, a one-time concert hall but more famously the same physical space that held Hansa Studios, some 200 meters from The Wall, inspiring David Bowie to write and record there in the studio “Heroes.” Bowie moved to Berlin in 1997 because it was the capital of his childhood dreams and home of Expressionist art. There he produced new music that helped further develop him into “an artist of extraordinary brilliance and originality,” writes Heroes: Bowie and Berlin author Tobias Ruther. Write academics Dominick Bartmanski and an Woodward in their book Vinyl: The Analogue Record in the Digital Age (Bloomsbury, 2015) of Berlin: “The city is often cited as an important ingredient in this cultural brew thathad vinyl as one of its key totems, a benchmark of quality and authentic simplicity at the time when the mainstream thought in opposite ways or did not think at all … In Berlin, vinyl is not just discussed and talked about as something extraordinary. Rather, it is lived, experienced, experimented with and enjoyed quite commonly.”
That’s our goal with Making Vinyl and our friends at the MEDIA-TECH Association and their World of Physical Media program on Day One. Discerning consumers of all ages still relish the tactile nature of records, CDs and even cassettes, are and willing to pay much more for them even if the same music can be emanated from their smart-phones for a relatively nominal monthly subscription price. It defies all technological and economic logic that vinyl would be revived as a deluxe product. But a dozen years after the first Record Store Day (RSD), it’s clear that this global phenomenon has traction, as evidenced by Making Vinyl’s opening panel with RSD representatives from Germany, Great Britain, Italy, France, and Holland. As the late great Leonard Cohen sang, “First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.”
Keynote speakers: Bob Mold, Rene Renefeld, Eduard Meyer & Gerhard Blum.
Making Vinyl Detroit 2018
October 1-2, 2018
Westin Hotel | Detroit, Michigan, USA
Welcome back to Detroit for the second edition of Making Vinyl.
In November 2017, we sort of proved the concept: the rebirth of the record manufacturing industry was not a fluke, that it had traction and was going to continue to grow.
The proof lies in the nearly 300 professionals from 16 countries who traded notes last fall on why they believe vinyl is an important piece of their business plans to distribute prerecorded music in the digital age.
This year the proof also lies in how we’re presenting seven new pressing plants on why they decided to get into record manufacturing, on top of the seven fairly new pressing plants who spoke about their experiences at last year’s conference.
We’re heartened by the continued growth of Record Store Day (RSD), a partner in Making Vinyl. RSD co-founder Michael Kurtz kicks off MV 2018 with a panel discussion of labels, distribution companies and retailers who will attest to the fact that vinyl is continuing to grow.
Special thanks to our keynote speaker “Little Steven” Van Zandt, an incomparable music industry renaissance man – not to mention terrific actor (The Sopranos, Lillyhammer) – who managed to fit us Making Vinyl in his busy recording and performing schedule with his aptly named band “The Disciples of Soul,” which is back in Detroit for a concert on Nov. 9 at the Detroit Music Hall.
Thank you to all our sponsors, exhibitors and speakers for helping us bring Making Vinyl to fruition. And also thanks to all the submitters to the 2018 Making Vinyl Packaging Awards, which received a total of 237 entries, up from last year’s 124! The quality of the work – as you will see Monday night – blew away our panel of award-winning judges. Congratulations in advance to all the winners and runners-up.
In putting together this year’s conference program, we were mindful to not repeat topics as much as possible, and focus on important subjects that will move the industry forward, such as economic models and women in vinyl. This also includes the establishment of manufacturing guidelines, which we are developing in collaboration with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which had not touch the relevant documents since 1978, and the Media-Tech Association.
Few will dispute that today’s records – with 180-gram vinyl being commonplace – are generally better made and better sounding. It’s not your father’s record industry to be sure. And part of the reason for that everyone along the vinyl value chain is working smarter and leaner, perhaps with greater cooperation than what existed in the past.
Finally, stay tuned for announcements regarding our 2019 plans for Making Vinyl in Europe in June and back in the U.S. next November. Enjoy all that’s going on the next two days, and thanks again for coming!
Making Vinyl Detroit 2017
November 6-7, 2017
Westin Hotel | Detroit, Michigan, USA
You can’t make this stuff up.
Home entertainment format gets quickly replaced by supposed advanced technologies in fast succession (i.e., Compact Disc, digital downloads, and streaming), only to re-emerge as a deluxe product that consumers are willing today to pay twice as much for a newly pressed vinyl record than they did for a CD!?!
Yes, that sums up vinyl’s comeback, although it doesn’t acknowledge that it never really went away, thanks to old-school DJs spinning dance records, purists with their thousand-dollar-plus stereos catered to by a handful of audiophile labels, and flea-market crate diggers looking for collectibles. One person’s trash is another’s treasure, indeed.
Nor does all the commercial activity surrounding vinyl – a $1 billion global business, estimates Deloitte – give enough credit to the dozen or so pressing plants around the world that never quite gave up manufacturing records with their antiquated equipment.
But Vinyl 2.0 is not your father’s record business. New machinery and materials suppliers have perfected nearly century-old processes with higher yields, sustainability and better-sounding records!
It’s no wonder that for the past two months since the conference began taking registrations, a week didn’t go by that we learned of a new pressing plant already operational or soon to be online. Making Vinyl is bringing together the great minds all along the vinyl value chain – from the pressing plants to the mastering facilities and PVC manufacturers to the plater/stamper makers and lathe cutters to the labels and indie retailers – who perhaps didn’t have the opportunity to meet each other in person previously.
We’ve gathered in this great music city of Detroit – the culture that produced MOTOWN and its stellar artist roster in the 1960s, as well as everyone from John Lee Hooker, Bob Seger and Iggy & The Stooges to Madonna, Eminem and The White Stripes – to celebrate the rebirth of the global record manufacturing.
We especially thank Day 2 Keynoter Darryl (“DMC”) McDaniels and Karl Groeger’s help in securing the rap legend, as well as Fellow Keynoter/Detroit Favorite Son Jack White for opening up his spanking new Third Man Pressing to all Making Vinyl delegates, and especially TMP’s Ben Blackwell and Roe Peterhans for helping us figure out the logistics, and making available other TMP staff for the panel sessions. You guys are the best!
It takes a village to mount a first-time event like this one (see thank you’s on page 38), but we’d be remiss not to acknowledge Rainbo Records and Colonial Purchasing Co-op board member Steve Sheldon for his guidance and encouragement in getting the ball rolling, as well as Opening Keynoter Michael Kurtz and Carrie Colliton for coming up with Record Store Day. Without RSD, you probably wouldn’t be reading this Making Vinyl program guide. We’re already planning future editions of this event.
We have no doubt this fascinating industry is only getting started.
