Blog

A Beginners Guide to Sound Cloud on Vinyl

in Blog by Gareth Peebles

News broke recently of an intriguing new vinyl pressing service called, Vinylize.it, which is being orchestrated by the people at Qrate, who themselves offer an intriguing vinyl pressing service.

Vinylize.it – currently still in beta – promises “your favourite tracks or playlist from your Sound Cloud account” on vinyl. So in the interest of keeping The Sound Machine’s glossy vinyl brain gliding effortlessly, I’ve conducted some further research in to both of these services so that you and it don’t have to.

Qrate:

  • Provides independent labels and artists the opportunity to press their albums in small runs (100+)
  • It would be lazy to call the service “Kick Starter for Vinyl”, but that’s exactly what I’m going to call it
  • Imagine a Kick Starter for Vinyl
  • ‘Projects’ (or, albums to you and I) are promoted by artists, labels and fans across social media platforms (et al) in order to garner pre-orders for an album that doesn’t yet exist
  • Once a target (set by the artist/label) has been reached, the record is sent to press – WooHoo!
  • This service is specifically for artists and labels – not fan boys or fan girls or groupies of any kind

Vinylize.it:

  • Caters for a gap in the market that Qrate themselves created – giving the aforementioned fan girls, boys and groupies the opportunity to rally support for a physical reproduction of their favourite Sound Cloud album
  • The process is fundamentally the same as Qrate, but from a consumer perspective – a favourite album is picked or you can curate your own playlist (which is a really nice idea)
  • Once the proposed target has been reached (which illustrates support for an album), Vinylize.it will then approach the artists/labels in question, broker a deal and put it to print

Now, this could be seen as a very elaborate (but undoubtedly clever) marketing and branding excerise by Qrate – giving fans the ‘opportunity’, to do all of the marketing and R&D leg work, using them as digital canaries in niche digital coal mines, before Qrate step in and “seal the deal” (make all the monies).

But for music fans who have an appreciation of both digital and physical mediums, this service is an exciting one. Audio fidelity aside, a common bug bear with the digital medium is the lack of decent artwork and something physical to hold and this service nicely fills that gap.

Pros

  • Could garner some rare and interesting oddities from the web
  • Physical copies of artwork that would usually simply be thumbnails on a screen

Cons

  • Even once your chosen album has been green lit, it may still not receive enough votes to guarantee production
  • Albums hosted on Sound Cloud are compressed to 128kbps – so production standards are uncertain

SoundCloud have been trying to find a way of monetising their service for a lonnnnng time – could this be the answer they have been looking for? Could there be a potential buyout lined up somewhere in the future?

 

 

 

About the Author

Gareth Peebles – I have always been in love with popular culture – but, being a child of the 80’s and part of “the MTV generation”, I suppose it’s fitting that the one constant in my pop culture obsession has been music. Music, music, music. All day, everyday, in every and any way that I can get it.

My first full time job was at a now defunct major label store – which I loved. Then I taught Media Theory & Production for a few years – which I also loved. Now I get to listen to music all day and create stuff using computers, which I love too!

Punk, Funk, Hip-Hop, Trip-Hop, Jazz, Blues & Electronic music (to name but a few) are always staples in my weekly audio diet (that, plus they sound good when written next to each other). I always have an ear open for something new and love learning about music through other people’s love of music – so let me know if you hear something good

4 Responses to “A Beginners Guide to Sound Cloud on Vinyl”

  1. Even once your chosen album has been green lit, it may still not receive enough votes to guarantee production

  2. this service is an exciting one. Audio fidelity aside, a common bug bear with the digital medium is the lack of decent artwork and something physical to hold and this service nicely fills that gap.

  3. Craft Boxes says:

    a common bug bear with the digital medium is the lack of decent artwork and something physical to hold and this service nicely fills that gap.

  4. Once the proposed target has been reached (which illustrates support for an album), Vinylize.it will then approach the artists/labels in question, broker a deal and put it to print

Leave a Reply