Acts_One Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 Sup guys, a few of my buddies and I have been courting the thought of pressing our own scratch records. With the recent hype over 7" records and what was a limited resource we felt that hey, why don't we do this shit? The margins are pretty good considering the prices I've shopped around here in Toronto. But the caveats that we're seeing at this point are: 1. Sample clearance 2. Marketing I question the sample clearance as I know for damn sure majority of the samples you hear on PYC or SS or whatever are from various hiphop artists tracks. I don't think that Drake or Snoop are clearing their various lyrical tidbits for some scratch DJ to make money off of. And I do recall from the interview with A-Trak on JaunEp he was jacking samples straight from Thuds Superseal. Marketing, well thats pretty clear, something we'd have to tackle after we iron out the whole sampling thing. What we really want to do is 10" scratch records. There aren't many in the scratch market and the ones that are available (Texas Scratch League) are fucking expensive, $25 + shipping. That's in USD. Thoughts? Suggestions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJ Rock Well Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 You'd have to get the full lowdown of Symatic to answer this whole question... But as for the sample clearance issue - nobody's paying for clearance and AFAIK nobody ever has. These are way too far under the radar for legal teams, etc. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Psychedelic Schizophrenic Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 But as for the sample clearance issue - nobody's paying for clearance and AFAIK nobody ever has. These are way too far under the radar for legal teams, etc. This Also Acts_One if your worried about sample clearance you could always etch this as the runout matrix "All samples cleared by Biz Markie" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vekked Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 hehe I'm looking into the exact stuff right now too 1. Sample clearance - Nope! 2. Marketing... get scratchers to make videos, our scene kinda markets itself. Send free copies to good scratchers, if it's good they'll do a vid and ppl will ask where they got it. But actually pressing records isn't super easy either so be careful. I would recommend: -get someone who knows how to master vinyl to master it -get a proper scratch dub plate cut so you can hear how it sounds and test it. If you find out during the test pressing phase, it's too late. This is the issue for us Canadians right now, NO one cuts proper dub plates in Canada and maybe not even in North America. Every one I've gotten in North America so far has been wack, and the ones I get from the UK are sooo expensive right now cuz our dollar is so bad right now. -Make sure you find a good place to press. It's a balance between $ and quality. The cheapest places might might awful sounding/feeling records for scratching. An expensive place doesn't guarantee it's any better. Ask people who have pressed scratch records and get a copy of their record to see if it turned out good. Make sure the place will put in the track markings you need so it's not just 1 solid group of grooves for the whole record. This is all if you've never done it before. Once you have a person to master, a cutting spot, and a pressing spot, then it becomes a lot easier. But don't rush it if you've never pressed before. Also, yes scratch records are expensive for us because of small quantities and none in production in Canada. But you will likely have to go outside of Canada to get cuts/pressings anyways (unless Canada Boy is actually good but someone has to test the waters), so it'll definitely be a bit cheaper but I wouldn't be surprised if you still have to sell them for close to the same price just without shipping. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Symatic Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 Vekked said it all really. Def dont rush it. Spend the money getting dubs and tests if you never had anything pressed before. Talk to the mastering engineer who will cut it a d explain what you want and give examples if posssible.Pressing plants vary, some are shit, sometimes you get unlucky. You want to make it clear you need very good pressing quality cos you dont wanna be shipping out a bunch of dished vinyl... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acts_One Posted February 8, 2016 Author Share Posted February 8, 2016 hehe I'm looking into the exact stuff right now too 1. Sample clearance - Nope!2. Marketing... get scratchers to make videos, our scene kinda markets itself. Send free copies to good scratchers, if it's good they'll do a vid and ppl will ask where they got it. But actually pressing records isn't super easy either so be careful. I would recommend: -get someone who knows how to master vinyl to master it-get a proper scratch dub plate cut so you can hear how it sounds and test it. If you find out during the test pressing phase, it's too late. This is the issue for us Canadians right now, NO one cuts proper dub plates in Canada and maybe not even in North America. Every one I've gotten in North America so far has been wack, and the ones I get from the UK are sooo expensive right now cuz our dollar is so bad right now.-Make sure you find a good place to press. It's a balance between $ and quality. The cheapest places might might awful sounding/feeling records for scratching. An expensive place doesn't guarantee it's any better. Ask people who have pressed scratch records and get a copy of their record to see if it turned out good. Make sure the place will put in the track markings you need so it's not just 1 solid group of grooves for the whole record. This is all if you've never done it before. Once you have a person to master, a cutting spot, and a pressing spot, then it becomes a lot easier. But don't rush it if you've never pressed before. Also, yes scratch records are expensive for us because of small quantities and none in production in Canada. But you will likely have to go outside of Canada to get cuts/pressings anyways (unless Canada Boy is actually good but someone has to test the waters), so it'll definitely be a bit cheaper but I wouldn't be surprised if you still have to sell them for close to the same price just without shipping. First off thanks Rock and Schiz. I assumed the samples were ripped from wherever. Doesn't it not scare people like Ritchie or Sym, that maybe one day a real record company is gunna catch wind that so and so artist vocal was used and these people are profiting from it. But considering the status of Thudrumble and their records the chances are pretty slim. Jake, thanks for the breakdown. Yeah I did a brief research on local Record pressing companies. Prices are kind of all over the place. You have some companies that are clearly marketing towards the wedding couple looking to do some kind of vinyl related stuff. Then you get other companies that appear to be bare bones type of places that wont charge you much if you're looking for a quick press. I'm already expecting sub par quality if I go to a press that's cheap and quick. Out of the few scratch records I do have you can recognize the differences in quality. Ritchies stuff from the UK is quality. Just like Thudrumbles stuff. Not to knock on Battle Ave/Skratcher but the 7" Triad breaks was some really bad quality. Thickness of the record and quality of the samples, but I'm thinking its a combination of both. And yeah our dollar is terrible right now. And the one company running out of here in Toronto(duplication.ca) has some cheap quotes but then you realize it's in USD. But again the margins are there. The quality is still questionable. Personally I don't really know anyone here in Toronto that has gotten any scratch records pressed. Your homie brace just released his. I'm assuming from a press in MTL. All of this is really appealing because the margins are crazy good(in relation to the cheap quotes, $2/record vs. selling them at $10/each) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acts_One Posted February 8, 2016 Author Share Posted February 8, 2016 Vekked said it all really. Def dont rush it. Spend the money getting dubs and tests if you never had anything pressed before. Talk to the mastering engineer who will cut it a d explain what you want and give examples if posssible.Pressing plants vary, some are shit, sometimes you get unlucky. You want to make it clear you need very good pressing quality cos you dont wanna be shipping out a bunch of dished vinyl... Thanks sym, yeah I totally hear you on this. I think it was Cadence 2(don't quote me on that) I was trying to buy of a homie here who got a bunch from the UK but a lot were warped and he didn't want to sell them to us. Also, not trying to knock on Cadence at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vekked Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 hehe I'm looking into the exact stuff right now too 1. Sample clearance - Nope!2. Marketing... get scratchers to make videos, our scene kinda markets itself. Send free copies to good scratchers, if it's good they'll do a vid and ppl will ask where they got it. But actually pressing records isn't super easy either so be careful. I would recommend: -get someone who knows how to master vinyl to master it-get a proper scratch dub plate cut so you can hear how it sounds and test it. If you find out during the test pressing phase, it's too late. This is the issue for us Canadians right now, NO one cuts proper dub plates in Canada and maybe not even in North America. Every one I've gotten in North America so far has been wack, and the ones I get from the UK are sooo expensive right now cuz our dollar is so bad right now.-Make sure you find a good place to press. It's a balance between $ and quality. The cheapest places might might awful sounding/feeling records for scratching. An expensive place doesn't guarantee it's any better. Ask people who have pressed scratch records and get a copy of their record to see if it turned out good. Make sure the place will put in the track markings you need so it's not just 1 solid group of grooves for the whole record. This is all if you've never done it before. Once you have a person to master, a cutting spot, and a pressing spot, then it becomes a lot easier. But don't rush it if you've never pressed before. Also, yes scratch records are expensive for us because of small quantities and none in production in Canada. But you will likely have to go outside of Canada to get cuts/pressings anyways (unless Canada Boy is actually good but someone has to test the waters), so it'll definitely be a bit cheaper but I wouldn't be surprised if you still have to sell them for close to the same price just without shipping. Your homie brace just released his. I'm assuming from a press in MTL. All of this is really appealing because the margins are crazy good(in relation to the cheap quotes, $2/record vs. selling them at $10/each) No, Brace went to Texas. The tests are dope for his but I think it was a bit of an ordeal getting them to do everything he needed... like making a scratch tool is different from a regular album so like Symatic said you have to talk to them a lot and get them to do exactly what you want (track markings, locked grooves, volumes, whatever else I'm not thinking of). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vekked Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 I assumed the samples were ripped from wherever. Doesn't it not scare people like Ritchie or Sym, that maybe one day a real record company is gunna catch wind that so and so artist vocal was used and these people are profiting from it. But considering the status of Thudrumble and their records the chances are pretty slim. Well the thing is, even IF say Drake's record company finds the record, hears the sample, and decides to investigate. They're going to find out these records are pushing 100s of copies, not 1000s, with little to no distribution. It's about money for them, not intellectual property. They're not spending 5-figures or whatever it costs for their legal team to chase people makes 1/4 of that. To put it in perspective, in Canada we have Juno award nominated/winning albums that sample on every track and haven't cleared anything, because they're not even pushing enough units for big labels to bother going after them (yes artists have been sued, but I'm saying it's low enough chance that ppl still don't clear samples). And we're talking about vinyl only released scratch records lol. It's not IMPOSSIBLE to get sued, but it's just like... super unlikely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Symatic Posted February 9, 2016 Share Posted February 9, 2016 Yo it would be good to know who got warped records from us, acts, we have sorted out anyone who has said their records were warped or damaged....That said there is no way to 100% guarantee that every record will be totally perfect, i was saying about quality control because you want it to be as high as possible, to minemise the fact that some will always be duffs....Theres a lot of chances for the whole thing to get fucked up before it gets to the end user Yo it would be good to know who got warped records from us, acts, we have sorted out anyone who has said their records were warped or damaged....That said there is no way to 100% guarantee that every record will be totally perfect, i was saying about quality control because you want it to be as high as possible, to minemise the fact that some will always be duffs....Theres a lot of chances for the whole thing to get fucked up before it gets to the end user Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kebzer Posted February 9, 2016 Share Posted February 9, 2016 Pressing proper vinyl for scratching is a real biz, not some "mp3 album doing youtube revenue" type of bullshit. If you want to do it, be prepared to blow a lot of cash until you get things shorted out. We all went that way, and everyone after us will walk the same path too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kut_class Posted February 9, 2016 Share Posted February 9, 2016 If you just want to put out scratch records and not have to start a company, you could always putting your material out on an established label ... we get demo's now and again, but sadly people are still sampling from mp3/compressing the fuck out of samples and we havent been able to think about releasing anything until recently .... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acts_One Posted February 9, 2016 Author Share Posted February 9, 2016 Yo it would be good to know who got warped records from us, acts, we have sorted out anyone who has said their records were warped or damaged....That said there is no way to 100% guarantee that every record will be totally perfect, i was saying about quality control because you want it to be as high as possible, to minemise the fact that some will always be duffs....Theres a lot of chances for the whole thing to get fucked up before it gets to the end user :)Yo it would be good to know who got warped records from us, acts, we have sorted out anyone who has said their records were warped or damaged....That said there is no way to 100% guarantee that every record will be totally perfect, i was saying about quality control because you want it to be as high as possible, to minemise the fact that some will always be duffs....Theres a lot of chances for the whole thing to get fucked up before it gets to the end user Sym don't fret. It was a while ago. And it might have been the Scratch Science series. My scratch record dealer(Sunny Tash) usually orders a bunch from you guys in the UK. I believe it had to do with the way it was shipped. So to echo what you were saying, there are a lot things out of your control especially when shipping is involved. Other than our shitty Canadian dollar we have to worry about customs. Something we deal with when buying from Thudrumble or almost anything bought from outside the country. I personally don't mind paying $20-25 for a quality 12" but when all factors combined sometimes we're looking at $30+ for a fucking 7" or 10". Not really appealing after a while. Kebzer, I don't doubt there's some serious caveats when starting a business and learning the ins and outs of cutting records. In no way do I think it's as easy as I stated. Kut Class, this is what my buddies and I were thinking. To try to get on Skratcher or whoever. This would ease the marketing/branding standpoint. But trying to keep it local to keep costs down is what we're aiming for. I can see how guys would be using .mp3 files, which seems kind of lazy. All great advice guys. My buddy was saying it seems like a little too much effort for the return. I think the only saving grace is that it would actually be something I would enjoy doing. But more so giving local scratch nerds options instead of breaking the bank when it comes to buying scratch records. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djdiggla Posted February 9, 2016 Share Posted February 9, 2016 Yo it would be good to know who got warped records from us, acts, we have sorted out anyone who has said their records were warped or damaged.... Not to be a dick but I never did. I mentioned mine was warped and never got a replacement. I wasn't unusable completely like I mentioned but I sure don't use it as a result. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vekked Posted February 9, 2016 Share Posted February 9, 2016 Yo it would be good to know who got warped records from us, acts, we have sorted out anyone who has said their records were warped or damaged....That said there is no way to 100% guarantee that every record will be totally perfect, i was saying about quality control because you want it to be as high as possible, to minemise the fact that some will always be duffs....Theres a lot of chances for the whole thing to get fucked up before it gets to the end user :)Yo it would be good to know who got warped records from us, acts, we have sorted out anyone who has said their records were warped or damaged....That said there is no way to 100% guarantee that every record will be totally perfect, i was saying about quality control because you want it to be as high as possible, to minemise the fact that some will always be duffs....Theres a lot of chances for the whole thing to get fucked up before it gets to the end user Kut Class, this is what my buddies and I were thinking. To try to get on Skratcher or whoever. This would ease the marketing/branding standpoint. But trying to keep it local to keep costs down is what we're aiming for. I can see how guys would be using .mp3 files, which seems kind of lazy. All great advice guys. My buddy was saying it seems like a little too much effort for the return. I think the only saving grace is that it would actually be something I would enjoy doing. But more so giving local scratch nerds options instead of breaking the bank when it comes to buying scratch records. Hit me up man, we're all of 2 hours apart and me and Brace are currently in the same process. At the very least we can pool knowledge about cutting and pressing places in the area and keep our mutual costs down. And your buddy is probably right, like if you're looking for pure profit it might not be the thing to get into. But if you're looking for maximum scratch nerd street (see: internet) cred, which is priceless, it's definitely worth it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Symatic Posted February 9, 2016 Share Posted February 9, 2016 Yo it would be good to know who got warped records from us, acts, we have sorted out anyone who has said their records were warped or damaged.... Not to be a dick but I never did. I mentioned mine was warped and never got a replacement. I wasn't unusable completely like I mentioned but I sure don't use it as a result. shit man! i'll pm you 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vekked Posted February 9, 2016 Share Posted February 9, 2016 Yo it would be good to know who got warped records from us, acts, we have sorted out anyone who has said their records were warped or damaged.... Not to be a dick but I never did. I mentioned mine was warped and never got a replacement. I wasn't unusable completely like I mentioned but I sure don't use it as a result. shit man! i'll pm you oh ya this reminds me, I have all of these warped cut n paste records too... damn they're so warped... so warped I might need a replacement... maybe a bunch of replacements even... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Symatic Posted February 9, 2016 Share Posted February 9, 2016 sure vekked, just let me get your bank account pasword so i can temporarily transfer £100,000,000 (one thousand billion USD) to your account.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vekked Posted February 9, 2016 Share Posted February 9, 2016 sure vekked, just let me get your bank account pasword so i can temporarily transfer £100,000,000 (one thousand billion USD) to your account....I would totally do that, but you see the way my back account is set up... and also my currency being worth peso's next to USD right now... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kut_class Posted February 10, 2016 Share Posted February 10, 2016 Lol I just saw this (RE. Returning warped records thread).. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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