The Latest Startups in Music Are Banking on Analog Technology
A growing number of entrepreneurs are alleviating the bottleneck in pressing vinyl records.
Eye-catching vinyl from Burlington Record Plant.
Source: Burlington Record Plant
Federico Casanova was booking rock shows in Philadelphia a few years ago when he noticed the tendency of bands to play songs that were a year or two old instead of newer fare. The musicians told him it was because they needed to sell their records: Fans preferred to buy them on vinyl, but it could take a year to get a new release pressed and shrink-wrapped in the retro format.
So Casanova, who’s now 28, set out to start his own record-pressing plant. In January he and two partners opened Softwax Record Pressing. It was intended to serve local acts, but the news spread quickly, and now he’s fielding requests from bands in New York and Pittsburgh, too. “I’m getting emails every day,” Casanova says. “People say, ‘Yo, we just found out about you! Let me put an order in right now!’ ”