I’m finally getting around to putting more of my albums on CD, thanks to the on-demand manufacturing capability afforded by Kunaki. You can see which albums of mine are available via this collection, and on each of them you can buy the album via Bandcamp, Mirlo, or direct from Kunaki.
If you buy from Bandcamp or Mirlo the album will also come with the digital download in your choice of formats.
Anyway, inside you can vote on which additional albums I should focus on making available!
I’ve been looking into physical releases again lately. After my recent vinyl releases, my various polls have found that people are much more interested in buying things on CD than vinyl, because they’re a much easier means of doing a physical collection.
The manufacturing space used to be a lot bigger, but these days there’s not a whole lot of options. For most musicians, there are two paths to go down: on-demand and short-run.
After my previous review of elasticStage, a customer service representative reached out to me and told me that they’d improved their cutting process to reduce the surface noise, and asked if I’d be interested in receiving (at no charge) a recut of the two records. I agreed to this, and the replacement records arrived today.
On both of my albums, I am extremely pleased to report that the audio quality has improved in every possible way! The surface noise is essentially gone, and everything sounds perfectly clean. Some of the subtler sounds that had been lost behind the surface noise before are now super apparent, too.
The difference is much more profound on Transitions than on Refactor, but both albums have definitely improved as a result of their process change.
The actual manufacturing and delivery time was also greatly reduced from the last time, which tells me that they’ve probably cleared a backlog in their manufacturing.
Back in April I learned about elasticStage, an on-demand vinyl production company that makes it easy for musicians to get their music on vinyl without any up-front costs. I ended up setting up Transitions and Refactor for manufacturing, and ordered some test copies.
My lead time at the time was around 6 weeks, and I was told the records would ship on May 14. They ended up shipping a couple days later than expected, but I still ended up receiving them today, which isn’t too much further after the original estimate.
Anyway, here’s my review of how the product turned out.
UPDATE: elasticStage have responded to my review by sending me updated copies. Definitely check out what’s new!
I recently learned about elasticStage, an on-demand vinyl LP manufacturing company. I’ve always wanted to get some of my albums on vinyl, especially Transitions and Refactor, two albums which are very near and dear to my heart.
As such, I’ve set up an elasticStage page where you can order my stuff on vinyl! I’ll probably add more albums as they come.
I’m still waiting for my test copies to arrive (and they likely won’t arrive for a little while) so if you order a copy right now it’s at your own risk, but all of the reviews I’ve seen of the service are incredibly positive. On Refactor in particular I’ve scheduled it as a preorder to be released on June 14, which is both the 10th anniversary of the original release of the album and also my birthday.
I’ll definitely be reviewing the test copies when they arrive, and if you want to take a chance on something unproven, right now is the time to order, as the actual manufacturing lead time is currently around 6 weeks.
