Quick note re: elasticStage
You might recall that I was pretty positive about elasticStage since they allow small musicians to do one-off or small-run vinyl record production and their quality was pretty good given the price. But there’s a few reasons I cannot currently recommend them and have taken my various links and reviews down:
- Even though they have difficulty keeping up with the manufacturing demand for actual musicians, they’ve gone into supporting AI musicians, and are (as far as I can tell) the manufacturing partner behind Suno Vinyl
- They have had a huge uptick in quality assurance problems and miscuts; I’ve had to get some of my personal copies recut and the process for getting them replaced was pretty difficult, and I cannot in any good conscience require that listeners have to deal with them in case things go south
- They’re heavily leaning into Boy George and his awful, culturally-appropriative, anti-Palestinian AI slop “music” and I cannot in any good conscience support any company who would make that decision
Other folks might still be willing to work with this company in light of this but I personally am not.
If there are other short-run vinyl manufacturers who have a better track record and a reasonable price, I’d welcome suggestions. (I already know about Kunaki. They’re a bit expensive and their reviews for vinyl are pretty bad, unfortunately.)