Looking for vinyl? You've come to the right place.

Vinyl is back in a big way, but it was gone for a long time. Not here -- Masterdisk has been cutting records continuously since we opened in 1973. But many artists and labels haven't been around as long as we have, and don't know the ins-and-outs of how to cut a record. So we're going to tell you what we know.

Let's say you want to put out a record, but you don't know where to start.

Once you're done with recording and mixing, there are four steps in the vinyl production process: 1) mastering, 2) plating, 3) pressing, 4) packaging. Let's take a quick look at each stage.

Mastering for Vinyl

This is what we do. Back in the day, all mastering was vinyl mastering. Artists, producers and labels would bring us their mixes, and we would master them to tape. Then the mastering engineer would put the master tape on a customized playback deck and cut the music onto a lacquer disc using a special lathe. That's still essentially what we do. The only difference is that instead of tape, we usually cut vinyl from high-resolution digital files.

Cutting vinyl is definitely one of those things – like getting a haircut or delivering a baby – where you want to make sure that the person doing it really knows what they're doing. You don't want to go through all the time and expense to have a great vinyl package and end up with a sub-par cut.

Plating

This step often gets lumped in with pressing, because many services do both. But it's an important, unique step in the process, and, like all the steps, you want to make sure it's done right. Once our mastering engineer finishes cutting your lacquer, we overnight it to the plating plant, where (to simplify it tremendously) they make a metal stamper from the lacquer. This is what your records will be pressed from.

Pressing

The stamper is sent to the vinyl pressing plant, where the actual records are made.

Packaging

Once the records are pressed, they need to be put into sleeves and made pretty. This is sometimes a service provided by the pressing company.

It seems kind of complicated, right? Well, it is... But you don't have to manage all those steps yourself. There are lots of brokers that handle plating, pressing and packaging coordination, and Masterdisk has partnerships with the best of them. So you can come to Masterdisk to make sure you get the best vinyl cut possible, and then relax while you're taken through the rest of the steps by one of the best brokers in the business.

Masterdisk offers the best vinyl cutting service in the world. Let us be your partner in creating the best sounding, most appealing version of your music on vinyl.

Any questions? Want to talk to a coordinator or an engineer? Please give us a call at (212) 541-5022 or email us at info@masterdisk.com.

If you're interested in taking more of an inside look into the vinyl mastering process, check out Scott Hull's series of blog posts at The Vinyl District. In this series, Scott goes into detail about the geometry of the record groove, our vinyl cutting system (the Neumann VMS-82 lathe), the RIAA Curve, turntable performance, common vinyl problems, and much more.