Vinyl has undergone one hell of a renaissance. In 2006, the format was successfully useless. However since then? Vinyl data have skilled year-on-year development, with the US alone clocking 41.7m items offered in 2021, a 45-fold enhance from 16 years in the past. Whereas in Germany, gross sales went from 0.3m in 2006, to 4.5m final yr.
These numbers are considerably deceptive although — and their exuberance hides a darker story. Vinyl gross sales are robust, however the business itself is at breaking level. From rising prices to an enormous printing backlog, from mainstream label dominance to environmental issues, and from materials shortages to outdated gear, data are being held collectively by a shoestring.
However — and there’s all the time a “however” in these items —wherever there’s an issue, there’s a possible to repair it. And, after all, to make some cash alongside the best way. On this occasion, that mantle is being taken up by elasticStage.
Who or what’s elasticStage?
Effectively, elasticStage is a British firm co-founded by two Austrians: Steve Rhodes and Werner Freistaetter. Every of them have labored within the music business as recording artists and behind the boards. The pair teamed up six years in the past to create a machine they declare is the world’s first “on-demand” producer of vinyl.
This isn’t Freistaetter’s first foray into this subject of one-off document manufacturing both, as he based Vinyl Carvers in 2002, an organization that permits folks to create a single vinyl disc. Rhodes and Freistaetter began elasticStage to take this concept additional. Whereas Vinyl Carvers targets DJs and individuals who need one or two songs on a disc, elasticStage needs to change the whole sector.
It claims to have created a expertise — which at the moment has a patent pending — that may not solely be worthwhile from producing an entire document, however can also be endlessly scalable. For all intents and functions, they consider they’ve discovered the magic bullet that may remodel vinyl. To seek out extra out, I spoke with Rhodes, elasticStage’s CEO.
First off, Rhodes instructed me one wants to know the present manner vinyl is made to grasp why a change is required. Successfully, making a document is “one of many hardest issues to do.” Vinyl was designed by “sensible minds,” you already know, the kind of people that work at NASA, lecture at Ivy League universities, and maintain PhDs. It’s straightforward to overlook how a lot of a marvel it’s {that a} little bit of etched plastic can produce such a ravishing sound.
The problem is the hole between the format’s heyday and its trendy period. When data got here again into the mainstream, most of the engineers accountable for designing and sustaining the machines that make them had retired or died. This implies a lot information was misplaced.
This has created our present scenario, the place there’s a surging demand for vinyl, however a restricted variety of machines and locations capable of make them. After all, there are new factories and machine-makers showing — just like the eco-friendly Deepgrooves within the Netherlands, the German-based Newbilt Equipment, and Viryl Applied sciences in Toronto — however this can be a little like making an attempt to plug a dam with cork.
There’s an excessive amount of demand, a ready listing for a lot of machines, and an enormous monetary outlay to purchase one. Rhodes believes elasticStage can repair this.
Discovering a brand new solution to remedy an previous downside
Presently, vinyl is made in the identical fundamental manner it all the time has been. As succinctly as attainable, it begins with a grasp disc. That is when a lacquer is lower, which is successfully carving music onto an acetate disc. After this comes the galvanics. Right here, the lacquer is sprayed and, utilizing electrolysis, is nickel plated. This creates a reverse of the document.
This step is repeated, making a reverse of the reverse. That is then used to create the stamper, which, because it sounds, is the device used to position the grooves onto a document, the bodily illustration of the music we hear. The stamper is heated up and pressed onto heat PVC (the substance vinyl is printed on), which is then cooled quickly. Errors, as you’ll be able to think about, abound in such a fiddly course of.
After all, that is only a high-level overview, and there’s much more complexity. In the event you’d prefer to know a bit of extra, this video is a helpful information:
One factor is evident with the above although: making vinyl data is pricey — each monetarily and environmentally. PVC isn’t a inexperienced materials, and the power prices of all that slicing, stamping, and heating are excessive.
Actually, the whole course of is so intensive that it means for any form of revenue to be made, the minimal order for data is between 500 and 1,000 items. With its machine, elasticStage needs to utterly change this.
A silver bullet… within the type of a rotating disc
Rhodes instructed me that the corporate’s machine makes use of “no chemical substances,” and may produce a single document instantly — all whereas being worthwhile. He mentioned there’s “no electroplating” and neither do they warmth up plastic. Merely, customers add a lossless observe on-line, which is then transferred (through the cloud) to the machine. It then rapidly prints it with little problem.
Regardless of this, he believes the data that elasticStage can produce maintains the vinyl sound folks love. “The unique manner of constructing vinyl entails sound touring by means of a magnetic subject,” Rhodes instructed me, “we expect that that is largely accountable for the ‘analog’ really feel when folks hearken to vinyl data.”
He went on to say that elasticStage’s new expertise additionally entails sound touring by means of a magnetic subject — and whereas they’ve “modified a variety of issues,” they’ve made certain they’ve stored the “basic sound of a vinyl document.” Much more spectacular, they declare to have “eliminated a variety of ‘damaging’ components from vinyl,” eliminating issues like a “[loss] of high quality” or “loud pops and clicks.”
Now that is the place I need to put a caveat. As a lot as I pressed for extra info on how elasticStage’s expertise works, Rhodes wasn’t capable of give me specifics. He pointed in the direction of the actual fact the corporate has a pending patent on its machine and doesn’t need any rivals to take its thought.
I perceive the secrecy, however I do query why folks haven’t cracked this case earlier than. Firms like HD Vinyl tried (and failed) to revolutionize the expertise, and there’s part of me that worries whether or not elasticStage is making guarantees it may’t hold.
What I’ll say is that elasticStage shipped me a prototype of its document (a duplicate of Dido’s Nonetheless On My Thoughts should you’re ) and it was rattling spectacular. It regarded and felt like a daily vinyl, whereas the sound was nice too — particularly for one thing that’s not the completed product. So there may be hope.
It’s clear that traders have some religion within the product, as elasticStage has raised £3.5m ($4.2m) in seed funding. And, truthfully? It might be an excellent wager. If the expertise delivers, it couldn’t solely be vastly worthwhile, but in addition put Europe on the coronary heart of the vinyl business.
Breaking down the enterprise mannequin
When talking with Rhodes, he talked about three predominant enterprise markets: small creators, common printing, and compilations. The primary is the rise of impartial creators in the previous couple of years. “About six years in the past,” Rhodes instructed me, he had the thought that “the indies are going to take over.”
The rising ease of at-home recording and explosion of expertise meant he thought that “tens of millions, if not lots of of tens of millions” of individuals could be creating music across the globe. Not solely do “all these creators need to make a document,” he instructed me, however should you could be the individual to serve them, you’ll mechanically be the “largest label on the planet.”
That is the place the genesis of elasticStage started — and you’ll see the logic. On the finish of 2021, Spotify introduced in its This fall earnings name that it hosted 11 million creators. This was a rise of three million from the yr earlier than.
Whereas on the firm’s 2022 Investor Day, CEO Daniel Ek laid out his imaginative and prescient for the corporate to have 50 million creators on the platform. The potential right here is evident. If there are tens of millions of creators passionate sufficient to place their music on-line, it goes with out saying that many of those folks would need their work to be on vinyl, even when it’s only for family and friends.
That could be a large market of hungry customers able to promote to. All they’d must do is go on the elasticStage platform (I used to be proven a prototype of the location and it regarded spectacular), add the duvet of the vinyl, customise the inserts, the track-listing, and add their music. 48 hours later, their document could be arriving.
Main (label) potential
Whereas the impartial creator market is an thrilling supply of potential income, elasticStage isn’t content material with that alone. “We need to construct the go-to vacation spot for bodily data on the planet,” Rhodes instructed TNW.
The corporate is already in discussions with main document labels and a giant streamer. In line with Rhodes, elasticStage is exploring whether or not its platform could be embedded into the app of a music streamer.
If they’ll handle such a feat, it’d be a goldmine. Giant artists (like ABBA) are accountable for the lion’s share of vinyl gross sales, and if folks can order their data instantly from their streaming app utilizing elasticStage’s platform, you must consider it’ll result in a variety of gross sales.
This will go even additional. If offers could be struck with document firms, there’s the potential for elasticStage for use to supply compilations. Think about the attraction of placing your most listened to songs, or a set of tracks you and your companion love onto wax.
What’s the long run for elasticStage?
ElasticStage has its eyes set on the large time. It’s at the moment set on shifting its manufacturing amenities from Germany into the UK. From right here, it’s getting into a trial run in 2023, with the goal of manufacturing one million data that yr. The yr after, elasticStage plans on having giant amenities in Europe and the US, and upping its creation and transport capability by tenfold.
Rhodes believes the vinyl offered by elasticStage shall be within the area of £20 ($23 or €23) — with sure exceptions, clearly. In different phrases, data made with the expertise will price about the identical (if not barely much less) than what’s in the marketplace at the moment.
After all, the elephant within the room is the miraculous expertise the corporate is at the moment patenting. I’d like to consider that producing good high quality data this rapidly is feasible, however I’m going to withhold judgment till I see it at scale and know extra about the way it works.
It’s laborious although to not be swayed by elasticStage’s mission. As Rhodes put it, the corporate needs to “make vinyl sustainable,” take away the ache of buying and producing them, and “make each document obtainable.” That’s an admirable aim. And if it may obtain its mission, elasticStage shall be accountable for dragging vinyl into the twenty first century.