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Canadian company to build new, automated vinyl presses

By | Published on Wednesday 10 February 2016

Viryl Technologies

This vinyl revival’s all well and good, but back when we all decided the format was dead everyone smashed their vinyl pressing machines into little bits and now there are only seven left. True story. Also, those machines are all dead old and slow, which is why the indies get annoyed when the majors block book every one to press their 7000 Record Store Day releases each spring. But there may be a glimmer of hope on the horizon.

Canadian company Viryl Technology has announced the launch of a brand new vinyl pressing machine that is not only quite shiny, but also faster than the clunky things everyone’s currently using. “The idea is to help the industry get rid of its own bottlenecks”, Viryl CEO Chad Brown told The Globe & Mail. “[And] we’re in this to stay. We’re not gonna go away after a year”.

Why so defensive, Chad? Well, perhaps because this isn’t the first time he’s got into the vinyl pressing game. Back in 2003 he bought what was then Canada’s last factory, Acme Pressing, and ran it for four years before shutting it down. To be fair, that was before the vinyl revival happened.

Viryl is not the only new player entering the vinyl pressing market – Jack White, for one, is setting up his own pressing plant in Detroit. But, says Brown, everyone else is using old manual machines or what are effectively clones of those old machines. This one he’s built is automated, so doesn’t rely so much on crappy humans.

Once fully up and running, Brown reckons Viryl will be able to build two new presses per week, so get your orders in now, kids.



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