We now have a record flattening service!

Music fans around the world love the warm and natural sound of analogue vinyl records.

Unfortunately, with long-term storage of vinyl records comes shape distortion that can make your old records sound far from what they should. And even a slightly warped record might still be playable, the added pressure from the stylus will damage the groove adding noise and unnecessary wear that eventually could damage the disc. This innovative audio accessory Orb DF-01i allows you to correct the warps and avoid shape distortion and wear

Imagine if you could repair  the warp on that otherwise valuable or favourite record. Now you can.

The Orb Disc Flattener uses a unique heating technique which is applied with two  semiconductor heater films, one on the top and one on the bottom. By thermally  controlling the heating-up phase and cooling-down phase, the warped record is  allowed to properly relax and return to its original flat state. 

The machine heats only the outer edge and centre of the record. The grooves are  not  heated and therefore their sonic shape is preserved. 

The entire process takes four hours; two to heat up and two to cool down.

Contact us to learn more about how to restore your prized records!

Record Store Day - April 18th 2020

On April 18th 2020, we will hosting Redcord Store Day in Novato. A national event, Record Store Day was conceived in 2007 at a gathering of independent record store owners and employees as a way to celebrate and spread the word about the unique culture surrounding nearly 1400 independently owned record stores in the US and thousands of similar stores internationally. The first Record Store Day took place on April 19, 2008. Today there are Record Store Day participating stores on every continent except Antarctica. 

This is a day for the people who make up the world of the record store—the staff, the customers, and the artists—to come together and celebrate the unique culture of a record store and the special role these independently owned stores play in their communities. Special vinyl and CD releases and various promotional products are made exclusively for the day. Festivities include performances, cook-outs, body painting, meet & greets with artists, parades, DJs spinning records, and on and on. In 2008 a small list of titles was released on Record Store Day and that list has grown to include artists and labels both large and small, in every genre and price point. For several years, 60% or more of the Record Store Day Official Release List came from independent labels and distributors. The list continues to include a wide range of artists, covering the diverse taste of record stores and their customers.

On the first Record Store Day, Metallica spent hours at Rasputin Music in San Francisco meeting their fans and now each year hundreds of artists, internationally famous and from the block, flock to record stores around the world for performances, signings, meet and greets and to fill their own shopping bags with music. In 2009, Jesse "Boots Electric" Hughes (Eagles of Death Metal) declared himself the "Record Store Day Ambassador" as a way of shouting out how important the stores were to artists and since then Joshua Homme (Eagles of Death Metal, Them Crooked Vultures, Queens of the Stone Age), Ozzy Osbourne, Iggy Pop, Jack White, Chuck D, Dave Grohl, Metallica and St. Vincent have worn the ceremonial sash. The Record Store Day Ambassador for 2019 is Pearl Jam. 

Throughout its 13 years, cities across the United States, including New York City, Los Angeles, Boise, Charleston, Raleigh and Las Vegas have declared Record Store Day an official holiday. In 2013, Co-Founder Michael Kurtz was made a Chevalier of the Ordre Des Arts et Des Letters in France, honoring Record Store Day's contribution to the cultural and artistic life of the French people. That same year, the organizers of Record Store Day accepted the Independent Spirit Award from NARM (now the Music Biz Association). In 2015, Record Store Day was named the Marketplace Ally of the Year by A2IM, an organization of independent music labels. 
While there’s only one Record Store Day a year, the organization works with both independent and and major labels throughout the year to create contests, special releases and promotions in order to spotlight the benefits of supporting these independent, locally owned stores with music purchases throughout the year.   In 2010, Record Store Day coordinated its first Black Friday event, which gives record stores exclusive releases as part of the attempt to redirect the focus of the biggest shopping day of the year to the desirable, special things to be found at local stores

Dark days for the record industry

A fire at a Banning, California, manufacturing plant could wreak havoc on the global supply of vinyl records. On Thursday, Apollo Masters Corp., which has produced the lacquer discs used to make masters for vinyl production for decades, was devastated in a fire that took 82 firefighters and nearly three hours to control. Per the Desert Sun, employees were reportedly inside the building when the fire broke out, but none were injured.

In a statement on its website, Apollo Masters wrote, “It is with great sadness we report the Apollo Masters manufacturing and storage facility had a devastating fire and suffered catastrophic damage. The best news is all of our employees are safe. We are uncertain of our future at this point and are evaluating options as we try to work through this difficult time. Thank you for all of the support over the years and the notes of encouragement and support we have received from you all.” A representative for Apollo did not immediately return Rolling Stone’s request for further comment.

In an interview with Pitchfork, Third Man Records co-founder Ben Blackwell said the Apollo fire “will present a problem for the vinyl industry worldwide.” He noted that Apollo was one of just two companies that make lacquer discs, and that the other, MDC in Japan, “already had trouble keeping up with demand before this development.”

“I imagine this will affect everyone, not just Third Man Pressing and Third Man Mastering, but to what extent remains to be seen,” Blackwell said. He added, “I don’t want to be an alarmist, but I’m attempting to be realistic as opposed to Pollyannish.”

Cleveland’s Gotta Groove Records (right) will also be affected.

In a separate interview with Smack Media, David Read of the pressing and printing company Duplication, said one possible alternative could be direct-metal mastering. In that process, Read explained, “Instead of cutting the master into the lacquer it’s cut into copper which is mastered into production.” There are some potential problems with direct-metal mastering though, as the process tends to produce higher frequencies and requires a specific, and rare, type of cutting head.