Vinyl Manufacturing FAQ

Where is it made? How long does is take?

All Replicat vinyl records are pressed here in Australia. All jackets and inserts are printed here too.

When you request a quote email via our website, we'll provide the expected turnaround based on current factory capacity. Please check that carefully, and phone us to talk through options if you have any specific launch / release dates in mind.

Black 7" and 12" vinyl can vary from 8 weeks +

Clear and solid colour from 10 weeks +

Split / mash / splatter from 12 weeks +

HOWEVER (and that's a big however), we recommend building loads of headroom into your planning. Vinyl pressing is unpredictable. Virtually every pressing plant in the world is working with lathes and pressing gear that is decades old and might go off line for maintenance. Key staff may fall ill. 

We've had orders run through in 6 weeks and other orders take up to 16 weeks. While we can make requests for particular dispatch dates once the master and deposit are received (and we do this every day), we highly recommend waiting until at least TP approval before committing to a launch date.

Do I need to submit artwork at the same time as the masters?

Not really. We recommend making master + deposit the first priority. Then we can get the order into the pressing queue. If the artwork comes through a couple of weeks later, it generally won't affect the turnaround at all.

Having said that, we can't press the records until we've printed the AB labels - and that can take up to 3 weeks - so we'd recommend submitting artwork no later than a couple of weeks after master + deposit.

How is the vinyl manufactured?

We cut a lacquer from the client master, then create a plating (also known as metalwork), put that plating in a press and create test pressings. 

These test pressings are sent via courier to clients for approval.

If the order is 300 units or above, we also create a mother from the plating and store this. We can create further platings from this mother in future without needing a new lacquer - which is important for reruns, and for new platings if we've run more than 1K units and exhausted the original plate. If you're intending to rerun the title, please talk to us about mothers.

Test pressings generally take around 4 weeks, but this does vary quite a bit depending on how many titles are running through cutting at the time.

Once test pressing approval is received, the job goes into the production queue. The typical pressing turnaround is 4 weeks for black, 6 weeks for solid colours and 8 weeks for multi-colours (split, mash, marble, smoke, splatter). Once again, this can vary quite a bit based on current plant capacity.

All vinyl jackets and inserts are also printed here in Australia. Once we receive your artwork, we pre-flight the art to check correct format, then email a high resolution PDF proof. Upon approval, we proceed to print. Hardcopy proofs are available for an extra fee on request - and we also offer photos of hardcopy proofs on occasion to check non-colour detail (such as the expected clarity of small text).

If you have any specific questions in relating to our pressing, proofing, and printing processes, just ask our team on 1300 727 685.