Record Pressing Featured Pressing Projects & Blog | Gotta Groove Records

Gotta Groove Logo

Fantastic work by Nick Cavalier. Logo concept and design by Logan Walters.

We’re working on some cool new stuff to introduce Gotta Groove to the world.

Gotta Groove Records did not exist a year ago. The dream of starting a vinyl pressing plant was nothing more than idle speculation then. It was in mid-January of 2009 that the journey to making this dream a reality began to take shape, thanks to the willingness of Jerry Salerno at Dynamic Sun to depart with his assets after over sixty years of being in business.

Moving the presses and the associated equipment to Cleveland took place last March, and the Tyler Village space in which we now reside was confirmed in May. It wasn’t until late August that we were in a position to press our first records.

Upon reflection, we have come an incredibly long way in a relatively short period of time. Such progress only occurs due to the efforts of many people. Dan Greathouse’s willingness to jump on board and tackle the job of learning, operating and repairing the machinery was a key first step. Matt Earley and Tyler Kremberg joined up with us in June, and they have done a fantastic job spearheading our sales and marketing efforts. Tim Thornton and my son, Vince, have both been working with us over the last couple of months as press operators, quality assurance and jacks of all trades. My wife, Becky, has helped out with the books and provides sanity checks when needed. We hope that our continued progress will allow us to hire more talented individuals, and provide some opportunities to people during these difficult economic times.

Thanks are also in order to our many suppliers; not only have they been providing timely delivery of quality product, they have been very helpful with their advice. Of particular note is the selfless help and counsel provided by many of the people at the other pressing plants in the industry. They could have viewed us as competition and ignored our overtures – that they did not speaks volumes about their integrity and their understanding that another plant producing quality records only helps our collective efforts to spread the vinyl love. And, of course, thanks to our customers for taking a chance with the new guys and for their patience.

You are receiving this message because you make your living in the music industry. Like us, you have a passion for music, and perhaps even for vinyl. If vinyl isn’t already a part of your business plan, please consider it; thousands of artists and labels have seen the positive profitable and promotional value of the medium. Whether you use Gotta Groove Records or any one of the other fine pressing plants, let’s make some records!

– Vince Slusarz

We are very excited to have pressed the new 7″ holiday release from Terry Anderson and the Olympic Ass-Kickin’ Team. Four great rocking songs on one slim 45 rpm disc, including the new Christmas song “Christmas On The Faces”, a song worthy of comparison to one of the band’s influences -NRBQ and their classic “Christmas Wish”. The other three songs, “Willie Mays” (a homage to one of the greats and a broadside to Barry Bonds), “Found Missin” and “Goin’ or Comin'” can also be found on their last full-length National Champions, but on this disc they have been even more punch-drunked up with horns and a hot remix. Any one of their releases, along with Terry’s previous solo work, and his stints with The Yayhoos, are highly recommended. Get this disc here at http://doublenaughtrecords.com/artists/oak-team/#

The Greatest Record Collection

I had heard about this video floating around, but just stumbled upon it.

Paul Mawhinney is an incredible man. I could re-iterate details, but please just watch the video.

If this doesn’t make you believe that what we, and anyone out there involved in creating music, are engaging in something bigger than themselves, I’m not sure you have a heart.

This concludes my sentimental rant. Off to make $$$ so we can buy this collection.

Feature in Cleveland Scene!

For some great info about who we are, what we’re about and how this all came to be, check out our feature in the Cleveland Scene today.

Feature in musicangle

We are very proud to be featured this month in musicangle. Michael Fremer is an inspiration, and his documentary “It’s a Vinyl World After All” was certainly an inspiration and is a defining work in all aspects of vinyl collecting, care and production.

And just to note, in addition to my British home setup, at our Columbus office we have my old DJ rig of two Technics 1200s with Rockit studio monitors. Yes, that’s the former Dr. Dreidel setup.

For The Record: Direct Metal Mastering

I love getting emails from people curious about the process of manufacturing vinyl. Hopefully soon we’ll start featuring interviews with some plant staff and mastering engineers (if you want to be featured, get in touch!) about the process.

Most recordings are cut into acetate lacquers. Today however, we want to talk about DMM or Direct metal mastering. DMM was invented by Neumann and TelDec in Germany at the end of the 20th century. A great overview of the sonic differences can be found on Wikipedia.

Especially of note is the story regarding the last DMM machine in the United States:

As at 2009 there are six or seven DMM cutting facilities left in the world, mostly in England and Germany and one in the Czech Republic. The USA lost its last DMM cutting facility in 2005 with the failure of New York City based record manufacturer Europadisk LLC. Europadisk’s DMM lathe was sold at auction on 20-SEP-05 to the Church of Scientology for US $72,500. This gives CST two DMM lathes for the purpose of transcribing L. Ron Hubbard’s speeches to disc and with the development of their wind-up record player this would create a system to commit those speeches to posterity for light years to come.