If the vinyl boom is about to go bust then it’s news to Roundabout Records. As FACT Magazine reports, the Adelaide-based recording studio and record pressing facility are set to open Australia’s newest vinyl pressing plant later this year.
Roundabout Records is currently a smaller-scale operation led by Adelaide Hills resident Colin Forster. Forster’s Hills-based facilities are small-scale but full-service, offering everything from recording and mastering to pressing.
Forster’s new venture will be the first vinyl pressing plant in Adelaide city, with a view to serving local and independent artists. What’s more, FACT reports that they’re set to bolster their recording and mastering services.
Roundabout have reportedly acquired vintage HMV audio equipment and an EMI desk, offering local and indie artists a one-stop shop for all things recorded music. The Adelaide operation will reportedly be able to run orders from 100 up to 1,000.
Pressing, meanwhile, will be completed on a newly acquired (and highly coveted) 1950s Neumann AM-32 from New Zealand. Speaking to The Vinyl Factory, Forster remarked on his luck in securing the machine, besting competitors from Germany and the US.
“I was the first one to get to Auckland,” Forster told the outlet. “A guy jumped on a plane in Germany that night, and a guy jumped on a plane in America that night, and just because I got there first, I was pretty lucky.”
The plant is expected to open in December, the latest in a spate of new vinyl pressing plants that have been opening around the world to meet the new demand for vinyl records from consumers. Vinyl sales in Australia are up by 30 percent according to recent figures.
