After two years of largely functioning as a vinyl fulfillment company, Athens’ own Echo Base will announce its hard launch as a vinyl manufacturing and distribution company on Feb. 1. With its target audience being local and indie level musicians, a lot of scientific research and unique methods have gone into making it a novel business in the industry.
Founder and CEO Michael Thomas—alongside partners Brandon Page, head of production, and Drew Beskin, head of artist relations—are all musicians who have each worked in the independent music industry for over 15 years. It’s a business for musicians run by musicians, and the needs of the fast-growing independent artist sector of the music industry hold priority. As better tools become more widely available online for artists, Thomas notes that the accessibility of getting physical products like vinyl records made has not improved. Much of the vinyl manufacturing industry is geared towards larger labels ordering in bulk, and in many cases it’s a necessity for the businesses in order to cover extremely hefty infrastructure costs.
Traditional record pressing—such as that at Classic City Vinyl Works, previously Kindercore—requires machinery that runs on natural gas and steam. This includes a boiler, chiller and extensive pipework that runs up startup costs in addition to needing a lot of square footage to house the stationary setup. What’s at the core of Echo Base’s business that allows it to achieve its goal of accessible vinyl manufacturing is a system that runs on electricity in a closed loop. Thomas explains it’s an efficient system with no water or energy waste, but most importantly one unit comes at a fraction of the cost. The equipment is more mobile, and he believes they can accomplish the pressing within a 1,000-square-foot area. Ultimately, that greatly expands options for where pressing can take place both in Athens and in larger, denser cities. Plus, decreasing business costs means Echo Base can afford to press much smaller batches at a time.
“I think my favorite part [of launching Echo Base] has been developing new technology in an industry where… There’s new machines, but I think a lot of them use the same process that’s always been used. Being able to work on something like this electric heating and cooling unit that also produces the same records as steam would has really been exciting because it’s just a new way of doing something,” says Page. “Finding new ways to get it in the hands of smaller independent artists has been really fun as well.”
Aside from the manufacturing, Echo Base manages the direct-to-fan relationship on behalf of the artists by way of managing web stores and shipping packages. Thomas states they currently ship about 5,000 packages around the world monthly, and that number is steadily growing. Together these services make Echo Base a one stop shop for independent artists and labels. However, the ability to reduce costs and press smaller batches doesn’t reduce all of the risk for a local artist who might end up with records that don’t move. Echo Base has found a solution for that, too, of course.
“We recognize that pressing records comes with a price tag. The speed in which we can deliver quality records is one thing, but being able to work directly with an artist and working through their budget and helping them find ways to get the most out of their experience with fan awareness and engagement is the key,” says Beskin.
Echo Base’s on-demand record pressing works much like a Kickstarter campaign where fans can purchase a record before it has been manufactured with no money paid down by the musicians. While there are digital services attempting to do the same, it’s unprecedented in the manufacturing industry. During its pilot period, local musician Wim Tapley used the on-demand service to press his Live at the Georgia Theatre project ahead of a Jan. 27 show at the venue. Thomas explains they reduced risk by publishing a pre-sale then adjusting the quantities to fulfill the orders and add enough for the merch table.
“The first thing about Echo Base that’s super appealing as an indie artist is its turnaround time. Where other plants are bogged down by heavy production of major label records, Echo Base is filling the void that smaller artists desperately needed by allowing them to put in a request a reasonable amount of time before their tour, knowing that they’ll manufacture the records within plenty of time,” says Tapley. “Other than that, they took special care to make sure the process was affordable for us without sacrificing any care or attention.”
Up until this point, Echo Base has been managing vinyl record production at other facilities—like Citizen Vinyl in Asheville and Third Man Records in Detroit—and running a lot of the behind-the-scenes operations of Bandcamp’s vinyl program. Thomas explains the company’s online presence has been “kind of cryptic” because he signed a non-compete contract with a previous employer that he would not press records for two years. So while only half the business was able to operate during this time, it allowed for ample research and testing before launching the actual vinyl production side. Artists worked with during the pilot program include Annie Leeth, Corey Smith and Vision Video.
The company’s third leg of innovation will be announced with more details this spring, but new materials with the same durability as PVC without the toxins and inability to break down are in development. The goal is to produce a product with sustainability in mind that doesn’t degrade the reputation of a quality music medium.
“This is the kind of holy trinity of what we’re doing,” says Thomas. “We need to make it accessible for people to make records. We need to make it accessible for people to buy records. And then we need to solve for this kind of category-threatening issue, which is that this is not an environmentally friendly practice, and it’s not even a workplace friendly practice.”
Working with a British think tank to produce the material compounds, Thomas says they have a viable recipe. Next in the process is further testing with wide-scale pressing of the new material. With the public launch of Echo Base, Page adds that the short- and long-term goal of the company is perfecting all of its new innovative processes. This includes what Beskin refers to as being “nothing short of a concierge service” in vinyl manufacturing and distribution.
“I grew up in very rural northern England in the countryside. Working in plastics can sometimes feel really dissonant. You’re putting lifelong plastics out into the world. On one side we’re creating an archival record of someone’s art, right? And on the other side, we’re creating something that’s going to be here long after I am and may no longer even have utility at that point,” says Thomas.
Vinyl records trace their origins back to the late 1800s, and despite an ebb and flow of relevance, they have persisted as a popular music medium even in the digital age of music. Rather than serving to compete with existing manufacturing companies, Echo Base wishes to unlock this medium for a historically underserved community within the music industry. In doing so, it just might change the future of what vinyl manufacturing is capable of.
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