Interview - VinylGrabber

Geschreven door Reind Dooyeweerd woensdag, 19 september 2007 01:54

Ik herinner de tweede dag van de Music Messe als gisteren. Reind en ik liepen een beetje rond om gemaakte afspraken op te volgen. Tijdens een Ortofon scratch demo, pikte ik nog wat boekjes van Ortofon mee. Eenmaal thuis viel mijn oog op een artikel van de VinylGrabber. Iemand die vinyl perst en dat nog behoorlijk succesvol doet.

Om de nieuwe generatie AboutDJ bezoekers een beetje op te voeden: vinyl zijn die grote zwarte schijven die DJ’s vroeger (nog geen vijf jaar geleden) gewoon onderdeel waren van een wekelijks ritueel. Urenlang in donkere krochten op zoek naar die ene exclusieve track die je vervolgens die avond weer kon draaien. ;-)

Aangezien de meeste DJ’s tegenwoordig bijna geen vinyl aanschaffen, wilde wij van de gelegenheid gebruik maken om eens in de wereld van VinylGrabber te duiken en te achterhalen waar deze Franse marktleider zichzelf precies bezighoudt.

Can you introduce yourself to the readers of AboutDJ.nl?

Hmmm me.... Ok, hard to describe haha: I love music, records, scratching and women. Ho I forgot: My name is Steven, manager for VG record (formally VinylGrabber Records) ;-) We produce and sell different artists via our label and shop and off course we cut vinyl. I began to cut records 4 years ago and time after time we started to work with bigger artists.

In short this is me!

Cool, nice introduction. So all of the sudden you started to “grab” vinyl. Can you explain how it all started?

One night, I had a party at a friend, and tried to scratch; just for fun. I never touched records really before, just heard some... It was like some sort of a revelation, like some people when they see Jesus. The difference is that I'm not crazy, vinyl really lives! So the next day, I decide to buy turntables and mixer and the biggest problem arose: the money, or better: the lack of money, to buy the records.

At a certain time I was buying 20 records per day during the first year after I bought my DJ gear. I ended up with big problems with my bank, s I had to find a solution to solve it.

And seriously, the solution was a cutting vinyl system! I started cutting records for myself, but the more I cut, the more of my friends wanted some records. That’s basically how the whole idea was born: Cut and SELL records!

As we all see, the market is changing to become more and more digital. What’s your opinion about that? And does it affect your work?

My answer is plain simple: F#CK digital. In my opinion, it doesn’t change; absolutely NOT! We cut more and more vinyl the last 4 years. Around is a lot of cutting studios are closing their doors, but we only get more customers, thus business and from all around the world. Digital = Digital. That’s another world, but not ours!

Real DJ’s Play Real Vinyl (copyright Ortofon ;-) ). That’s a simple reality!

Loud and crisp answer! What kind of customers do you currently have (I would guess turntablists, producers and DJ’s)

Basically everybody could be our customer. My youngest customer is 14, my oldest is 85; from DJ to vinyl addict. If you have a track, we cut it. No rules about that… Well actually one: only vinyl lovers!

Most typical is off course the turntablist. These artists will prepare specific pieces or pre-sets and want to have this “set” on two sets of vinyl. Especially for showcases or scratch competitions like DMC, ITF and CCF.

Can you explain in a bit more detail how your process looks like when grabbing vinyl (from first contact to vinyl ;-) final product)?

Hmmm, that’s most probably the most important part of the work. We need to know exactly what people want on their own records. We are proposing a lot of stuff pro-actively and we adapt our work as good as possible for people; all depending of what they want. For example all the little things like size and speed of the vinyl. These may look like small or minor things, but they will have effect on the final product.

Every record is different so it’s different work every day. After the pre-phase we begin to work physically on the track(s): a little mastering, some cigarettes and coffee during all the work and finally we CUT! The actual work is a bit harder than I explain.

Are there any requirements for delivering tracks in a specific file type?

MP3 sucks, we want to get the audio in the highest quality available; we prefer WAV.

And even more important, how’s the physical setup?

We have a Power Mac with ProTools connected to the cutting system and everything is connected with Firewire.

How long does it take to produce one vinyl records?

The cutting process is real-time. If the track is 5 minutes, the cutting time will be 5 minutes. But most of the time goes into the preparation in order to get a high quality and good sounding vinyl records.

So in the beginning of this conversation you mentioned that you are producing as well. What kind of producer’s gear are you using?

Ok, do you have a second: a Power Mac, ProTools, Digi002 rack, Presonus Central Station, Finalizer96K, TC Electronic, Klark Teknik Digital Delay, RIAA converter, SLab cutting amp, pitch control, VU meter, Rane rack MP2, Stereo switcher, Command 8 control surface. Most probably I’m forgetting some of the gear, but this is my main setup.

The prices listed on your website looks very good. Can you explain why you are so affordable.

Actually, we think we’re actually one of the more expensive, haha! We’re a bit more expensive than average, but we always deliver quality!

One final question and then you can go back to cutting records: what are other projects that you’re working on?

We have our own label and distribution group. So we can handle the whole chain: we produce tracks, cut vinyl, press records too, we take care of distribution, we sell through our own record shop and soon we will launch a new website :-)

And I scratch a lot!!!!

One final thing I want to add: we just sorted out our first own release on our label VG Records. We have produced Lorn’s newest release “Grief Machine”.