01
( step 1 of 5 )
Tape
Every Velvet record starts on two-inch tape, recorded live in a room with the band facing each other. No grid, no click, no fixing it later.
( Pressing · Porto plant )
How a red record is made.
Five steps, three cities and about six weeks between the last note being played and a record landing on your doormat. This is all of it.
02
( step 2 of 5 )
Lacquer
Our engineer cuts the music onto a soft lacquer disc with a heated sapphire stylus. One side takes about forty minutes — longer than it plays.
03
( step 3 of 5 )
Pigment
Clear PVC pellets are tumbled with our scarlet pigment. The mix is weighed per record: 180 g, plus three for the flash we trim later.
04
( step 4 of 5 )
Press
A puck of hot red vinyl is squeezed between two stampers at 150 tonnes for eight seconds, then cooled with water. Every tenth record is played start to finish.
05
( step 5 of 5 )
Sleeve
Inner sleeve, lyric sheet, a number in white pencil, a shrink-wrap we do not glue. Then a box, a bicycle courier, and your door.
( The numbers )
One edition, five hundred times.
- Press force
- 150 tonnes, 8 seconds
- Temperature
- 165 °C at the stamper
- Weight
- 180 g ± 2 g
- Quality check
- Every tenth record, played in full
- Rejects
- Melted down and pressed again