文藝復興中的黑膠 是這樣生產出來的
The machines at Independent Record Pressing whirred and hissed as they stamped out a test record. The business’s owners waited anxiously for Dave Miller, the plant manager, to inspect the still-warm slab of vinyl.
“獨立唱片壓制公司”(Independent Record Pressing)裏，機器轟鳴作響，壓出一張測試碟。車間主管戴夫·米勒(Dave Miller)檢查這張餘溫猶存的黑膠唱片，老闆們在旁邊焦急地等待着。
“That’s flat, baby!” Mr. Miller said as he held the record, to roars of approval and relief. “That’s the way they should come off, just like that.”
“是平的，寶貝！”米勒拿着唱片鬆了口氣，用讚許的口吻大聲說，“唱片出來就該是這樣的，就是這樣。”
Independent Record Pressing is an attempt to solve one of the riddles of today’s music industry: how to capitalize on the popularity of vinyl records when the machines that make them are decades old, and often require delicate and expensive maintenance. The six presses at this new 20,000-square-foot plant, for example, date to the 1970s.
“獨立唱片壓制公司”的成立是爲了解決當今音樂產業內的一個難解之謎：如今，黑膠唱片重又流行起來，然而壓制黑膠的機器卻已經走過了幾十個年頭，經常需要細緻昂貴的維護保養，怎樣從黑膠的流行中獲利就成了問題。這家佔地二萬平方英尺的廠房裏有6臺黑膠壓制機，都是20世紀70年代出產的。
Vinyl, which faded with the arrival of compact discs in the 1980s, is having an unexpected renaissance. Last year more than 13 million LPs were sold in the United States, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, the highest count in 25 years, making it one of the record business’s few growth areas.
20世紀80年代，隨着CD技術的出現，黑膠一度銷聲匿跡，如今卻出人意料地出現了復興。根據美國唱片工業協會統計，去年全美售出了1300萬多張LP唱片，達到25年來的最高點，成了唱片工業內爲數不多的增長領域之一。
But the few dozen plants around the world that press the records have strained to keep up with the exploding demand, resulting in long delays and other production problems, executives and industry observers say. It is now common for plants to take up to six months to turn around a vinyl order — an eternity in an age when listeners are used to getting music online instantly.
但是，唱片業的高管和行業觀察者們指出，面對突然爆發的需求，全世界少數幾個能夠壓制黑膠唱片的工廠已經疲於奔命，由此導致了漫長的延期和各種生產問題。現在，工廠花費六個月時間完成一份黑膠訂單是非常普遍的，對於當今這個聽衆習慣馬上在網絡上聽到音樂的時代來說，真是一段過於漫長的時間。
“The good news is that everyone wants vinyl,” Dave Hansen, one of Independent’s owners and the general manager of the alternative label Epitaph, said on a recent hot afternoon as the plant geared up for production.
“好消息是，現在所有人都想要黑膠，”前不久，一個炎熱的下午，“獨立”的老闆之一戴夫·漢森(Dave Hansen)在工廠準備生產的間隙接受了採訪，他還是另類唱片廠牌“墓誌銘”(Epitaph)的經理。
“The bad news is everything you see here today,” he added, noting that the machines had to be shut down that afternoon because of the rising temperature of water used as a coolant. To replace an obsolete screw in one machine, Independent spent $5,000 to manufacture and install a new one.
“壞消息就是今天你在這兒看到的一切，”他指的是當天下午機器被迫關閉的事，因爲用作冷卻的水溫度升高了。爲了替換機器裏一個壞掉的螺絲，公司花了5000美元製作安裝了一臺新機器。
The vinyl boom has come as streaming has taken off as a listening format and both CDs and downloads have declined. The reasons cited are usually a fuller, warmer sound from vinyl’s analog grooves and the tactile power of a well-made record at a time when music has become ephemeral.
黑膠回潮發生在流媒體播放成爲主要聆聽方式，CD和下載都出現下降趨勢之際。人們青睞黑膠的理由通常是，在這個音樂已經變得短暫易逝的時代，黑膠的模擬方式更加豐滿、溫暖；精美唱片的手感也帶來一種力量。
Most surprising is the youth of the market: According to MusicWatch, a consumer research group, some 54 percent of vinyl customers are 35 or younger. Mr. Hansen and Darius Van Arman, a founder of Secretly Group, a consortium of small record companies that is a partner in Independent, said they believed their customers were often discovering new music through streaming and then collecting it on LPs.
最讓人驚訝的是，這個市場非常年輕：根據消費者調查集團MisicWatch統計，54%的黑膠唱片消費者是35歲至35歲以下的人羣。小唱片公司聯合團體“祕密集團”(Secretly Group)的創始人德里烏斯·範·阿爾曼(Darius Van Arman)也是“獨立”的合夥人之一，他和漢森都說，客戶往往是通過流媒體發現新的音樂，然後收藏它們的黑膠唱片。
“None of this was supposed to happen, and yet it’s happened,” said Michael Fremer, a senior contributing editor at Stereophile magazine and a longtime champion of vinyl as a superior medium for sound.
“這一切都是人們不曾預料到的，然而就這樣發生了，”《Stereophile》雜誌的資深供稿編輯，邁克爾·弗萊默(Michael Fremer)說，長期以來，他一直主張黑膠是一種高級的聲音介質。
Independent’s machines tell some of the history of the modern music business. Mr. Miller, 62, helped build them as a young man in the 1970s, and they were used for decades at the Hub-Servall plant in Cranbury, N.J.; Mr. Miller recalled pressing copies of the “Saturday Night Fever” and “Grease” soundtracks there.
“獨立”的機器可以反映出現代音樂工業的一些歷史。米勒先生現年62歲，70年代時，年輕的他曾經參與制造這些機器。它們在新澤西州克蘭伯裏市的Hub-Servall工廠服役幾十年，米勒回憶這家工廠曾經壓制過《週六夜狂熱》(Saturday Night Fever)和《油脂》(Grease)的原聲專輯。
In 2007, Hub-Servall’s presses were sold to RIP-V, a new plant in Montreal that took on Epitaph as a client. RIP-V shut down last year, and Independent bought six of its 14 machines and brought them back to New Jersey. (The rest went to other plants.) Mr. Hansen said that he and Secretly had invested $1.5 million in the venture.
2007年，Hub-Servall的壓制機被蒙特利爾的新廠RIP-V買去，“墓誌銘”也是它的客戶。RIP-V於去年關門大吉，“獨立”買下了它14臺機器中的6臺，把它們帶回新澤西（另外八臺機器被其他工廠買去）。漢森說，他和“祕密”爲這家工廠投資了150萬美元。
For the music business over all, vinyl is still a niche product, if an increasingly substantial one. According to Nielsen, LPs now represent about 9 percent of sales in physical formats. But for indies like Epitaph and Secretly, vinyl has become essential: Both now take in nearly as much revenue from LPs as they do from CDs.
對於整個音樂行業來說，黑膠唱片的勢頭雖然愈來愈強勁，但仍然屬於小衆產品。根據尼爾遜公司統計，黑膠LP唱片佔據音樂實體銷量的9%。但是對於“墓誌銘”和“祕密”這樣的獨立唱片公司來說，黑膠成了必不可少的東西：兩家廠牌目前在黑膠唱片和在CD唱片兩部分的收益都是差不多一樣多。
Mr. Hansen started Independent as a 50-50 partnership with Secretly to serve other independent labels — companies that often find themselves squeezed out of the production line by bigger players.
漢森和“祕密”以50-50的分成合作方式開了“獨立”，同時也爲其他獨立廠牌服務，這些小公司在生產環節經常受到大公司排擠。
“One of the problems that independent labels are facing,” Mr. Van Arman of Secretly said, “is that some of the bigger plants might get an order for an Eagles box set, and everyone else is put on hold.”
“獨立廠牌經常面臨這樣的問題，”“祕密”的範·阿爾曼說，“有些大廠可能因爲接了‘老鷹’(Eagles)盒裝特輯的單，就把別人的單都推到後面去。”
Independent’s initial order list includes records by Vampire Weekend, Pavement, the XX and Mac DeMarco, all indie acts that are steady sellers on vinyl. Mr. Hansen’s ownership is separate from his employment at Epitaph, and both he and Mr. Van Arman said that releases on their labels would get no special treatment.
“獨立”的第一批訂單中包括“吸血鬼週末”(Vampire Weekend)、“人行道”(Pavement)、“the XX”和馬克·德馬科(Mac DeMarco)，所有獨立藝人和樂隊都是黑膠唱片穩定的賣家。漢森對工廠的所有權是同他在“墓誌銘”的職位分開的，他和範·阿爾曼都說，來壓制黑膠的藝人如果選擇在他倆的廠牌發行唱片，並不會得到特別優惠。
Independent has taken over a spot in a small industrial park in this town about six miles south of Trenton. The company expects to employ seven full-time workers and a small part-time crew to assemble the finished records and sleeves; some of those part-timers will be moonlighting employees of a Netflix DVD fulfillment center next door where similar work is done, Mr. Hansen said.
“獨立”坐落在鎮上一個小小的工業園區，位於特倫頓以南6英里。漢森說，公司希望僱用7名全職員工，以及一小批兼職人員，幫忙包裝唱片和封套；公司打算從隔壁Netflix的DVD壓制廠僱用一些工作內容差不多的兼職人員。
When it is operating at full capacity, Independent should produce up to 1.5 million records a year, Mr. Hansen and Mr. Van Arman said. But first the machines must be fully restored and tested, and after several months they are still not quite ready.
一旦滿負荷運轉起來，“獨立”一年可以生產150萬張唱片，漢森和範·阿爾曼說。但是，機器首先需要進行全面修復和測試，幾個月過去了，他們還沒完全準備好。
While tweaking two machines, Mr. Miller, the plant manager, showed how many parts of the physical process must be aligned to make a record properly.
在修理兩臺機器過程中，工廠主管米勒展示了要製作一張唱片，需要經過多少程序。
Vinyl pellets are poured from a bucket into an extruder, and then formed into a small lump of vinyl that is placed between metal stampers forming the shape of each side of the record. The machine then presses the stampers together with 150 pounds per square inch of pressure. If the temperature, pressure or consistency of the vinyl is off, the result is an imperfect record that is scrapped.
用大桶裝着的乙烯基顆粒被注入壓出機，形成一小團乙烯基塊，之後被注入唱片兩面的金屬母模之間。之後機器用150磅每平方英寸的壓力衝壓母模。如果溫度、壓力和乙烯基濃度出現問題，唱片就報廢了。
“This is the dirty, brutal side of the record business,” Mr. Miller said. “Nobody realizes the work it takes to actually make a record.”
“這是唱片行業中最髒、最殘忍的一面，”米勒說，“沒有人知道製作一張唱片要花多大功夫。”
There is now a global rush to set up more plants and find existing presses, but the few that have been tracked down are often in poor shape. This year Chad Kassem of Quality Record Pressings in Salina, Kan., found 13 disused machines in Chicago — “they looked like scrap metal to anybody but me,” he said — and he hopes to restore five of them within six months.
目前全球都出現了建立新黑膠廠，尋找現存壓制機的風潮，但是能被找到的、僅存的機器通常都是保養狀況不佳。今年，堪薩斯州薩萊納市“優質唱片壓制公司”(Quality Record Pressing)的查德·卡塞姆(Chad Kassem)在芝加哥找到了13臺報廢的機器，“除了我，別人都把它們當成廢銅爛鐵，”他說。他希望能在6個月內修復其中5臺機器。
Fat Possum, another indie label, also started a new plant in Memphis this year to meet its own demand, with nine machines. “Now I can go and push my own stuff to the front,” said Matthew Johnson, Fat Possum’s founder, who said that in recent years he had been faced with frustrations like thousands of records held up in customs as they came in from manufacturers in Europe.
獨立廠牌“胖負鼠”(Fat Possum)爲了滿足公司自己的需要，今年在孟菲斯開設了一家新廠，他們擁有9臺機器。“現在我可以直接推出自己的東西了”，廠牌創始人馬修·約翰遜(Matthew Johnson)說，他說，近年來他遇到過很多困難，比如上千張唱片從歐洲的壓盤廠回來，結果卻被扣在海關。
Yet talk of a possible bubble hangs over the vinyl business, and some plants seem to be bracing for a decline even as they expand. United Record Pressing in Nashville, one of the biggest plants, has 30 presses running 24 hours a day and has acquired 16 more machines. Yet the plant, overwhelmed by demand, has stopped taking orders from new customers.
說到這個行業內可能存在的泡沫，不少廠子在擴張的同時，似乎也在爲衰退做準備。納什維爾的“聯合唱片壓制公司”(United Record Pressing)是最大的壓盤廠之一，擁有30臺機器，一天24小時運轉，並且新近訂購了16臺機器。然而該廠的生產能力供不應求，已經不再接新客戶的單。
“It’s difficult to turn people away, especially when it is maybe an independent artist,” said Jessica Baird, a representative of the company. “But we are trying to do the best we can for people who have been loyal to us for years, and that we hope will stick with us when the ebb and flow comes again.”
“要拒絕別人很難，特別是對方可能是獨立藝術家，”該公司代表傑西卡·貝爾德(Jessica Baird)說。“但是我們只想爲那些多年來的忠實客戶做到最好，我們希望他們在行業衰落再次來臨之際也能一直跟隨我們。”
Mr. Hansen, 52, said he wasn’t sure whether the vinyl gold rush would continue, either, but he has staked a considerable personal investment in it and called the plant part of his retirement planning.
52歲的漢森說，他也不確定“黑膠淘金潮”是否會一直持續下去，但他個人對工廠進行了相當大的投資，把它當做自己養老計劃的一部分。
“The dream is to build capacity for our label and provide a service for the indie labels that I love and respect so much,” Mr. Hansen said, “and at the same time, make a few bucks too.”
“我的夢想就是讓產量能夠滿足我們的廠牌，以及我喜愛和尊敬的許多其他獨立廠牌，同時還能賺幾個錢花，”漢森說。
