I just saw Furnace Pressing for the VMP, I didn't look up the others. But Furnace hasn't done much over the years and I could only find a few reviews, half of which were very bad.
I don't believe so. I've seen Electric Mastering on a lot of records over the past while I believe. But don't quote me on that.
Looks like it is the same company. That in no way is me saying its good or not, just not something I have seen before.
Interesting, they have done a lot of stuff over the past while. Including the Ancestors previous album. And Black Country New Road, which really... Isn't great on vinyl. But even so I'm more concerned about the pressing plant. I got burned going in blind on that new TMR Vault Box, and then United fucking pressed it and absolutely botched it because that's what they do. So I'm not going to go and blow another $55 CAD on this before I know if it's actually worth owning on vinyl.
They have over a thousand mastering credits for other labels on Discogs and the equipment listed on that site doesn't match the equipment ERC always touts. The font does seem to be the same though. Maybe they just keep them totally separate.
Ah good spot, I never made the connection with them before now otherwise I might have noticed. Ah damn, that’s not good news. I can’t remember having issues with Shabaka’s other releases but I also can’t recall being blown away by the pressing either. Good time to revisit I think!
If you go on their website and click the ‘about’ it shows as a division of ERC. As you said though, likely keep the 2 separate .
Wow that last Shabaka album has some really weird run-outs in the US. Side B cut by a different person at a different location and is the only one that the pressing location is obvious to me, which is HDP. Just GZ in Europe.
The Electric mastering on Ancestors was good, but the VMP pressing wasn't. But that was pressed at Hand Drawn. The mastering and pressing of "Your Queen Is A Reptile" both sucked and that was Electric again but the pressing plant isn't listed.
HDP usually says HDP on every side though, so definitely something weird happened there.
Looking back at Ancestors, it shows GZ for the standard press and Hand Drawn for the VMP. Seems unlikely though. Could be Discogs has it wrong and it's actually GZ for both. Anyhow, either way the VMP pressing was garbage.
The standard US says it is the same as the VMP, but I'm not sure if someone copied it off the VMP listing or if it is correct. VMP is correct. I'll have to spin it again to see if I was as unlucky with pressing issues as I don't remember obvious problems but maybe I was less critical since it was free.
From what I recall, the usual. Lots of warps, end of side crackle and surface noise. I got mine from the PIF thread because so many were being replaced.
DOOOOOOOOOOMED@Mather I may order a shibata replacement for my cart soon so maybe I will start to feel your pain
The VMP Ancestors pressing is one of the worst I’ve seen in the past year or so. I think I went through 4 copies and couldn’t even cobble together one good set. Warps, off-centre, repetitive clicks. You name it.
Yeah that tracks with what's in Cogs. So I guess hopefully Furnace does a better job with pressing this version than Hand Drawn did. But looking at Furnaces "Hollow Knight Soundtrack" reviews they botched that one, and I could only find one other release of theirs with multiple reviews .. they haven't done much... Certainly no big releases that I could find.
