Southern California has a new record pressing plant. Can it meet Swiftie-sized demand?
LOS ANGELES — The extruder melted thousands of tiny black pellets into a viscous goo. A hissing, linebacker-sized machine, one of 12 just like it in this Oxnard warehouse, shaped it into a puck-sized "biscuit" of plastic. A press stamped it into a thin, etched disc and shaved off the rough edges, while a second arm shot down and slapped it with a paper sticker.
When the machine finished its handiwork, one hard rock fan somewhere in the world would have a pristine new copy of "Van Halen II."
"We're essentially making a waffle here," said Rick Hashimoto, owner of the new Fidelity Record, as he tapped his custom replica of a decades-old SMT vinyl press last week.
