Serato Launches Serato Pressings
Today’s Top Story
Serato has announced a new venture dubbed Serato Pressings, which will release vinyl records with their Control Tone on one side, and a track release by a favored label on the other. The hybrid records will available for pre-order in December with shipping slated for early 2009.
Serato hopes the new venture will provide an additional revenue stream for the concern, who has taken notice of the high resale value of some if its Limited Edition 7″ inch and colored vinyl releases — some of which have reached astronomical levels on auction sites such as eBay.
“Serato is genuinely interested in preserving vinyl culture” Product Manager for Serato Pressings, Bill Mitsakos stated in a company release. Well of course you are Bill. Without “vinyl culture,” Serato’s Scratch would be dead. To showcase the dire state of the dance music vinyl market, Serato also announced that its Control records have been the best selling vinyl releases since 2004.
On the one hand, Serato Pressings can be looked upon as a nice “give-back” to electronic music culture, however, this appears to be more of a marketing gimmick than a substantial offense to stave off the inevitable demise of the vinyl format. “Serato Pressings allows us to work with record labels and the few remaining pressing plants to cut a collectible series of records that have original music on Side A and the ability to control our software on Side B,” Mitsakos continues. The key phrase here is “few remaining pressing plants.” The truth is that vinyl record plants are going away. There is just not enough vinyl record sales to keep these plants in business, and nothing that Serato is going to do will make an impact on the withering industry.
In addition, Serato’s initiative is so one dimensional, so uninspired that their Pressings will certainly not rev up the vinyl market. Instead of partnering with a leading online dance music retailer to pick the best selling tracks to include on the releases, or to use a “crowd-sourcing” system to allow Serato users to determine which tracks get pressed, they’ve decided to perform the A&R themselves. Hell, they could have even developed a Vinyl Social Networking site to support the endeavor, but no. One word: Boring.
Serato Pressings believe they have a solid schedule of releases lined up for 2009 with record labels from around the world participating in the endeavor. The claim that “each release promises to be collectible and will be catalogued online for authenticity and quality control.”
The first official Serato Pressing will be released and distributed by Mad Decent, the label started by Diplo. The limited edition 12 inch “Get Off” — Diplo and Blaqstarr will be available for pre-order sometime in December 2008.
Serato Pressings are distributed by the partner record labels and will be sold in traditional record stores and online vinyl stores.
More information on Serato Pressings.
