Pirates Press is a vinyl manufacturing and production located in Emeryville, California, that was founded in 2004. The company was started in the bedroom of owner Eric Mueller and has grown into a full-scale operation that now includes offices in Emeryville, California,

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

, and

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

. It is the manufacturing and production wing of its sister company Pirates Press Records.

Company history

Pirates Press was founded in 2004 by Eric “Skippy” Mueller in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, California. Mueller started Pirates Press with the intent to ‘protect independent labels, bands, artists and businesses from being swindled and handicapped by big corporate manufacturers who really don’t care about them.’” The company has seen 75-100% yearly growth since its inception. In 2005, Pirates Press produced about 250,000 vinyl. In 2008, the company produced around 1.75 million vinyl for its customers. In 2009, Pirates Press produced over 2 million records for its customers. Clients include

Tom Petty Thomas Earl Petty (October 20, 1950October 2, 2017) was an American singer, songwriter, and musician. He was the leader and frontman of the Rock music, rock bands Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Mudcrutch and a member of the late 1980s sup ...

, White Stripes,

Beck Beck David Hansen (born Bek David Campbell; July 8, 1970), known mononymously as Beck, is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He rose to fame in the early 1990s with his Experimental music, experimental and Lo-fi mus ...

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Eric Clapton Eric Patrick Clapton (born 1945) is an English Rock music, rock and blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He is regarded as one of the most successful and influential guitarists in rock music. Clapton ranked second in ''Rolling Stone''s l ...

Madonna Madonna Louise Ciccone ( ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Referred to as the "Queen of Pop", she has been recognized for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, ...

, and more. The company is one of only a few remaining vinyl pressers in the United States. Pirates Press has also brought back the manufacturing of

flexi disc The flexi disc (also known as a phonosheet, Sonosheet or Soundsheet, a trademark) is a phonograph record made of a thin, flexible vinyl sheet with a molded-in spiral stylus groove, and is designed to be playable on a normal phonograph turntable. ...

which are done on-site at the company’s warehouse. Pirates Press uses the world's oldest vinyl manufacturing plant where each record is pressed on a manual machine whereas the US plants use suction-cup machines. This traditional pressing style allows employees to "...concoct original color compounds and press records by hand. This means customers have access to just about anything they can dream up, from orange marble to translucent red; solid white to half-purple and half-green; even glitter and glow-in-the-dark." Pirates Press' engineers have created a technology that can digitally recreate a record before it is cut to analyze what the grooves would look like with different input settings or a different version of the master. Product is pressed by GZ Media in the

References

External links

* {{Authority control Recorded music Manufacturing companies based in California Companies based in San Francisco 2004 establishments in California Music of the San Francisco Bay Area Flexi discs