Nothing fishy about Seabass Vinyl model - Kevin Buckle

Seabass Vinyl expects to start production later this year in East Lothian.

David and Dominique Harvey don't have a background in the music industry but as specialists in technical architecture and infrastructure and supply chain fulfillment they do have transferable skills.With both of them having a background in consultancy I thought they would turn to music "consultants" in Scotland and I wasn't let down.The thing about the music industry is that you really have to be at the coal face to know what is happening as trends continually change and all consultants know about is what they read or have heard which is normally out of date.I think the worst examples I came across were both when I was in the Grassmarket and because there was a music school next door based in Red Dog Music I would get lots of young musicians with questions often about advice they had been given that they themselves doubted.The good news for David and Dominique is that even the consultants now know that the long lead times of up to nine months for vinyl are back to a far more reasonable two to three months so simply having capacity is not enough.The young music students that came out of Red Dog were not so lucky. There was a time when seven inch singles were a big thing and there were even websites dedicated just to the format. Unfortunately when the seven inch single died it really died and even the biggest artists suffered.However six months after the format had died these young musicians were being advised they should release a seven inch.Even worse was the idea that all you had to do was put a track online and it would reach a worldwide audience, when of course what was really happening was that even great new songs were getting lost among the mountain of music available online.Bands who had been granted a couple of days in a studio would be hoping to record an album but would be advised to record just a couple of tracks "really well" that could be put online.The Seabass Vinyl model has a lot of focus on helping small bands and on being as green as possible both for the good of the planet and to save money on costs, which has to be a good thing. But the key to success will be confidence in the quality of the pressings.The couple are even building their own factory to house the pressing plant, so it is a long term investment for sure and I certainly wish them all the best.While they have already bought two presses they have an infrastructure that will support four, so they are definitely thinking ahead.I'm sure they will receive support from Scottish artists and labels but they clearly have wider ambitions. My main concern is that the general consensus is that vinyl has peaked and it is just a case now of whether it slows down to still very healthy sales or crashes to levels that will leave many including "vinyl" shops in serious trouble.