Since 2014 · 31 releases · four artists · Lawrence, KS
A record is finished in January and comes out in September, and seven of those nine months are a queue nobody in the chain controls. This page publishes the calendar — what is work, what is waiting, what can be moved and what it costs — because an artist who knows that in month one is a different artist from one who finds out in month five.
Belle Plaine — “Kanopolis” · Masters delivered 14 January 2026
That is 8.3 months from a finished master to a record in a shop, of which 4.7 months is waiting and 5.1 months is work — and the single longest bar on the chart, pressing queue at 118 days, is longer than every piece of work on it added together. Solid bars are work. Outlined bars are waiting. None of the waiting is anybody in this chain being slow — the plant is not slow, the plant is full, which is a different problem and not one an artist can fix by asking twice. The useful thing about seeing it laid out is that it is knowable in month one. Every argument a label has with an artist about a release date is an argument about a chart nobody drew.
Work Waiting Day 0 is masters delivered · Released 25 September 2026
Eight stages, and two of them are walls
Most of a release calendar is negotiable and the two pieces that are not happen to be the two everybody assumes are. Every row says what moving it costs and what it costs you.
| Stage | Can it move | What it costs | What you lose |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mastering | Yes | Nothing | A week of listening. The second pass exists because the first one is never right, and skipping it is the cheapest bad decision available. |
| Lacquer cut | Yes, for money | +$180 rush fee | Nothing, occasionally. Cutting rooms do sometimes have a gap, and this is the one rush fee on the page I would actually pay. |
| Test pressing post | Yes, for money | +$95 courier | Nine days of the twelve. Worth it only if the whole calendar is already against a wall. |
| Test approval | Yes | Nothing | Nothing, if the artist is free. This is the only stage where asking nicely genuinely works. |
| Pressing queue | Cannot be moved | — | It cannot be moved. Plants do sell expedited slots and they are re-selling somebody else’s date, which is a thing I will not do to another label. |
| Sleeve print | Yes, for money | +$240 | Nothing, and it is almost never the constraint. It becomes the constraint only when artwork is late. |
| Press embargo | Yes | Nothing | The long-lead reviews. You can release in six weeks instead of eight and simply not be in the monthlies, and for some records that is the right trade. |
| Distribution cutoff | Cannot be moved | — | It cannot be moved. It is not our calendar and there is no phone call. |
One record, 500 copies
| Line | Cost |
|---|---|
| Mastering, two passes | $620 |
| Lacquer cut and plating | $940 |
| Pressing, 500 units | $2,380 |
| Sleeves and inners | $1,150 |
| Freight and storage | $410 |
| Press, three months | $1,800 |
| Radio servicing | $600 |
| Digital distribution | $90 |
| Per copy pressed | $15.98 |
Eight thousand dollars on five hundred records, which is sixteen dollars a copy before anybody is paid for making the music. This is why a label exists and it is also why a label says no a great deal. Recording costs are not on this list because the artists on this roster record themselves; when we pay for recording, it is recoupable and it is in the contract in one sentence.
Four artists
No stream counts. Every label site has those and none of them tell an artist anything about what working here is like.
Salina, KS · “Kanopolis”, LP
The record this whole page is drawn from. Delivered in a week when the plant was quoting sixteen weeks and pressing in twenty-two, which is what a queue estimate is worth.
Lawrence, KS · “Second Shift”, 12"
Sleeve artwork arrived nine days late and cost nothing, because it landed inside the pressing window. The one time being late was free.
Kansas City, MO · “Elm and Vine”, LP
Rejected a test pressing over a warp on side B and lost eleven weeks. It was the right call, the second pressing is the record people know, and I would tell any artist to do the same thing again.
Topeka, KS · “Grain Belt”, EP
Missed a distribution cutoff by two days in October and moved to February. Nothing was wrong with the record. The calendar is a grid and we were on the wrong side of a line.
“They sent me a calendar before they sent me a contract. I knew in the first week that the record was coming out in September, and I spent those nine months writing the next one instead of emailing about the last one.”
Artist, second album — 2025
2025, all of it
That is not a filter working well. It is how many records a four-artist label can physically put out in a year, which is a completely different fact and a more useful one to know before you spend an evening on a submission.
| At | What happened | What to do about it |
|---|---|---|
| 0:04 | It starts with a fade-in | A quarter of everything sent to a label opens with eight seconds of nothing. Cut it. The first four seconds are the only ones you are guaranteed. |
| 0:12 | The vocal is buried | Almost always a rough mix sent as a final. Say it is a rough and I will listen differently — an unlabelled rough mix gets judged as a mix. |
| 0:22 | Nothing has happened yet | Not a demand for a chorus by twenty seconds. A demand that something changes by twenty seconds, which is a different and much easier thing. |
| 0:48 | The drums are a preset | Fine on a demo and it stops me hearing the arrangement. A phone recording of the band in a room is more useful to me than a grid. |
| 1:10 | It is the fourth one that sounds like this today | The least fair reason on this list, and I am telling you it exists rather than pretending it does not. |
Common questions
About seven weeks of it is work. The rest is a pressing plant queue of roughly four months, twelve days of test pressings in the post, and eight weeks of press embargo that has to sit in front of the release date rather than behind it. Nobody in the chain is being slow. The plant is full, which is a different problem and not one an artist can fix by asking twice.
You can and it usually costs you the vinyl campaign. Press treats a record as new once, radio the same, and a digital release six months early spends that once. The exception is a single, which is what singles are for.
No. The standard deal here is a three-year licence and the recording reverts automatically at the end of it with nothing to sign and no letter to write. Two of the four artists on this roster are on a one-record deal with no option clause, which is the shape I would want if I were the artist.
You lose about eleven weeks and you should still do it if it needs doing. One record on this roster went back over a warp on side B, came out four months late, and is the one people actually know. A bad pressing is permanent; a delay is not.
Yes, on a Monday, all of it if the recording lets me hear the song. Twelve hundred and forty arrived in 2025 and sixty-one got a real reply with a reason. Two were signed, which is not a filter working well — it is how many records a four-artist label can physically put out.
No. The contract is four pages, the splits are on this page, and I will happily wait while somebody reads it. Any label that needs you to have representation before it will explain its own deal is telling you about the deal.
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