| Main Pressing plants Pennyroyal Tea Test pressings Collection |
| Mayking (vinyl) | |||||
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Mayking was a full-service production company. This meant that a record company like Tupelo could deliver a master tape to Mayking and they would get the lacquers cut, get test pressings made, make sleeve proofs, print the sleeve, press the record, package it and deliver it to the final destination. Mayking provided finished product for nearly all the independent labels in the UK at that time. However, until the early 1990's when Mayking began to make CD's in house, all the various elements involved in production were sub-contracted to outsourced suppliers. In the case of 99.9% of the vinyl, the subcontractor was MPO in France. Mayking had an arrangement with MPO so that all it's vinyl orders would be pressed by MPO, and in return MPO would not press for any other UK company. So in effect theirs was a partnership. This agreement stopped MPO from going straight to Tupelo in the UK and offer to press for a cheaper price. (As MPO only pressed black vinyl, picture discs and colored vinyl were done by Orlake Records, often made from metal plates processed by MPO.) Mayking never pressed any Nirvana releases, but they were still the ones to deliever them to Tupelo, already put in sleeves and ready for retail. Even though the vinyl were pressed in France, the final product was all packaged, put together and delivered in the UK. By EEC rules the finished product that ended up in a record store was manufactured in the UK. (For whatever it's worth, the sleeves were printed in UK, on Canadian cardboard using ink from Germany.) As for test pressings, these would have Mayking test pressing labels, even though MPO pressed them. MPO were only mentioned in small letters at the bottom. White labels were done upon request from the record label. If white label test pressings/ promos were ordered, the first three would generally always have the Mayking test pressing labels. Mayking went out of business in 1997, when they were bought by DOCdata. |
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| Main Pressing plants Pennyroyal Tea Test pressings Collection |
