Inside the Record Pressing Plant
Goldmine toured Microforum Service Group, a 60,000‑square‑foot full‑service vinyl and CD manufacturing plant that handles Record Store Day pressings. (goldminemag.com) The piece traces how physical releases are manufactured, from plating and pressing to shrink‑wrapping. (goldminemag.com)
A vinyl record is made by turning sound into grooves, then turning those grooves into metal molds that can stamp thousands of copies. Goldmine’s April 11 tour of Microforum Service Group showed that process running inside a 60,000-square-foot Toronto plant that handles vinyl, compact discs, printing and packaging under one roof. (goldminemag.com) Goldmine said Microforum guided the magazine through plating, pressing, printing and shrink-wrapping ahead of Record Store Day on April 18, 2026. The plant’s vice president of sales, Noble Musa, described it as a full-service operation that also does album-cover design. (goldminemag.com) Microforum says its line starts with premastering and lacquer cutting, then moves to electroplating, where the lacquer is coated with metal to create the stampers used in the press. The company says it also prints jackets, labels and sleeves in house before final assembly. (microforum.ca 1) (microforum.ca 2) The pressing step works like an industrial waffle iron for records: a puck of polyvinyl chloride is heated with steam, squeezed between stampers, then cooled into a finished disc. Microforum says its WarmTone Advantage presses are fully digitized and automated. (microforum.ca) The tour lands one week before Record Store Day 2026, when participating stores will release hundreds of exclusive titles on April 18. Record Store Day Canada’s site says at least one 2026 exclusive Canadian title was pressed in Toronto by Microforum. (recordstoreday.com) (recordstoredaycanada.ca) That factory-floor view arrives as vinyl keeps growing even in a streaming market. The Recording Industry Association of America said on March 16, 2026 that United States vinyl revenue topped $1 billion in 2025, with 46.8 million units sold. (riaa.com) Microforum entered vinyl manufacturing during that revival. In August 2016, the company said it had signed with Viryl Technologies to install WarmTone record presses at its Toronto facility, and Canadian Manufacturing reported in January 2017 that the company planned six automated lines with capacity of up to 24,000 records a day. (newswire.ca) (canadianmanufacturing.com) Microforum’s own site now pitches the plant as a one-stop shop with rush service, while Record Store Day Canada lists the company as a partner and has tied it to Canadian exclusive releases. The result is that a format sold as nostalgia is being built with modern automation, metalwork and packaging lines timed to one of the busiest dates in the record-store calendar. (microforum.ca) (recordstoredaycanada.ca)
