Where the Vinyl Is Made

Goldmine’s April 11 tour of Microforum Service Group put a factory floor behind Record Store Day, tracing how limited-run vinyl and compact discs get made in Toronto. (goldminemag.com) Microforum says it runs a 60,000-square-foot manufacturing plant and handles vinyl pressing, compact disc and digital versatile disc replication, cassette duplication, printing, packaging and distribution under one roof. The company says it has been in business for nearly 25 years and employs more than 100 people. (microforum.ca) In Goldmine’s interview, Microforum executive Noble Musa said the plant supports Record Store Day releases as part of the event’s focus on independent record stores. Record Store Day’s official 2026 list says this year’s titles arrive at participating shops on April 18. (goldminemag.com) (recordstoreday.com) A vinyl plant turns audio into a physical groove through several steps: cutting a lacquer master, making metal parts from that master, pressing heated polyvinyl chloride into records, and printing the jackets and labels that ship with them. Microforum says it offers premastering, lacquer-to-metal work, test pressings and final packaging as part of that chain. (microforum.ca) That production capacity sits inside a larger vinyl market that is still growing. The Recording Industry Association of America said United States vinyl revenue topped $1 billion in 2025, with 46.8 million records sold and vinyl bringing in more than three times compact disc revenue. (riaa.com) Record Store Day remains one of the clearest annual spikes in that demand. Luminate said U.S. shoppers bought 1.2 million albums during Record Store Day week in 2025, with just over 1 million of them on vinyl. (luminatedata.com) Microforum’s current setup grew out of a newer wave of North American pressing plants. In 2016, the company announced it would install Viryl Technologies WarmTone pressing lines at its Toronto facility, framing the move as a return to domestic record manufacturing capacity in Canada. (newswire.ca) By 2017, Toronto Life reported that each of Microforum’s first two presses could produce up to 4,000 records a day, after the company upgraded power, water, gas, boiler and chiller systems inside the same 60,000-square-foot building. (torontolife.com) Microforum now markets itself as a one-stop plant for 7-inch, 10-inch and 12-inch records, including colored vinyl, sleeves, jackets and custom packaging. That is the industrial side of Record Store Day: a collector event that still depends on hot presses, metal stampers and printed cardboard arriving on time. (microforum.ca)