Turning tracks to Vinyl?

The stats in the music business are astounding.  Total music sales are down so much the industry might as well not exist.  This is a few years old, but the trend is awful.  Album sales dropped more than 50% from 2000 through 2012.  
 

Single sales are up, but since this chart is on units, not $$, it is misleading.  CD sales are down 2.45MM--> 0.9MM or so?

And while the resurgence in Vinyl has made nerds like me happy, it also looks awful in the context of history.  
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The Vinyl chart looks better when the 70-80s are excluded

 
So
Do we need to start investing in record cutting machines to actually make money in the music biz?
http://www.vinylrecorder.com/cutter.html
 
 
 

Nerd on Maurice. Nerd on.
 
I burn my songs to CD.

jamesg1213
What shall we do then?

Put Bapu in charge of everyone's self promotion. 
 
He's a legend in his own lunchtime.

Maybe sales would be better if the industry stopped trying to force feed utter schlock to the masses.
 
Yes, yes. I know...
 

Our Books-A-Million store was recently converted to a 2nd and Charles store. Still a bookstore, but a lot of other stuff, especially comic books (lots of comic books). One of the things that was brought in was a vinyl LP section. It is big - significantly bigger than the CD section. Plus they have a wide selection - Rock albums take up the most space, but they also have R&B, Country, and International music among others. Surprisingly, they also have older albums. In the Country section I saw albums by Ernest Tubb, Gene Autry, Bill Anderson and others. The other surprise was that they were selling the nice AudioTechnica turntables instead of the Crosley knock-offs.
 
Not sure exactly what the whole vinyl reemergence is about (or how long it will hang around), but there was a bunch of folks looking over the albums, and from all age groups as well. Plus a whole lot of floor space devoted to the product as well.

My advice for vinyl:
 
1) Don't bother cutting vinyl yourself unless you're really good at it. There's a lot of (some excellent) vinyl cutters out there, and the ones I've worked with are great at communicating back with you in how the cut needs to be adjusted in the mix/pre-master--for example, how much limiting you can get away with and not kill the cut with inter-groove distortion.

2) Grab Waves Abbey Road Vinyl plug-in to emulate your pre-master (remove it after you audition). It's a wonderful plug-in that can help you hear how your master will ideally translate on the final record.
 
3) Pre-Master at a target of about -16 to -12 LUFS, and leave a good, healthy dose of dynamics, without a super-strong, pounding kick or snare drum. Compress with the 4K Buss compressor a little to tame these. Don't squash your mix!
 
4) Use something like the Nugen Audio MonoFilter to mono-ize the low end around 100-150Hz or below. Ask your cutter what's best for his lathe.
 
5) Let the cutter get it loud. When going vinyl, you and the cutter will be sharing the Mastering duties. So, stay away from as much limiting as possible (other than just addressing some peaks), or address strong peaks manually.

6) Vinyl harmonic distortion is greater toward the center of the record. Go higher speed, shorter song-lengths, etc. to avoid cutting a 7" at 33 1/3. A 12" record at 45 RPM can sound amazing and LOUD!

With all that said, vinyl has it's place and appeal. To me, it's more of a coolness, than audiophilia. Audiophiles shouldn't want vinyl aside from the same reason they love tube amplification: It's warm and pleasing to listen to. But it's far from accurate. You can make a great vinyl record, and it can sound subjectively awesome, but that's where I land on the subject. heh.