The Electromastering Lab, an electroforming operation specializing in plating for the record industry, is a division of Gotta Groove Records, Inc., the record pressing plant located in Cleveland, Ohio. In addition to making stampers for the records we press ourselves, we also produce stampers for pressing plants all around the world.
Our vision is to inspire, entertain, and improve peoples’ lives and environment through the impact of music.
Our mission toward accomplishing this is to produce the highest quality records possible from both a sonic and aesthetic perspective, at a fair price, and with as minimal environmental impact as possible; and to provide industry-best customer service.
Through producing the highest-quality and best-sounding stampers possible, we are able to extend our vision well beyond the records pressed within the walls of our own pressing plant.
HOW THE ELECTROMASTERING LAB WAS BORN:
Gotta Groove Records was established in 2009 – you can read about the history of our pressing plant here. When we first opened, we were outsourcing all of our plating work to the long-established record plater Mastercraft Metal Finishing in New Jersey. We knew that we would ultimately need to run our own plating department. But, we had our hands full during our first 5 or so years of our operation just mastering the craft of pressing records.
Nonetheless, from day one of our operation, we have relentlessly pursued more information on every facet of the record pressing supply chain. One very late night in 2010, on about the 10th page of Google search results for record plating, we stumbled upon a webpage for the company called NiPro Optics, with a description of the owner (Tom Gross) mentioning his experience running the Motown Records plating department. In 2010, there really were very few resources about record pressing online, let alone record plating. So, to find a search result like this was exciting (and, eventually, serendipitous), to say the least.
So, we sent an introductory email to Tom, asking if he would be interested in potentially working with us on setting up a record plating facility. The next day, Tom called us and said, “I will do anything I can do to help you out, but I will never move to Ohio”. We agreed it probably was not the right time to go into business together, but also agreed to stay in touch.
Gotta Groove first cut its teeth on its own plating work in collaboration with QCA, Inc., a former record pressing plant in Cincinnati. Around 2011, Andrew Hamilton of Serif Sound introduced us to Jim Bosken, owner of QCA. Jim happened to have all of the old plating equipment from when QCA pressed records still in his possession, and had an interest in getting into record plating. It took a couple years, but in 2013, in the basement of the QCA former pressing plant building, the first new record plating operation in decades started running. The very first job plated was for a 7inch record by the band Eel (November 2013 – released by Mind Cure Records). Some components of the QCA operation are still in use at our facility today.
Gotta Groove and QCA worked closely for the next several years, and Gotta Groove’s plating work was split primarily between the QCA collaboration and Mastercraft through 2016. In 2016, the volume of business Gotta Groove was doing exceeded the capacity of QCA, so RTI was enlisted to do some plating work as well. Meanwhile, we loosely kept in touch with Tom Gross at NiPro – less frequently during the QCA years, but still maintaining some level of contact.
In November 2015, Gotta Groove hosted the Generation Wax event in Cleveland – a first-of-its-kind-in-decades meetup for members of all facets of the record pressing industry. The vast majority of attendees were lacquer cutting engineers. But, we extended an invitation to Tom Gross, who tacked his attendance onto an unrelated business trip. For several hours, the group of attendees sat in a cramped conference room and discussed all of the many challenges and opportunities the nascent vinyl record revival was bringing. We all left the meeting invigorated and ready to work together in any ways we could for years to come.
A few months after Generation Wax, Tom called – this time asking us for a favor. He wanted to know if we would be willing to send stamper work to NiPro, if he were to set up a new plating department for records. We agreed, and by 2016, NiPro was ready to take one some of our work. From day one, the Gotta Groove quality assurance staff felt that NiPro stampers were the “Cadillac” of any stampers we had ever used. Over time, NiPro eventually became Gotta Groove’s sole plating supplier.
Around October 2021, Tom suggested that Gotta Groove may be getting too large to not have its own plating department, and he suggested that he build new equipment for Gotta Groove, and provide support and training to get our own plating department running. So, in January 2022, the work began to find a location (we had no space at our Cleveland pressing plant location, so ultimately chose to set up in Columbus, Ohio, where Gotta Groove president Matt Earley resides). Then began drawings and floorplans (with dozens of accompanying revisions), and equipment acquisitions.
Over New Year’s weekend in 2022, Matt visited the NiPro operation – this was a planned visit to get a final feel for how they had operated, in order to bring as much of the “NiPro way” over to the new Gotta Groove facility. However, during the visit, Tom made an offer that was hard to refuse – to buy out the entire NiPro Records operation, and move it across the country to where work had already began on the new Gotta Groove plating operation.
By February 2023, Gotta Groove and NiPro entered into a final deal to do just that – and by April 10, 2023, the first of two truckloads of equipment arrived in Columbus, Ohio from Irvine, California. We spent all of April 10 unloading the trailer and setting up the first two lines of plating tanks. Then on April 11, we started making stampers – a truly remarkable feat in 24 hours that could not have been accomplished without our amazing GGR crew and the help of several NiPro employees.
The first parts we processed were for a live White Stripes record, derived from some scrapped lacquers that came along with the NiPro equipment (this record has not been pressed – it was just a proof of concept part to test our procedures before moving to live jobs). Since then, we have processed tens of thousands of stampers for records produced by pressing plants all around the world.
We extend special thanks to all of the individuals who helped us along the journey described above:
Jim Bosken (QCA)
Bryan Dilsizian (QCA)
Andrew Hamilton (Serif Sound)
Dorin Sauerbier (RTI)
Tom Gross (NiPro Optics)
Jon Lubelski (NiPro Optics)
Desmond Naraine (Mastercraft)