• Guitar
• Saxophone
• Drum kit
  and
• Atari ST

It takes about 5 months of practising each night to play the guitar to an standard good enough to write a rock'n'roll song. You can get a cheap classical acoustic guitar for 20 pounds - the quality of these varies but you can get some really good ones. Electric guitars are more rock'n'roll, but also more expensive - always buy secondhand.

Something like a tracker for PC, Amiga, Atari etc could be free and most probably runs on a cheap low spec machine.

Here is my rock'n'roll band, the gwemettes.

• Love
• Love and how its been a bastard to you
• Love and how amazing it makes you feel
• Love and how you can't get it together with the chick/bloke you fancy for some reason
• Love and how you just got it together with the chick/bloke you fancy after such a long time
• How your young, free and want to do something your own way daddy-o! Not the lame-ass way you old dudes have been doing it for years with no problems
• How k3wl your fancy car, motorbike, skateboard, roller skates, surfboard etc. is
• Something that happened to you or your mate once
• Rock'n'roll
• Rock'n'roll and how your going to be a star
• Rock'n'roll and how good it makes you feel
• Rock'n'roll and how it makes you want to strut your funky stuff
• Drugs and how they rule
• Drugs and how they suck
• Pocket calculators, and how you as a musican operate one to make music

Just to be sure I wrote a song using my guitar, and one using my Atari.

One way to do this is to get somekind of a deal.

You need to record the band playing the song on to CD, tape, Minidisc or whatever and send it to places like...

• The big record companies
• The small independant labels
• DJs
• Promoters
• Venues

If you don't get a deal play the song to people you know, and hopefully they will big you up and restore your confidence.

If you do get a deal make sure you get it checked out - everyone knows the music industry can be a bit of a bastard...

Theres loads of paperwork involved in setting up a company

This shows I own shares in preromanbritain (I'm also a director)

The company incorporation certificate of preromanbritain

Unless you love logistics I recommend going to one of these media reproduction management places. They manage the whole process of taking your recording and putting on to as many pieces of vinyl as you require, with your cover art etc. On the other hand they are a bunch of robbers, who will do everything they can to steal your money by increasing your bill. Talking to and co-ordinating printers, record production plants and so on is pretty major though and I'm sure that for your first release at least you don't need that. Here are the names of some companies in the UK:

• Vinyl Ex-Press
• COPS
• Damont
• Im-Press

One of our mates got his vinyl done by negotiating directly with a pressing plant in the Czech Repulic. He had some problems, and had no cover art - but on the other hand he saved money and was able to get limited quantites of coloured vinyl. The end result was good.

• A lot of vinyl is physically made in countries like France and the Czech Repulic, where the production is cheaper. There are rumours of bad quality, but these are spread by expensive english factories.
• Full colour sleeves and labels are very expensive
• Typically you must print 1000 custom sleeves minimum
• Typically 300 vinyls is the minimum made - but you still have to get the 1000 sleeves done, unless you go for generics.
• Colour vinyl isn't that much more expensive, but the minimum run is higher
• Likewise with picture discs, but more so
• These places make you get 10% more records than you need, because manufacturing quantities cannot be guaranteed to an accuracy of more than 10%
• Labels are cheap - like 3 pence each
• You can reduce the cost by making your own laquer for record production (see next step)
• You can also reduce the cost by making your own artwork films, which we will probably do next time. These films are made by a Reproduction House, and are used for printing the sleeves and labels. These Repro houses have a massive charge if they have to adjust your art! Talk to them and make sure it is in the format they want - probably on a Mac computer disc, at a certain resolution and size, in some Adobe format.
• There are lots of standing charges, so it might be more ecomonical to produce more records.
• You absolutly need a catalog number for your release. You must have seen these on records - three letters followed by a number like - PRB 001. You make one up, but it has to be different from anyother release being made at the time, which is pretty easy to do.
• 10 inches are quite expensive, not to mention annoying in your record collection.
• If you can collect the records yourself you can save on delivery.
• Don't forget copyright warnings...
• 45rpm vinyl has more bandwidth than 33rpm, but uses more space. A loud cut (like a 12" single) uses more space than a quiter one (like a 12" album), however you get less noise, and improved longevity. The difference in signal volume beween a loud and soft cut is about 6dB, if that means anything to you.
• Everytime you visit a cutting house, or managment place, in fact anything to do with your release - you have to visit the local 'greasy spoon' cafe for tea and something to eat.

1. You produce a master recording on a format convienient to you. This can be anything - as long as the cutting studio can get an audio signal from it. Even cassette! I suppose you could even set up your computer in the cutting studio with an audio lead to their setup. The most common formats are CD and DAT.
2. You book yourself into a cutting studio. In the UK these are all in London.
3. Turn up with your master, or post it, and they will transfer your recording on to what is know as a laquer - which is a big metal disc covered in soft, high quality plastic, using a special lathe. It looks exactly like a normal record.
4. The laquer has at least 2 inches uncut on the outer edge. So for a 7" record you actually get a 10 inch laquer, for a 10" you get a 12" laquer, and a laquer for a 12" is an ultra-cool 14" inches or so!!
5. You can also ask them to make a 'dub-plate', 'slate' or 'acetate' - these are all the same and are exactly the same as a laquer except slightly lower quality. You can play these (and I suppose laquers too) straightaway on a normal record player. But as the plastic is so soft they wear out quickly. But they are good for rich DJs who want to try tracks out.
6. You need to cut a seperate laquer for each side, for acetates you can cut on both sides.
7. Next you give the laquers to your media managment place.
8. They send it to the factory where a 'mother' or 'metalwork' is produced. From this they stamp your vinyls. You can request the mother back, or it can be stored in the factory for repressing,

Noel does your cut, and starts by putting your master in one of his players. The reel to reel player is ultra cool, and works on all types of reel to reel tapes for cutting old-skool recordings! CD and DAT are the most common formats, but Noel has a rack of machines for other formats.

Noel listens to all your tracks carefully on phat monitor speakers, and sets up his 1970s console with great care.

The console is fantastic and has all kinds of displays, settings, and glowing buttons. It is even possible to drive the cutting lathe remotely from here!

The cutting lathe needs all these massive high linearity audio amplifiers to drive it with enough power.

Here is the cutting lathe in operation! My song FYMW is getting cut in plastic...

The lathe also has some controls. The 1970s glowing buttons look great on Gameboy camera.

Noel uses a special tool to write catalog and side numbers into your record. Here he also writes a cool runout groove message for us!!

Almost unbelievable that these great 1970s German cutting lathes are still state of the art today. No new lathes have been made since this time but it is not necessary...

...as the lathes in existance are reliable, and meet the demand for vinyl. I would rather trust my music to this solid technology than some fancy new thing.

Noel is really helpful, has been cutting records for years and runs a great company, which does other things like glasses for CD manufacture. The insides of his place are lushly furnished with obvious taste. He cuts and enjoys all kinds of music, and it seems like he really digs his job. He cuts records for the likes of The Specials, Warp Records, Rat Pack, Dead Dead Good Records and now Gwem and KingKas. We think he is a top geezer!

Finally there is a good cafe between Transfermation and the tube/bus stop - check it out.

KingKas carefully inspects the artwork proofs.

You get proofs (cromalins), and CYMK colour seperations(bromides) for both labels and cover.

Test pressings come in a package like this

They look like normal white labels, having a paper bag and a white center

The process of putting your tracks on vinyl makes them sound different from your original master. Its hard to explain, but it seems to affect different tracks in different ways. Certainally any problems with the original seem to be much more noticable, and the music has a different tonal quality. In some ways your music is enhanced by the vinyl hiss and crackle, and you can hear a lower level version of your track which happens a second or so before the real recording.

So whats it feel like to be a world famous rock'n'roll star? Well its a bit like being a part-time supermarket assistant, except you are much poorer.