Should I Get Black or Color Vinyl?
If you’re ordering vinyl soon for your project, you’ll have to decide if you want to order black vinyl, or color. Black is classic, cool, easy, and cheaper. Color vinyl is more expensive, and if you talk to an audiophile, they’ll tell you it sounds worse than its black counterpart. That argument has been part of the conversation for decades, but, is it worth just completely nixing the color vinyl because of that?
There can be small differences in sound between black and colored vinyl, but most people will never really notice. Most listeners are playing records on an entry-level turntable or a modest home stereo, and on those setups the differences disappear. Unless your fans are audiophiles with a serious system, they’ll enjoy the music either way.
When I posted my top 5 tips for ordering vinyl on Reddit, one commenter added a point worth sharing:
“Most listeners aren’t going to notice any difference in sound quality between black and colored vinyl. Most people aren’t listening on high-end audiophile setups anyway. As an artist, you also have to understand that colored vinyl sells. So what’s more important: chasing a marginal improvement in sound quality that most buyers won’t notice, or actually selling your records? At nearly every concert I attend, when there’s a choice between black and colored vinyl, I’d say 90% of the time people choose the colored version. They’ll even pay more for it. At the end of the day, bands need to sell records, not just impress audiophiles.”
The goal of getting vinyl for your music is to sell it, not to appease one type of audience. Color vinyl looks awesome, it’s easy to share on social media, and it gives fans something collectible.
If you want color without the higher price,we offer regrind, or on our website we call it our, “house mix”.. It’s made from discarded and misprinted records that get ground up so they can be pressed again. Because it’s recycled, you usually get a unique, swirled look, and no two records come out exactly the same. It’s cheaper than custom colored vinyl, too.
Hot tip, if you’re a fan of Ms. Rachel, her record was just released on regrind
Don’t let sound quality worries steer you away from colored vinyl. Most of your listeners won’t notice, and plenty will happily pay more for the colored version. If you’re watching your budget, regrind is an affordable way to stand out. We love black vinyl, it’s the classic, but don’t feel pigeonholed to it if you want something else.
