I make my own electronic music and wish to transfer my music from my
computer or preferrably from my cds to records. Where could I find a
system or how would I go about setting up a home system that would
turn cds into records? What would be the average price to set up a
system and the average price of blank records? Any suppliers to set up
this system would be a plus.

Dear Firebreather, 

I'm no vinyl expert, but I think I've found some relevant information
for you.

It looks as if there are two common ways to make records; pressing (at
a
record plant), and cutting (at home, with a record lathe or cutter). 

From your description, I think cutting is the method you'll most want
to
hear about, though it may not be the cheapest, by any means. Cutting
allows
you to make as many (or few) records as you like, whenever you like,
at home.

Most lathes these days are antiques, left over from the days when
vinyl was
the standard format. If you're seeking these, you'll have to compete
with
collectors, and you'll need to have a bit of expertise in the upkeep
of
such old machines. I found several references that suggest Ebay as a
source
for record cutters:

"I found a nice old record cutting machine on ebay..."

Re: Recording own Vinyl
Andy, LPRecorder bulletin board
http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/programs/LPRecorder/wwwboard/messages/30.html

"Perhaps you're thinking of a record lathe (cutting machine). There
are
home recording units for cheap on eBay..."

Dan Howlett, "Re: Vinyl pressing machine?" 
online posting, 2000/05/31
<rec.music.collecting.vinyl>
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%22vinyl+pressing%22+home&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&selm=lobster.thermidore.aux.crevettes.with.a.fried.egg.on.top-3005002136160001%4024.64.219.91.bc.wave.home.com&rnum=1

Here's some references with information on traditional record cutting:

The Record-Cutting Page
http://www.kasumirecords.com/cutting/index.htm

Flo's Cutterhead-Page
http://www.stratozoo.ch/cut/cuthead.html

This might help you to set up a home cutting system. I was also able
to find
that a few companies make modern cutting machines, just for the home
DJ
market. They're quite expensive ($5,000 - $9,000), but would probably
deliver considerably better quality than an antique.

"Vestax has introduced the VRX-2000 vinyl-cutting machine, which can
create
original vinyl records without a mother plate or pressing process.
Music from
 a variety of sources ?radio, tape, MP3, etc. ?can be instantly
recorded on
 25-minute-per-side Vestax Special Recording Vinyl platters. According
to
the company, sound quality is similar to commercial records, vinyl is
suitable for scratch play, and the life of the VRX-2000 needle is good
for
approximately both sides of 50 records."

Vestax Vinyl Cutter
http://www.hollywooddj.com/hollywooddj/vesvincut.html

"Blanks will be available through Vestax VRX 2000 dealers, for around
the
price of an import 12" single."

VRX-2000 Vinyl Recorder
http://www.vestax.com/products/vrx20002.htm

The other product I found reference to is the Kingston Dubplate
Cutter. It's
an add-on to the Technics 1200 turntable, so you'll have to have one
of those
to use it. 

"The Kingston consists of 2 separate modules: a 19" rack mounting
control
unit and the actual cutter. The cutter is designed to fit onto the
Technics
SL 1200/1210 Mk2, Mk3 or Ltd. Edition. A turntable of this type is
necessary
in order for the Kingston to work, other turntables will not have
enough
power to maintain a steady speed during the cut."

Kingston Dubplate Cutter by MixMachines
http://www.mixmachines.com/products/kingston.html

"the Cutter retail price will be definitely less than US$ 5000.  
Blank records will cost around US$ 7."

Kingston Dubplate Cutter
http://www.vinylium.ch/stuka/dubcut.html

Given the price of these cutters, you may be better off having your
record
professionally pressed. This involves sending the source CD to a
pressing
plant. They'll master it for you, or you can also have your CD
mastered
elsewhere, and then send it to the pressing plant of your choice.
Next,
they'll create a few test presses from it, and send them to you. Once
you're
happy with the sound, they'll run off a number of records for you.
Keep in
mind that most plants will only accept orders of 100 records or more.

Here's a small overview on the process:

How to Make a Record
http://www.daveyd.com/makerecord.html

Average price here depends on many things: how many records you want,
whether you want 7" or 12" format, the weight of the vinyl you choose
to
press them onto, what sort of packaging you want, and even options
like
colored vinyl. 

However, if you buy from a record plant, you'll have to expect to pay
for
setup, including mastering and plating. These charges can run into the
hundreds of dollars; expect to pay around $100-400 for this, at the
cheapest.

"There is a wide price and quality range here. The cheapest is United,
(615) 259-9396. Their vinyl is thin (hold it up to the light, and you
can
see through it.) and doesn't sound quite as good, but it is much, much
cheaper than elsewhere. I use Bill Smith, (312) 322-6386. The vinyl is
the
thickest I've seen for 7"s, and the quality is excellent. He usually
takes
his time, and it doesn't get done until I call and harass him, but it
is
worth it. I've never used Alberti, (213)286-5446, but I've heard
mostly
good things about them."

Untitled
http://www.heckler.com/old_heckler/4.5/4.5graphics/4records.html

From what I've seen at the pressing plant pages cited below, here's
some info
on average price. Assuming you want a small print run (100 copies),
you'll
pay somewhere around 80 cents per finished 12" record, plus or minus a
quarter. This doesn't count shipping, the aforementioned setup costs,
or
any packaging you might want to order. 7" are cheaper, around 40 cents
per,
again, plus or minus a quarter. 

The more records you order, the cheaper they'll be, individually. 1000
records
will be about 15 cents cheaper per, leading to a savings of $150!

I was able to find quite a few pressing plants, many of which do small
print
runs. Check them out below.

Additional Links:

Acme Record Pressing
http://www.kuci.uci.edu/~nraggett/acme.html

United Record Pressing
http://www.urpressing.com/

Vinyl Pressing, Record Pressing at MaxDisk
http://www.maxdisk.com/vinyl.htm

Recordpressing.com
http://www.recordpressing.com/

And here's someone who'll use his record cutter to cut discs for you:

Lathe Cut Record Discography
http://home.attbi.com/~cassetto/kingcontact.html


Search Strategy:

Google:
"record cutting"
"vinyl pressing"
"record pressing" home

Google Groups:
"vinyl pressing" home

I hope this answer helps! 
-vorfeed_ga

Whoa! Thanks vorfeed for the excellent answer!

Sorry the formatting came out so odd... I think I'm not set to the
same line length as Google. I'll make sure to fix it for future posts.

vorfeed - wow.  Great answer.  Dug up some good info.

On the formatting - it's best if you use Notepad or another plain text
editor without hard line breaks in it.  Or, you can go hard-core and
edit directly in the text box.  :-)

Or you could try :

http://iain.dyndns.org/gapreview.html

Which one of our researchers (iaint-ga) made for this exact purpose.
Thanks iaint-ga !

See you on the message board vorfeed-ga?  The URL is in your
newsletter from Google.  Nice answer!

Wow, thanks for the preview link... that's definitely just what I
need. Thanks!

I use Emacs, a pretty plain editor if there ever was one... I think I
just need to let it wrap the text, instead of trying for line breaks
-_-

I'd do the editing directly in the text-box, but my browser crashed
about 4 times while I was writing that up, so I like to keep it
somewhere where I can save it. Curse you, sites with bad Javascript!

Anyway, I'll definitely try the message boards. Nothing like spending
yet more quality time online ^__^ Thanks to both of you for all the
advice!