Vinyl record plant groovin’ in RiNo

The first vinyl record pressing plant in Colorado music history got into its manufacturing groove in July 2024. Based in a 14,000-square-foot facility in Denver’s RiNo Art District, Paramount Pressing will be able to make upwards of 1 million records a year on one shift with about 15 employees.

Originally envisioned as a primary supplier for the Denver-based Vinyl Me, Please record club, the business has pivoted to the broader market under a retooled ownership group, which includes Nashville-based musician Dave Rawlings.

Another partner and the plant’s general manager, Gary Salstrom has worked in the vinyl pressing industry since 1979. Salstrom was a “frustrated musician” who answered a help-wanted ad for Wakefield Manufacturing, a pressing plant in Phoenix, way back in 1978. After stints at plants in California and Kansas, he moved to Colorado in 2022 to open Paramount Pressing.

“I’m the oldster. There’s a couple of us,” says Salstrom. “I’ve been around a long time, and I’ve always worked at better plants, so I’ve made a lot of friends and with the labels.”

Salstrom’s experience is an asset in the current vinyl market. Supply chain issues drove lead times to a year or more during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic. “People started building more plants, putting more presses in, and all of the labels across the board got too many records pressed in ’22 feeling like they weren’t going to be able to get enough records pressed in ’23,” he says. “It didn’t happen that way. And now capacity is beyond demand.”

“It’s making an adjustment right now. We’re in the middle of that, and where it falls, it’ll be really interesting to see. All I know is, from ’78 to now, the quality record demand has really never gone down.”

That means Salstrom’s strategy remains squarely on the craft of pressing vinyl. “I take it really seriously,” says Salstrom. “The goal is to get records out the door, but at the same time, you tighten up the quality end of it.”

Pressing at Denver’s mile-high elevation might just help on that end, he adds. “We’ve been pressing for a couple months now, and I haven’t encountered the problems that I’m used to. I’m wondering if that has something to do with the altitude.”