Robert M.
Vinyl production outsourced to China, poor quality and unreliable shipping duration.
I ordered 300 Vinyl records from MediaXPress, and stayed in close contact with Max Woelm, whome I believe is the owner. The order was submitted on 5/29 with a 5 week production time. I ordered from MediaXpress because of this short production time, needing to receive it before the band's tour starting on 7/23. Over the phone, Max assured me that I would be able to receive the records in time before the tour. The test proofs were ready by 7/3 (5 weeks after the order), however, I didn't receive them until 7/15. Upon listening to the test proofs, I noticed the EQ of the record had been changed from the original audio files. It sounded as the the lows and highs were completely wiped out, making a sort of "tin can" effect. Considering our record is in the Genre of traditional jazz, I decided to continue with production as time was extremely limited, and I was told that to re-run a test proof with a new mix, this would take weeks and thousands of dollars, which I did not want to spend. Upon consulting a third party mastering engineer, he was surprised to hear this story saying that "That's what a test proof is for, so you can fix the issue, but if he's charging you 50%+ of the original price, that defeats the purpose of a test proof". While speaking to Max over the phone, he assured me that if I acted quickly (in the next 24 hours), and approved the test proof, he could get the order shipped to the address I needed it two or three days before I needed them. I approved, a couple days went by with no response as to an arrival date, then I find out that they were being shipped from China. They would not be ready in time, and in order to get it to a destination along the tour route a week from then, I would need to pay extra to have the shipment air shipped. It was not clear to me that the original quote did not include shipping which ended up costing an additional $300. I chose to get part of the shipment expedited, but it still did not arrive in time for the tour. The shipment arrived on 8/8. Max sounded re-assuring over the phone throughout this process, but the only conclusion I can make seeing the results of what happened is that he outright lied about being able to have the order received by a certain date. This happened multiple times throughout this production process. The entire experience was very frustrating, we ended up losing an opportunity of selling hundreds of records, losing out on a good chunk of earnings for the tour. Had I known the shipment would have taken as long as it did, I would have ordered from a local production facility that presses in the United States. Based on other reviews it looks like MediaXpress does a good job of producing CDs, but when it comes to Vinyl, these get outsourced to China. The product is unreliable both in the quality of the sound and the shipping time. I highly recommend staying away from MediaXpress when it comes to Vinyl production.