![]() ![]() Still, the titans of the mainstream music industry considered vinyl a dying medium. The advent of digital equipment in the ‘80s made analog music production gear affordable, and shortly after that, the CD drove down prices of the machines used to cut and press vinyl. No such figure yet existed in Germany, but the stage was set for ambitious entrepreneurs to change the game. In the US, some highly paid independent mastering engineers evolved from mere technicians to stars in their own right, and their name on a record could move units. In that sense, the people involved acted out of necessity, as mastering and cutting vinyl records was still mostly done by major labels or their affiliated cutting studios, which didn’t cater to the special needs of a house or techno track. ![]() In this case, DIY doesn’t refer to amateurism, but rather to obtaining and distributing the professional tools necessary to elevate an emerging underground scene. In Germany, the DIY philosophy and ethos fuelled two Berliners’ efforts to start their own mastering and vinyl cutting studio called Dubplates & Mastering in 1995, and the same can be said for the three fresh-faced youngsters who decided to try their hand at cutting and manufacturing vinyl in their home town of Leipzig as R.A.N.D. The different histories of its many sub-genres contain a common thread in the democratization of the means to produce, release and distribute music via technological developments. And electronic dance music is no exception. Do it yourself: three words that have informed music subcultures since the punk explosion in the 1970s. ![]()
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