United Record Pressing, Inc. was established in Nashville, Tennessee in 1949 as Southern Plastics (SO), manufacturing only 7" records.. In 1971 the company changed its name to United Record Pressing and later added 12" pressing. Over the years URP stockpiled record presses acquired from the closure of Dixie Record Pressing Inc.. On June 1, 2016, United acquired Bill Smith Custom Records. In February 2020 URP acquired the sixteen presses from the closure of Rainbo Records making URP the largest record manufacturer in the USA with a capacity of 60,000 records per day,
Their internal numbers used for the projects (sometimes followed by m or M):
L# - 12" records.
T# - 10" records.
UR #### - 7" records through 1984 (highest numbered one is in the 4000s)
U-##### - 7" records starting in 1984 when they renumbered, probably starting with U-10001
These numbers can be added to LCCN.
Records pressed by United Record Pressing often contain an etched "ⓤ" or "Ⓤ" (U in a circle) in the runout groove area.
During the 1970s, United was a contract presser for RCA. Pressings may be identified by the two-step label pressing rings, and a stamped "U" in the runouts adjacent to the struck-through RCA plant's identifier. See Elvis Country (I'm 10,000 Years Old) for example.
United is the worst pressing plant in the world. They turn out utter crap and rip people off. The CEO of this operation and the whole staff should be fired. They have no idea on how to press a good record. Shameful
An absolute joke of a pressing plant. Can't wait until artists and labels quit using them as more and more pressing plants (of consistent quality) start up. I'd like to be there on the day URP closes its doors for good to say "good riddance" and throw the 100+ shitty pressings I have of theirs in their face.
I don't know how many United pressings I have total, but the ones I have are mostly fine with only one or two having notes indicating issues, my Cage The Elephant is actually a pretty nice pressing for example and the other reviews seem to agree. Is the bad reputation due to just inconsistent quality, or are there certain years, pressings batches, etc that are garbage? Have I just been lucky?
I should also mention another way to identify United pressings that don't have the ⓤ in the deadwax (such as those from Sony and Universal) - if there is "NRP" in the deadwax, it is probably pressed at United. NRP (Nashville Record Productions) is the company United uses to cut their lacquers. I don't often see "NRP" in the deadwax of anything that wasn't pressed at United.
very bad pressing, avoid if you dont want to get disappointed straight from the opening... you can expect everything, bad center, small dents, surface noise etc. such quality should not exist nowadays, i am suprised impulse gave them to press their reissues... means they dont give a f.. about quality after all.
This place pumps out scratched, off-center, DIRTY records. They're nearly worse than Rainbo, who at least doesn't ship product that looks like it was used as hockey pucks. These guys don't seem to have any care for quality control. For shame for shame.
Not sure who is worse - United or Rainbo, but given the lack of quality control and the high frequency of off-center, warped, noisy vinyl both press, does it really matter? You have to think they really don't care about music at all based on what they pump out. It's just product and we suffer as a result.
Very few domestic pressing plants have any degree of Quality Control these days, especially compared to the EU or Japanese plants, which pride themselves on pressing quality records. United Pressing seems to press a lot of off-centered records, as do most USA-based plants. Sad really, as the mastering engineer's work is rendered worthless if a record is not perfectly centered.
Tommyboy65
June 11, 2022