We often talk about the lost magic of owning a physical thing, whether that’s books, CDs, or the wondrous black slab of plastic that is the vinyl record. Holding that object in your hand, flicking through its dog-eared pages and admiring its intricately crafted artwork, imparts a sense of ownership that you just can't replicate with a Kindle or a convenient subscription to Spotify. The trouble is, making physical objects is hard, not to mention expensive. That's especially true of the vinyl record, where pressing plants aren't exactly ten a penny. And yet, despite the high cost of manufacturing and end price to the consumer, vinyl sales are very much on the up.

According to Nielsen, vinyl album sales in the US have grown an impressive 260 percent since 2009, reaching 9.2 million units last year, while in the UK sales reached a 20-year high of 1.29 million in 2014. Of course, these numbers are but a tiny fraction of music sales as a whole, but—regardless of whether it's customers chasing that creamy analogue sound, or there are just a lot more hipsters around these days—there's a demand to be satisfied. But if you're not a big record label with deep pockets, getting the capital together to produce a run of vinyl is tricky. Even if you do raise the cash, how do you decide how many to make? Too few and people are left wanting; too many and you're left with stock you can't sell.

It's a problem that the recently launched Qrates is hoping to solve. Qrates is an intriguing mix of the old and the new, consisting of a vinyl pressing service, a crowdfunding system, and a digital store all rolled into one. Using the site's online tool, you can upload your music, design the label and sleeve, choose your preferred playing speed (33 or 45), the weight and colour of the actual record, and how many you'd like (there's currently a nice low minimum order of 100). Qrates gives you an estimated cost, and then works with a regional pressing plant to fulfil your order.

Instead of paying upfront for the pressing, the idea is to fund it with pre-orders directly from fans. Similar to other crowdfunding services like Kickstarter, Qrates' projects are only pressed if the final funding goal is reached. Artists can upload songs for download and offer branded merchandise to fans to help push sales through the maximum 90-day funding period. Qrates can also be used as a regular vinyl pressing service by building a project and then simply fronting all the money yourself. The site says that it takes around six weeks for the records to be pressed, during which time you can tide fans over with digital downloads and updates.

While Qrates shares some similarities with Bandcamp, which also allows artists to push their wares directly to fans, the site's vinyl manufacturing, and in particular the ease with which you can place an order, is a unique proposition. It fares pretty well on price versus going directly to a pressing plant too, and removes the much of the associated fuss in the process. That said, Qrates takes 15 percent of anything you fund or sell through it, and that's without any form of distribution to actual record stores—or what's left of them anyway. There's also no indication that you'll receive the level of same input into the mastering process that you would by going direct.

Further Reading Largest vinyl record pressing plant in the US is expanding

Mastering is particularly important when dealing when vinyl, due to its analogue nature. With digital, it's far easier to push the extremes of treble and bass for a snappier sound, but with vinyl they have to be reigned in to avoid distortion and skips. The length of record also affects its sound, with shorter songs allowing for deeper grooves, and thus more volume. Back when vinyl was the format to listen to music on, great vinyl mastering engineers were extremely sought after, and you can often find their signatures etched into the record around where the label is placed. Thanks to the proliferation of digital music, there are simply less vinyl mastering engineers and decent lathes doing the rounds these days.

Still, Qrates' attempt to commoditise a difficult-to-access segment of the music industry is an interesting development in what is, strangely, a growing market. The likes of Spotify and Tidal may be out there fighting for your digital dollars, but maybe the smart money for artists is in ignoring them completely and embracing a 100-year-old technology instead.