Why I Built WaxMark

I am particular about how my records are ordered. At home the shelf makes sense to me. Certain things sit together, certain things follow each other, some records live in the middle of a set and some only come out if the room earns it. Not a system I could write down, but I know where everything is.

The trouble is that the system lives in the shelf order and in my head, and neither comes with me. I pack a bag and it evaporates. A good chunk of what I play is white labels, promos and plain black sleeves with nothing printed on the outside. On the shelf that is fine, because position is the information. In a bag they are anonymous, and the details that do exist are stamped in the runout or on the centre label, so you have to pull the record out to read them.

I tried the obvious fixes, and mostly that meant Sharpie, because that is what everyone reaches for. It is permanent, so when you want to change what it says you are stuck with it or writing over the top. It looks messy after a couple of records. And your own handwriting is not always readable at speed, which defeats the point. Sticky notes fall off, and tape leaves residue and peels at the corners.

What I wanted was the information on the outside of the sleeve. Artist, tracks, which side is which, BPM and key if I want them. Printed rather than scrawled, readable at a glance, and changeable when I change my mind.

The gap

Companies will press vinyl for you, but that is for artists putting records out, not DJs organising what they own. Collection apps catalogue your shelf, useful at home and useless in a bag, because the answer sits on your phone rather than on the record. Bulk label printers want minimum orders in the hundreds and cannot do a different design on every sticker.

Nothing solved the actual problem, so I made a version for myself.

Building it

I studied web development for four years, and the whole way through I was looking for something real to build rather than another practice project that ends up in a folder unused. Anyone who knows me has heard me going on about it. This is what I landed on, mostly because it is a problem I actually have.

Evenings and weekends after that, over a long stretch. One person, side project, not a company.

The fulfilment side is deliberately unglamorous: a high quality printer and a cutting machine on a table in my house. I print onto matte vinyl stock, the cutter reads registration marks off the page and cuts each label to size, and I peel them off and post them. It took an embarrassing number of ruined sheets to work out that printing onto gloss stock does not suit heavy dark designs, and that matte is the right base.

Not scalable, and I am fine with that. It means I can start now and find out whether anyone else wants this.

What it does now

You search for your record, and if it is in the catalogue the artist, title, catalogue number and tracklist come through filled in. If it is not there, which is often the case with white labels, you type it in yourself.

Then you build the label. Track names, side markers, BPM, key, whatever you actually use. Pick a template. Multi disc releases get one label per disc with the right side lettering.

Minimum order is 10. They are 90 by 50mm on white vinyl, sized for the corner of the sleeve so they do not cover the artwork, and peelable, so if you rearrange your system later you are not stuck with it. Matte and gloss laminate available for an extra charge, worth it on records that get handled a lot. Printed and posted from the UK.

What is next

Two things I am working on, no timelines promised.

The first is a community database. The records hardest to identify are the ones in no mainstream catalogue. If people labelling an unlisted record let that entry be saved, the next person searching the same white label finds it there. That only works if people use it, so it builds slowly or not at all.

The second is more templates. What is there covers the obvious ground but not every taste, and I would rather add what people ask for than guess.

That is it. If your bag is full of records that look the same and you have given up on Sharpie, have a go. If it is missing something obvious, tell me.