Ever wondered exactly what we do here at Atlas Records?
Well, wonder no more! In this post we’ll be taking you through a typical Tuesday for one of our Record Experts, Sam. All of our staff have their own specialisms, and Sam is particularly skilled at processing (we’ll explain that), cleaning, and grading records.
8:30am - Cleaning
The start of our workday. Alongside the rest of the team, Sam will get straight into our weekly clean and tidy up. We get through thousands of old records every week, so our offices see lots of dust! We keep the main grading room as dust free as possible by keeping the door closed and vacuuming regularly. As we’re sure you’re aware, dust is not a records’ friend...
As part of our weekly sort out, we’ll also re-set up our grading record player and make sure it’s clean and working as it should.
9:30am – Alignment
Maintaining accurate and consistent grading is hugely important to what we do at Atlas Records. Every Tuesday morning, alongside the rest of the team, Sam will clean and grade a set of five records, assigning sleeve and ‘visual’ record gradings to all of them. Once those are complete, we compare our notes and make sure we’re all in agreement about the grades we’ve assigned.
If we see a bad trend or if we disagree too much, we’ll go through another five. We do this until we’re happy that everyone is grading correctly.
The second part of alignment is to go through any condition related returns (if any) from that week and review the grading on them. This means that we can collectively learn from any past mistakes and avoid disappointing future customers.
Fortunately, we don’t see too many returns, but mistakes do happen and it’s also difficult to sell worldwide without coming across someone who disagrees with you. We will always allow any record to be returned, for any reason – we never want to leave you with a record you aren’t happy with.
Our whole team meets weekly to review our grading and ensure that we're maintaining a consistent and high standard.
10:00am – Processing
Now, Sam will get stuck into what we call ‘processing’ until lunchtime. You can read more about our full system here, but this is the stage where we identify exactly which version of the record we’ve got. To do this efficiently, we use a programme developed by our founder, Chris.
At the same time as identifying the pressing, Sam will clean both the record and the sleeve, as well as assign a visual grading to them. It depends on what sort of records he’s working on, but in the next 2.5 hours, Sam should be able to get over two thirds of the way through this box of records. We put well over 100 7” records in a box!
The boxes of records put together at this stage will stay together right until the end of the process, including when they are on our shelves and ready to be picked and packed for your order.
12:30pm – Lunchtime
We’re happy to say that a day in the life at Atlas Records goes by quickly. That’s how it’s already time for lunch! Sam will usually tuck into something he has batch cooked on a Sunday. This week, he is enjoying chicken in honey and siracha sauce.
We always eat lunch as a team, and when the weather permits it we like to sit outside in the sun. Most lunches find us getting deep into one subject or another, here are some of our most recent discussions…
Drones that are delivering medical products at extremely high speeds to areas that were previously difficult to access.
Why did Michelin, a tyre company, start recommending restaurants?
What is Sam's band getting up to at the moment?
1:00pm – Audio Grading
Back to our desks. Sam will spend the afternoon working on a mixture of more processing and some audio grading. Our audio grading stage is completed at a separate desk with a permanent record player set up.
We try to always grade boxes that were processed by a different person, as this acts as a layer of quality control and so allows us to pick up on and flag any potential issues. First, we assign another visual grading – once we assign this, we find out what the previous person gave it. This is an opportunity to triple check our decision, and make sure it’s correct.
After this, the record goes onto the player and a sample is play tested. We test the run in and part of the beginning of every single record. If there are any signs of visual damage anywhere else on the record, then we always play over that and incorporate it into our final grading decision.
3:30pm – Break Time
Working throughout the afternoon could be a long slog doing such precise and methodical work. We try to take several short breaks throughout the day when we’re processing boxes of records, as this helps us to get back to it and maintain efficient and quality work.
5:00pm – Home Time
It’s time to head home for the evening. For most of us, this means cooking some food and taking some time to relax. For Sam, this probably means heading out to a band practice, driving to another town to play Yu-Gi-Oh!, or finding the next fascinating video to share with us one lunchtime.
