Other People’s Records

The Story of EMI (Australia)’s Custom Pressing Division
For decades, EMI (Australia) quietly manufactured records for people outside its own artist roster. From private recordings and school concerts to independent labels, promotional discs and special projects, its custom pressing operation gave countless Australians access to professional recording and manufacturing facilities—and became an important part of the country’s recorded-music history.
A little-known side of EMI (Australia)
For most of its history, EMI (Australia)’s Homebush factory was associated with the company’s famous commercial labels: Columbia, His Master’s Voice, Parlophone, Regal-Zonophone and, later, EMI itself. Less visible—but extraordinarily important to Australian recorded history—was a parallel operation that manufactured records for people and organisations outside EMI (Australia)’s normal artist roster.

Over almost six decades, the service recorded speeches, pressed school and church records, manufactured radio transcriptions, produced language examinations, supplied promotional discs, helped independent labels into existence and gave emerging artists their first opportunity to put their music on a commercially manufactured record. Its identifiable name changed repeatedly—from Process Recording, to EMI Custom Service, EMI Custom, and finally EMI Custom Records—but its essential purpose remained remarkably consistent: it made EMI (Australia)’s recording and manufacturing facilities available to customers who wanted records of their own.

The Homebush foundation, 1926–1936
The custom service grew from the industrial capacity established by the Columbia Graphophone Company at Homebush in western Sydney. Officially opened in October 1926, the factory contained 20 pressing machines and was reportedly capable of producing nearly 11 million records annually. Recording studios, processing rooms and pressing facilities were initially concentrated on the same site at 2 Parramatta Road, with access through the lane that became known as Columbia Lane.

Although the familiar Process Recording name appears to date from the later 1930s, the underlying service was older. Research cited by the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) traces Columbia’s client-recording work to about 1928. Customers could commission recordings of performances, speeches, political addresses, religious messages and other material that was never intended for Columbia’s normal commercial catalogue. Some were pressed in small quantities; others were cut as transcription or reference discs for broadcasting and institutional use.

This distinction is important. The enterprise did not begin simply as a “vanity record” operation. It was originally a broad custom-recording service that could capture a performance, prepare a master, manufacture copies and, where required, provide discs suitable for circulation to radio stations or other organisations.

The emergence of Process Recording, 1937–1948
By 1937, Columbia was using Process Recording as an identifiable label and catalogue system for private and commissioned work. Collector research places the beginning of the numbered Process Recording series in that year, and surviving discs confirm that records such as the 'Hawaiian Club’s Marie and Sunshine of Your Smile', catalogue PR.210, were produced late in 1937. Other recordings from the same sessions appeared as PR.212 and PR.213.

The word “process” appears to have distinguished this work from Columbia’s ordinary commercial releases. The client, rather than Columbia’s artists-and-repertoire department, initiated and generally financed the project. Columbia supplied some or all of the technical process: recording, disc cutting, metal processing, pressing and sometimes printed labels or packaging. Distribution normally remained the client’s responsibility.

The earliest surviving Process discs demonstrate how flexible the service was. The Hawaiian Club records circulated beyond a purely domestic audience and were reportedly available through the club itself. Other discs preserved performances by community ensembles, dance bands, churches, cultural associations and individuals who had no prospect—or no desire—of entering Columbia’s national commercial catalogue.

The service also supported broadcasting and public life. The surviving recording of Dame Enid Lyons reading her parliamentary maiden speech was made for the ABC on discs carrying Process Recording labels. The NFSA notes that such transcription discs allowed material to be distributed to radio stations at a time when magnetic tape was not yet routinely available.

For aspiring performers, a Process pressing could function as a demonstration record. One of the best-known examples concerns the young Slim Dusty. Before obtaining a commercial contract, he and his father reportedly paid £25 for 25 copies of two songs recorded at Columbia’s Homebush studios. The small batch was sent to radio stations in an attempt to build interest in his work. That episode illustrates the division’s most consequential role: it provided a bridge between amateur or regional performance and the established recording industry.

Process Recording under EMI (Australia), 1949–1959
The creation of EMI in Britain in 1931 had brought Columbia Graphophone and the Gramophone Company under common ownership, but the Australian corporate structure continued to use the older company names for many years. A major reorganisation in January 1949 created EMI (Australia) Pty Ltd as the manufacturing company, alongside separate state sales-and-service companies. The custom-recording operation consequently became part of EMI (Australia) even though the Process Recording by Columbia Graphophone wording continued to appear on discs.

During the 1950s, Process Recording served an exceptionally broad clientele. Surviving discs and archival descriptions include religious music, educational recordings, piano performances, community choirs, field recordings and music from Australia’s migrant and Pacific communities. Some records were conventional shellac pressings; others were lacquer transcription or reference discs. Catalogue prefixes including PR, PRX, P, RC and PD appear in surviving examples, suggesting that several formats or administrative series operated alongside one another rather than forming one uncomplicated numerical sequence.

A major geographical separation occurred in 1954 when EMI (Australia) transferred its principal recording studios from Homebush to 301 Castlereagh Street in central Sydney. The pressing plant, metal-processing departments and manufacturing operations remained at Homebush. From that point, a custom customer might record, mix or cut a master at the city studios while the physical records were processed and pressed at Homebush.

This two-site arrangement became fundamental to the later Custom Records division. Castlereagh Street was the public-facing creative and technical facility; Homebush was the manufacturing engine.

EMI Custom Service, approximately 1959–1971
Around 1959, the Process Recording identity was superseded by EMI Custom Service. The change brought the operation’s public branding into line with the EMI corporate name, but the surviving records suggest continuity rather than the creation of an entirely new business. Collector discographies place EMI Custom Service from about 1959 into the early 1970s.

EMI Custom Service continued to manufacture records for schools, churches, concert organisations, businesses and private performers, but it was not restricted to obviously non-commercial material. A 1961 trade report, for example, noted that records issued by Polydor in Australia were being pressed through EMI Custom Service. This demonstrates that the department also performed conventional contract manufacturing for outside record companies.

Educational work was substantial. South Australian bibliographical records identify a series of French dictation and public-examination discs manufactured by EMI Custom Service between 1963 and 1966, using PRX catalogue numbers. School choir recordings, concert souvenirs and institutional records were likewise regularly manufactured through the service.

Custom pressing could also be used internally by EMI (Australia) for projects that fell outside its normal release programme. In 1969, after the original Australian Beatles single 'Please Please Me' had been deleted, EMI (Australia)’s custom division manufactured copies for a radio feature titled Dial A Memory. These carried EMI Custom Service identification and the custom number PRS.2076 rather than being treated as a standard new Parlophone release. Read the full story of the unusual 1969 Dial A Memory pressing of ‘Please Please Me’ on the Custom Pressings page.

This example reveals how elastic the word “custom” was. A customer might be a school ordering 100 copies of its choir, an independent label requiring a commercial pressing, a radio station seeking promotional material or EMI (Australia) itself commissioning a special-purpose reissue.

EMI Custom and overlapping identities, approximately 1971–1978
From about 1971, the shorter name EMI Custom began appearing. Surviving releases suggest a transitional period in which EMI Custom Service, EMI Custom, the HMV dog-and-gramophone trademark and wording such as “Custom Pressing by EMI (Australia) Ltd” were used with some overlap. The surviving label evidence therefore does not support a perfectly clean change on one particular date.

The catalogue expanded across many kinds of recordings. The Korean Children’s Choir’s Australian and New Zealand tour album appeared through EMI Custom around 1971–72 as YPRX-1014. The 1972 Sydney cast recording of Godspell was manufactured as EMI Custom PRS-2325. These were public-facing products rather than merely private family souvenirs, but their sponsors or producers retained responsibility for the project.

The PRS and YPRX series became especially visible during this period. They should not, however, be interpreted as EMI-owned labels in the conventional sense. In many cases EMI Custom was the manufacturer, while the actual imprint belonged to the artist, producer, school, religious organisation or newly created independent label. EMI’s name might appear prominently, discreetly or not at all on the front of the package.

This point is essential when reconstructing Australian discographies. An artist appearing on an EMI Custom pressing was not necessarily signed to EMI (Australia). The relationship could be no more than that of customer and manufacturer.

The independent-record boom and EMI Custom Records, 1978–1980
By the end of the 1970s, the service increasingly used the name EMI Custom Records, although many labels continued to say simply “Custom Pressing by EMI.” At the same time, the market it served was changing. Schools, churches and promotional customers remained important, but the growth of punk, new wave, experimental music and musician-owned labels created a new demand for comparatively small commercial pressings.

Surviving late-1970s releases illustrate the variety. The 1979 Crudd Bros and Vinnie and the V8’s EP PRS-2608 carried the HMV trademark and the words “Custom Pressing by EMI (Australia) Ltd.” City Ram Waddy issued experimental independent records through EMI Custom in 1979, while other projects ranged from country music and community recordings to electronic composition and sound art.

EMI (Australia)’s advantage was that it could offer almost every stage of production through connected facilities. A customer could bring in a tape—or record at Studios 301—then have the recording mixed, mastered, cut to lacquer, processed into stampers, pressed at Homebush and supplied with labels and packaging. The service therefore allowed a tiny label to purchase access to the same industrial chain used by a multinational record company.

Rates were very reasonable, ranging from $95/hour for Studio A (38-track) to $50/hour for Custom Disc Mastering.

By the time Peter Jamieson arrived to take charge of EMI (Australia) in early 1980, the technical infrastructure for a greatly expanded custom operation was therefore already in place. The next step was to connect those facilities more deliberately with the rapidly growing independent-record sector.

The 1980 transformation: from pressing service to distribution network
The decisive expansion came in 1980, coinciding with the arrival of Peter Jamieson as managing director of EMI (Australia). Peter transferred from EMI New Zealand early that year and pursued a deliberate policy of making EMI (Australia) more accessible to the Australian music community. Contemporary trade coverage subsequently credited his management with opening EMI (Australia)’s recording, manufacturing, promotional and distribution resources to independent labels and artists.

The groundwork was already in place. Studios 301 had been extensively developed during the late 1970s under general manager Nigel Wake, with Steve Shurtz closely involved in the installation and operation of the complex. By 1979 it could offer outside customers recording, mixing, disc cutting and mastering facilities alongside EMI (Australia)’s extensive manufacturing operation at Homebush. Peter therefore inherited a formidable technical infrastructure; what changed was the degree to which EMI (Australia) actively encouraged outsiders to use it.

Peter later recalled that the Homebush factory was still part of EMI (Australia)’s music operation and ultimately fell within his responsibility as managing director. Rather than regarding those facilities principally as an internal resource, he encouraged the company to make them available much more widely.

"It was open to all, particularly in manufacturing and distribution,” he recalled in an interview with the webmaster in 2026.

"It was a facility for all to use.”

That philosophy extended beyond merely accepting outside pressing work. Peter remembered actively pursuing relationships with independent music companies and their principals: “I just encouraged us to distribute everybody we could think of.” He recalled developing relationships with figures such as Michael Gudinski and encouraging arrangements under which EMI (Australia) could provide pressing and distribution for independently controlled labels. As he put it, EMI (Australia) was deliberately made “a different sort of place”.

The Custom Records initiative itself was developed at Studios 301 by Nigel and Steve, with Joan Brown managing the Custom Records division. A September 1980 Billboard report described the establishment of a distribution system specifically for EMI’s custom pressings and very small independent labels. In the preceding six months, more than 200 small labels had reportedly brought projects to EMI (Australia) to be recorded, mixed, cut, pressed or packaged.

The change in the balance of work was extraordinary. Steve reported that approximately three years earlier around 60 per cent of the facility’s business had been generated internally by EMI (Australia) and 40 per cent by outside customers. By 1980, only about 15 per cent was EMI (Australia) work, while approximately 85 per cent came from independent outside clients. Joan noted that only months earlier the custom operation had still been associated principally with school and promotional records.

Distribution was the crucial addition. Approved custom releases could be announced in EMI (Australia)’s Emitracks new-release publication and entered in EMI’s catalogue, giving record retailers around Australia the ability to order independently produced records through the same distribution network used for EMI (Australia)’s own releases. Artists and labels could therefore retain their identities and ownership while purchasing access to much of the infrastructure of a major record company.

Peter regarded that accessibility as an important principle rather than simply a source of spare manufacturing work. Looking back on the period, he emphasised that the service had existed before his arrival but suggested that it had not always been actively encouraged:

“It may not have always been thus, it may not have been actively promoted or encouraged, but I always believed in doing so.”

For the smallest customers, the process could be surprisingly straightforward. Peter remembered that an individual or label could approach EMI (Australia), arrange the manufacturing requirement and pay according to the size of the order: “There was a price per pressing, and bingo, off we go.” Behind that apparent simplicity stood the full EMI (Australia) production chain—recording and mastering at Studios 301, metal processing and pressing at Homebush, and, where an appropriate arrangement was reached, packaging, catalogue listing and national distribution.

The philosophy was not confined to Custom Records. During Peter's tenure EMI (Australia) also strengthened its relationships with established Australian independent labels and producers. These larger pressing and distribution agreements were commercially distinct from the small-run Custom Records programme, but they reflected the same underlying strategy: EMI (Australia) did not necessarily need to own or sign the music in order to participate in its manufacture, distribution and success.

The Custom Records operation employed 22 people and was described in 1980 as a full-scale facility service with annual turnover of about $500,000. What had once been associated principally with school records, institutional recordings and promotional projects had become something considerably more ambitious—an entry point through which independent performers and labels could gain access to the machinery of a major record company without necessarily becoming EMI artists.

A factory behind Australia’s independent labels, 1980–1985
During the early 1980s, EMI Custom Records manufactured releases for artists and labels that the main EMI company might never have signed. Some remained obscure; others became important figures in Australian music.

The Scientists’ self-titled album, commonly known as the Pink Album, was released in 1981 through EMI Custom Records. The Laughing Clowns’ Law of Nature was cut and pressed through the service in 1984. The Homebush plant and Studios 301 were also used by the network of independent musicians and labels surrounding M Squared, with contemporary accounts describing the sequence from mastering at EMI’s Sydney studios to test pressing at Homebush.

The division was therefore both conservative and radical. On one day its production schedule might contain a school concert, company promotion or religious recording; on another, a punk single, electronic experiment or record for a newly formed independent label.

For many customers, the label copy was the only visible indication of EMI’s involvement. Other records used the customer’s own label design and revealed their origin only through PRS or YPRX numbers, matrix inscriptions, pressing characteristics or manufacturing credits. Nor was EMI (Australia)’s outside manufacturing confined to small custom clients and independent labels: through the custom division the Homebush plant also undertook pressing for other major record companies, including PolyGram and RCA. This explains why a complete discography of EMI’s custom and contract-manufacturing work is difficult to compile: EMI (Australia) manufactured records for organisations of every size, and many of those records were never marketed as EMI products.

The 1986 capacity crisis
The division’s success eventually collided with the limits of the Homebush factory. In 1986, Studios 301 announced that it was suspending its custom-pressing operation because of insufficient manufacturing capacity at Homebush. The contemporary report stated that the division had produced a large number of pressings for individual artists and small labels over the preceding seven years (the reference to “the preceding seven years” should not be interpreted as meaning EMI (Australia) had begun custom pressing only in 1979. It referred to the contemporary Studios 301 Custom Records division—the expanded operation created during the late-1970s independent boom—not to the much older Process Recording and EMI Custom Service tradition).

Studio manager Martin Benge initially described the suspension as temporary and expressed hope that the Custom Records division could be reinstated. He stressed its role in launching Australian performers who had made their first records independently, formed their own labels or recorded for small companies that used EMI (Australia) for manufacture.

Not all custom technical work stopped. Studios 301 continued to offer disc cutting and tape mastering, including direct-metal, digital and XDR cassette mastering. What was withdrawn was the integrated small-customer pressing operation dependent upon production time at Homebush.

From suspension to closure, 1987–1988
By 1988, the “temporary suspension” had become well and truly permanent. A major profile of Studios 301 reported the closure of the Custom Records department and the relocation of the principal mastering facility to EMI’s Homebush pressing plant. Studios 301 consequently narrowed its focus towards recording, mixing, audio post-production, cassette duplication and preparation of masters for records and compact discs.

This marked the administrative end of the integrated custom service at 301 Castlereagh Street. Contract manufacturing may still have occurred at Homebush, and records made around the transition can continue to carry EMI-related matrices or manufacturing characteristics, but the dedicated department that guided small clients through recording, mastering, pressing, packaging and distribution was no longer operating.

The custom division had been a victim partly of the demand that had made it successful. Homebush had to accommodate EMI’s own releases, outside major-label contracts, cassettes and a changing mix of formats. Small runs for individual artists and tiny labels were difficult to schedule when manufacturing capacity was already under pressure.

The closure of Homebush, 1990
EMI (Australia) continued manufacturing vinyl and cassettes at Homebush after the Custom Records department closed. The plant finally ceased vinyl and cassette production in November 1990. EMI (Australia) then moved away from its old in-house analogue manufacturing model, using newer external or associated production arrangements as compact disc became the dominant format.

The closure removed the physical foundation upon which the custom service had depended since the 1920s. Studios 301 survived as a recording and mastering enterprise, but the distinctive combination of city studio, Homebush metalwork and pressing plant, custom-project administration and EMI (Australia) distribution was not recreated.

Legacy
EMI (Australia)’s custom pressing operation deserves to be remembered as more than a sideline to the company’s famous commercial catalogue. It was one of the mechanisms by which Australians outside the major-label system gained access to professional recording and record manufacture.

Its records preserve voices and performances that might otherwise have disappeared: political speeches, Indigenous and Pacific field recordings, migrant music, religious services, school ensembles, language examinations, regional country performers, experimental composers and the first releases of independent rock groups.

The service evolved through four broad stages. First came Columbia’s client-recording work and the Process Recording label. This was followed by the nationally used EMI Custom Service of the 1960s. During the 1970s it became EMI Custom and increasingly manufactured records for artist-owned labels. Finally, as EMI Custom Records, it briefly offered something close to a complete independent-record infrastructure: recording, mastering, pressing, packaging, catalogue listing and national distribution.

Its historical importance lies in the fact that it allowed other people to use EMI (Australia)’s machinery without necessarily becoming EMI artists. For the cost of a small pressing, a school, songwriter, community organisation or unknown band could transform a performance or tape into a manufactured record. In doing so, EMI (Australia)’s custom division quietly documented parts of Australian life that the commercial record industry would otherwise have left unrecorded.