Robin Beanland – Sea of Thieves

This copy is still available on both iam8bit and black screen records. Don't get scalped!

My first review on Discogs. Thankfully my copy was no issues with the pop up elements during playthrough. Heard like 2 pops for my entire playthrough of the 1st and 2nd records and still have to listen to the 3rd one. The packaging and thought put into the artwork and stories really makes this purchase worth it!

Beautifully made edition, non-existant sound quality control. These records are VERY clicky. The set being gorgeous, my love for the game and the opportunity of having the ost on vinyl compensate for the bad sound quality a bit, but as someone else already said, the set being so expensive kinda leaves me with a bittersweet feeling.

Having the Sea of Thieves soundtrack on a physical media format was what sold me on getting into vinyl in the first place.

It’s a gorgeously packaged set, and will delight any fan of the game.

The clarity of the instruments and their placement in things is impressive. I’ve heard this game’s music for hours upon hours in-game, but it sounds exceptionally better here… roomier, more spaced out.

The records themselves are also beautiful, though I have found the quality control for the pressings to lack a tad. There are some clicky or staticky bits, especially on the second LP. I’ve cleaned the record and the issue persists.

Of course - and this comment is likely to irk some - having portions of this set sound… well, like the stereotype of what a record should sound like, is kind of fitting. Part of its ‘charm’, if you will.

But that doesn’t mean I can award a perfect score to this set. Sound issues are still sound issues, and there are still tracks from Sea of Thieves that hadn’t made it into this collection. A 4th LP would have been very welcome.

I hate to say it, but the flappy bit on each record is kind of a pain to deal with in practice. It makes me feel like I have to take an unnecessary risk nearly touching the grooves with my fingers, just to make sure I don’t bend the darn thing when they have to go face-down.

But all in all, it’s still a really enjoyable product, for fans especially.

Three stars, all things considered.

Excellent records, my copy sounds perfect without any click. For me the only disappointment is the lack of quality control for the elements (like the boat) on the label. None of them are centered at all! How something like that can happen? The boat is litterally touching the dead out. I had to remove it myself and reposition it. For the rest it's not centered but it's not touching the dead out (even I would not totally trust this, maybe it can still happen if the elements are not perfectly open).

If I have not noticed that it would have screw up the needle. The idea is great but I would have hoped they would design it differently so that you could remove and replace those elements. This is not convenient for people who like to deploy the lid of the record player. Also, this is not ideal in the long run, as over time the paper fold will definitely break. Too bad That's the only reasons why my review is missing 3 stars.

Cleaned all records with a VCS.
- First record sounds good, but nose of the popup ship forces my tonearm to swing back (--> last part of side A unlistenable without permantently removing popup).
- Second record is exceptionally clicky
- Third record has an extreme wow and flutter (uncentered stamper) and is also exceptionally clicky on side E. The whole last third is just "woooosh" and absolutely unlistenable.

Package and book is a tip on and looks nice.

So we have a great packaging with one of the most stupid gimicky pop up label ideas - just to win an award, nothing more - and a truly mediocre - if not really bad - pressing. How expensive was this faulty product again?

I've had a very sour taste towards iam8bit recently thanks to their over-abusing preorders and poor shipping policy, but I have to say this release was absolutely blown out of the park. I own a lot of VGM records and this is among the very top of true "ion projects." Beautiful artwork and booklets inside, very pretty variants, and the popups are so damn cool! I have to echo the others though, the popup on the first disc bumped my arm and scared the heck out of me the first time. That sucks so you'll have to keep an eye on it on side A after the last song ends. Luckily this is not a problem anywhere else. I'd take off a star for that but the rest of this is so above the bar that it still saves it for me. Well done!

I loved it, but the ship on the first side is so big, i was thinking the pop ups would be standalone, so you could set them on the center label and take them off as needed. Other than that the records were great and sounded awesome. Another cool thing i saw was in the runout groove, if you read the text on it, theres a little surprise on each side :)

I really wanna give this 5 stars, as this is a truly excellent release. However, the pop up ship on the first disc is too big (at least for my copy), so when the runout groove is reached, the stylus ran into the tip of the ship and bounced it back onto the last track. Not ideal. The other pop ups don't have this issue. Otherwise, sounds and looks unbelievable (although there was some cracks and pops on side D). Oh, one more thing: it's not made readily apparent which side is which, or even which disc. However, the track listing in the back is color coded, and shows that sides A/B are on the blue disc, C/D on the red, and E/F on the orange. As for the sides themselves, the pop up labels are on the second side of each disc. So, you start with the flat label on the blue LP, and end with the pop up label with the orange.