Scan · Identify · Collect

Identify Any Record
by Photo

Centre the sleeve in the frame and take one picture. VinylBrain names the artist, the album, the label, the catalogue number and the pressing — and if you turn the disc over and shoot the dead wax, it reads the runout etching back to you verbatim.

Sleeve, label or dead wax First pressing or reissue Goldmine grades, sleeve and disc
Get the App See how it works
Free To download
13 Genres In the catalogue
1 Photo Per identification
Record matched Label · Catalogue no.
Pressing First press or reissue
Dead wax Runout read verbatim
VinylBrain result screen for Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, 1973 UK first press on Harvest Records, showing the match confidence, genre, label and market price
13
Genres in the catalogue
5
Formats, 7-inch to box set
4
Angles per authentication
2
Languages in app
Which pressing is it

Same album. Wildly different record.

An original and a reissue can look identical in a sleeve and be nothing alike in a crate. VinylBrain asks the question the price depends on — and there is a fifth answer too, for coloured vinyl, picture discs and numbered editions.

Original 1st Pressing The first run off the stampers — what the runout etching settles
Early Reissue One to five years after the original, often near-identical
Audiophile Reissue Later remasters — MoFi, Classic, Analogue Productions
Promo, Test Press & Acetate Never sold in shops — the ones that surprise people

Across every format and genre

  • LP (33⅓)
  • 12" Maxi Single
  • 7" Single (45)
  • 10" EP
  • Box Set
  • Rock
  • Jazz
  • Soul & Funk
  • Electronic
  • Hip Hop
  • Classical
  • Pop
  • Latin
  • Reggae
  • Blues
  • Folk, World & Country
  • Stage & Screen
  • Non-Music
How it works

Three steps, one record at a time

No squinting at a runout under a lamp with a discography open in another tab. Pull the record out and take the picture.

1

Photograph the record

Centre the sleeve in the square frame. Turn it over for the back, or point the camera at the dead wax near the label if the pressing is what you are after.

2

Read the pressing

Artist, album, label, catalogue number, year, genre and pressing edition, with a match confidence — plus the runout etching itself, transcribed exactly as it appears.

3

File it in a collection

Save it to a collection you named yourself, with its grade, market trend and last recorded sale alongside — and a running total for everything on the shelf.

Everything in the box

More than an identifier — a collector's desk

Scanning is the front door. What keeps diggers in the app is everything that happens to the record afterwards.

Scan without a daily quota

No per-day allowance to ration across a crate you just bought at a car boot. There is a fair-use ceiling to keep the service up, but ordinary digging never reaches it.

It reads the dead wax

The runout etching between the last groove and the label is how a pressing is actually dated — the mastering stamps, the stamper codes, the plant marks. VinylBrain transcribes it verbatim rather than paraphrasing it away.

Pressing, not just title

Label, catalogue number, year, pressing edition and rarity, coloured-vinyl variant — the fields that separate an original from a repress.

Collections & value

Sort records into collections you name yourself and watch the total move as values change.

Ask VinylBrain

Sleeve missing, or no clean shot? Answer five questions — genre, format, pressing, decade and condition — and the catalogue narrows itself down.

Photo enhancer

Clean up a dim or glare-heavy shot before it goes to the identifier — useful on a glossy sleeve under a shop light.

Browse & search

Look a record up by name, or filter the catalogue by genre, and open the same detail page a scan gives you.

Scan history

Everything you have identified stays in recent scans — re-open a record without photographing it twice.

A low-confidence guess still says it is a guess

When the photo is blurry, cropped or badly lit the identifier returns its best candidates with the confidence marked down and the reason spelled out, rather than either inventing certainty or giving you nothing at all.

The dead wax

The answer is etched into the record

Between the run-out groove and the label there is a band of blank vinyl with marks scratched into it — matrix numbers, stamper codes, a mastering engineer's signature. It is the most reliable way to date a pressing, and almost nobody reads it, because you have to know what you are looking at.

  • Transcribed, not summarised The etching comes back verbatim, kept separate from the catalogue number.
  • Mastering stamps it knows by name Porky, Pecko, STERLING, Masterdisk — the signatures that pin down a cut.
  • Label variations and rim text The design details that date a pressing when the runout is worn.
  • Catalogue number, kept in its own field So the runout and the catalogue number never get confused for each other.
Record detail screen showing the match confidence, genre, label and market price for a 1973 UK first pressing
Authenticate & grade

The sleeve and the disc are graded apart

Any dealer will tell you a VG+ sleeve around a VG disc is a different record from the reverse. The Goldmine standard grades them separately, and so does VinylBrain — alongside a read on whether the pressing is what it claims to be.

  • Up to four angles of one record Dead wax, centre label, sleeve or cover, and the disc surface.
  • Original, reissue or bootleg Judged on catalogue-number consistency across label, spine and cover.
  • The marks a bootleg gets wrong Rights-society stamps, pressing-plant identifiers, the barcode-era tell, print quality.
  • Goldmine, both halves Mint through Poor, applied separately to the sleeve and to the vinyl.
VinylBrain camera view with a record sleeve centred in the square scan frame
A quick tour

Straight from inside the app

Real screens: centre the sleeve, then read what came back.

Camera view with a record sleeve in the scan frame
Frame it Sleeve centred in the square frame.
Record detail screen with genre, label and market price
Read it Label, pressing and the match confidence.

Taken from the VinylBrain App Store screenshots. Record titles and figures shown are examples — what the app reports depends on the pressing and its condition.

The subscription

What you get with VinylBrain

VinylBrain is a subscription app: the download is free, and full access comes with the subscription. Where your store offers an introductory free trial, the purchase screen shows it before you commit.

Start with the app

Price, any introductory offer and renewal terms are set by the App Store or Google Play and are shown on the purchase screen in your region before you buy. If a trial is offered it converts to a paid subscription unless you cancel beforehand, and you can cancel any time from your store subscription settings.

  • Record scans without a daily quota LP, 12-inch, 7-inch, 10-inch or box set.
  • Pressing identification Label, catalogue number, edition, and the runout etching.
  • Authenticate & Goldmine grading Four angles, sleeve and vinyl graded separately.
  • Collection tracker Collections and a running total for the whole shelf.
  • Ask VinylBrain Five questions when a photo will not do it.
FAQ

Questions, answered

The things collectors ask us before they download.

LPs, 12-inch maxi singles, 7-inch singles, 10-inch EPs and box sets, across thirteen genres from rock and jazz through to stage & screen and non-music. You photograph the record and the app works out the rest — you never pick a genre first.
It is the blank band of vinyl between the last groove and the label, and it carries the matrix and stamper codes scratched in at the cutting stage — often with a mastering engineer's mark. Two copies of the same album with different runouts are different pressings, and that difference is usually where the money is. Point the camera at it and the app transcribes what it can read, verbatim, in its own field rather than folding it into the catalogue number.
On the Goldmine scale — Mint, Near Mint, VG+, VG, Good, Fair, Poor — applied separately to the sleeve and to the vinyl, which is how records are actually described in a sale. It is a read from photographs, so treat it as a starting point rather than a dealer's word: lighting hides scuffs, and nothing but a play-through finds a groove fault.
The Authenticate flow takes up to four photos of the same record — dead wax, centre label, sleeve and disc surface — and assesses how consistent they are with a genuine original pressing rather than a counterfeit or a later reissue. It looks at the things that are hard to fake together: runout etchings and mastering stamps, label design and rim text, whether the catalogue number matches across label, spine and cover, rights-society and pressing-plant marks, and whether a barcode belongs on a record of that era. It is an opinion from photographs, not a certificate.
Every match comes back with a confidence score, and when the photo is blurry, cropped or badly lit the app deliberately returns its best guesses with the confidence marked down and the uncertainty explained rather than refusing to answer. Identification is AI-assisted, so verify anything that matters — reissues, regional presses and counterfeits are exactly where a photograph can mislead. If a scan will not land, Ask VinylBrain narrows it down through five questions instead.
From the app's own catalogue pricing, shown with a market trend and the last recorded sale. Record prices swing hard on pressing and condition — the same title can be a few pounds or a few hundred depending on the runout — so treat every figure as a guide rather than an offer. Where a record has not been priced yet, the app shows nothing instead of inventing a number.
Yes — an account is what lets your collections and scan history follow you to a new phone. You can sign up with an email address, or continue with Google or Apple.
The app is free to download and full access comes with a subscription. Prices, any introductory offer and renewal terms are set and billed by the App Store or Google Play, so the exact figures are always the ones shown on the purchase screen in your region. Cancel any time from Settings → Apple ID → Subscriptions on iOS, or Play Store → Subscriptions on Android.
English and Spanish today, switchable from Settings → Language. More languages are added as the app grows.
Download VinylBrain

Find out which pressing you actually own

Free to download. Pull the first record off the shelf, photograph the sleeve, then turn the disc over and read the dead wax.

Coming soon on Google Play Soon Coming to the App Store Soon
Free to download Cancel any time Sleeve, label & dead wax