Ashworth is banking on demand hanging on and becoming a strong niche in the business. He also sees it as a little historic preservation.

''This business is as important to Nashville history as the RCA studio on Music Row,'' Ashworth said, referring to RCA Studio B, where artists from Elvis Presley to Roy Orbison to Dolly Parton recorded. ''I'm determined to keep it alive from that perspective.''

....Little about record pressing involves high technology. The basic pressing process has been around for about 100 years.

Music captured on tape or recorded onto a computer is cut into a lacquer disc, with the grooves containing the sound information. The disc is sprayed with silver and dipped into a solution that plates it with nickel. The master plate goes to the pressing machines — and ''press'' is the operative word. Chips of vinyl are melted into a gooey ball, and a label is pushed into place. Then the puck-shaped mass is shifted to the nickel-plated master, where press exerts 150 tons of force to push the vinyl into every crevice.

....Many recording professionals say digital sound, which is chopped up into the ones and zeros of computer data, pales in comparison to the continuous analog sound wave as captured on vinyl.

''Analog stuff just has a warmth to it that digital doesn't have,'' said Benny Quinn, a 26-year veteran in the business and chief mastering engineer at Masterphonics, a Music Row recording studio.

Artists and recording engineers try to achieve the sound that vinyl produces, such as by running music that has been recorded digitally through an analog tape recorder.

Quinn said the average person could tell the difference between a digital recording and a vinyl one if played next to each other. Analog is softer to the ear than digital, he said.

....United Record is one of just a handful of manufacturers in the country that press vinyl records.

''So many fewer places do that stuff that the remaining ones are busy,'' Quinn said.

The 25th anniversary of Presley's death in August gave United Record a bump in a steady business for collectibles of the King's music.

''Elvis has been good to us,'' Ashworth said, noting that the company uses plates from 1979 to make the records. ''I can't complain.''

''Our objective is to keep rockin' and rollin'.'' Or rockin' and spinnin' as the case may be.