Vinyl records now in crisis: Apollo Transco Mastering lacquer plant is a total loss*

Wow.

 

Devastating is right. What a blow to the industry and a real drag to record lovers everywhere.

Here’s hoping things can be rebuilt and recovered to turn this story around into something good.

 

Quite possibly, but complicating the problem is that as vinyl sales declined, the companies consolidated and salvaged what they could of their predecessors' equipment. Might still be some out there, but I'm guessing typically the desirable stuff was kept and the rest scrapped. Based on what it said on the Apollo history page before they replaced it with the message about the fire, it appears that Apollo was sort of the "end of the line" for some of these mergers - and in the case of Transco, their last US competitor, it sounds like Apollo deemed their manufacturing process to be inferior to their own and were mostly interested in Transco's lacquer formula, so who knows if any of the equipment still exists.

 

I'm gonna go out on a whim and guess there wasn't adequate fire suppression installed.

 

Just another attempt to kill off Records!!!

 

So, obviously this is very bad news for vinyl manufacture going forward, but is this as bad for vinyl pressing in the EU too? Brexit is a potential problem with that as I live in the UK and if this affects it too, vinyl could become impossibly expensive to all but the rich here soon.

 

Yes.

They supplied 95% of the world's lacquers. MDC is, from what I've read, a one-man operation which couldn't keep up with demand even when demand was much lower, and stopped accepting orders from outside of Japan a few years ago.

Apollo was also the only provider of cutting head styli. That leaves DMM, but I've read there are less than a dozen DMM lathes still in operation.

So this is indeed catastrophic for the industry.

 

The Universal fire and now this — not huge disasters on the greater global dystopian end-times scale we’re living through, but still very dispiriting. A real (if hopefully temporary) blow to one of my favorite technologies for delivering music.

 

If this is true, this will truly be a turning point for vinyl records with respect to its viability as a consumer product to the masses. Things will never be the same again after this catastrophic fire. If anything, this could have real implications to the hobby and its periphery industries.

 

I really hope Apollo is able to salvage or reconstruct their equipment, but even if they can, I imagine it still will be quite some time before they're back up and running. In the meantime, this is going to have a huge impact on artists, labels, pressing plants and record stores. I'm particularly concerned about what the lack of new product will have on retail; many stores have already been greatly impacted by the Direct Shot debacle.

I know it's just been within the past few years that new record pressing machines have been manufactured for the first time in decades. Hopefully this will prompt someone to design and produce new equipment for manufacturing lacquers and more facilities will open. This part of the industry requires additional investment; it makes no sense for almost all vinyl manufacturing (with the exception of DMM cuts) to hinge on only two companies worldwide being able to handle all of the demand for lacquers.

 

The day the music died. Hopefully the industry can rebound, but without new machines in production you're looking at salvaging remaining machines from yesteryear.

Edit: I've seen the aftermath and it's ashes. They won't be able to save much of anything.

 

Can't believe the forum isn't in more of a crisis over this. This is effectively the end of new vinyl (for at least a year), unless some production alternative pops up.

 

A couple of cooments about this issue I've heard on several forums, blogs, etc I have a manufacturing management/engineering background and familiar with machinery, plants, EPA, etc

1. California has more strict EPA laws (CalEPA). However, the plant was performing under the current regulations. A new facility, machinery, etc would need re -certified. Even if the plant was fully operational and a new machine was installed that adds pollutants or uses chemicals, etc, that machine would need to be operating under the guidelines. California is a top 5 US manufacturing state, the EPA restriction "panic" is way overblown. If the plant moves out of state, it would be more to do with higher taxes, wages, cost to rebuild, etc rather purely on CaLEPA regulations.

2. The machinery is all custom...TRUE......Cannot be replaced FALSE. All manufacturing machinery, parts, dyes, etc are custom. Outside of knobs, bulbs, or other RAW materials - items (wires, etc) and maybe printers, etc there is not much that is "off the shelf". The company has original drawings or access to such to rebuild from scratch. Just like adding a new machine, the company engineers would pull the drawings or redesign from the ground up and have the machinery built by Tool and Dye outfits.

3. If the demand is there, somebody will provide. If AutoLiv (Largest Airbag maker) went out of business, Car companies would not just roll over and say "its the end of car manufacturing". A solution would be found


I'm not saying there will not be hiccups and delays. However, with so much business at stake on the equipment side of things ( Pro-Ject, VPI, Grado, Ortofon, etc) and on the media side of things (mass music labels, audiophile labels) and not to mention the pressing plants that have ramped up the last few years, solutions will be found quicker than you think.

Those $129.00 audiophile records may now jump to $179.

 

Hahah RSD will be interesting this year that is sure

 

Music itself isn't going to stop being produced. That would be a about as much of a personal crisis as I could think of, keeping in mind other things ultimately of more importance here.

So as it stands now...more a wait and see feeling. Vinyl production I assume will have delays for a period of time, and overall prices may rise. There could be a lot worse things....plus no one was injured.

 

Yes all machinery can be replaced but equipment this old? You're talking about very experienced manufacturers to replace the old and new r&d at the least to develop any new state of the art machines.

Not to mention time to manufacture, cost, delivery and training staff with new machines, plus finding a new facility to house everything.

Also we're talking Apollo Masters here... Not exactly a company that can dump hundreds of millions into a new facility.

 

Exactly and one of the hard things is going to be producing it right and it will probably take a long time to make your money back or else it would have been already reproduced.

It can most likely only do so much work that is why I think it will take longer to make your money because the demand will be there

 

I think many of us don't want to contemplate just how bad things may get before they get better, or how long it may take.

For me, although I prefer vinyl over anything else, it still comes down to music over format. I just need to keep reminding myself that I'll still be able to purchase any new releases I want on CD or as lossless downloads. If a vinyl release happens sometime after that, I can get it at that time.

 

so go and buy as much wax as you can right now...

 

A lot of questions need answering before the scale and duration of vinyl-production disruption is clear. What kind of inventory of lacquer blanks exists outside the destroyed plant? When and for how long will the vinyl manufacturing chain be interrupted?

Fremer is calling it "a major catastrophe for the vinyl-loving community."

 

I doubt it will have much of an impact on RSD this year. It's only two and half months away. The lacquers for most of this year's releases have likely already been cut and are now in the pressing plant queue. The impact will really be felt on Black Friday RSD and next year's RSD.

 

From Fremer's comments section

Actually a new reason for higher prices
Submitted by ArcAudio on Fri, 2020-02-07 08:08


From current suppliers, the cost will go up...thus the labels will pass on to the consumer. Especially in the US.

 

Maybe the streaming services were behind this.

I kid, I kid.

 

I don’t think we’re looking at a supply constriction leading to cynical price-gouging.

Worst-case scenario is at some point very soon an extended halt to new vinyl mastering and pressing, and no new product at any price.