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

That’s the kind of SICK humor I was looking for here. Keep up the good work!

 

Amen brother

 

My guess is that a lot of small players are going to exit the field--unable to deal with higher costs and/or unable to get stuff done at all.

Costs at retail for niche product are going to rise and that's going to reduce demand.

This might will be a turning point for the vinyl revival

 

That's maybe hard to say, but AFAIK all of the vinyl mastering studios cut lacquers. DMM is not cut anywhere outside of Europe - just at Abbey Road in the UK, Optimal and Pauler Acoustics in Germany, Record Industry in the Netherlands and GZ in the Czech Republic. So I'd imagine that the bulk of records made today are pressed from lacquers.

 

There's so much about the vinyl production chain that seems hopeless unsustainable as facilities and people age and die and there's no one around to replace them.

 

Excuse if this has already been brought up, but it's a damn shame Paul Allen is no longer with us. He was a huge vinyl fan that definitely had the capability and the desire to fund the building or rebuilding Apollo.

I don't know of any other billionaires that are vinyl fans, but there must be some. Wonder if Musk is into vinyl? I know he's into music (although not my taste, but to each his or her own)...

 

Yeah, if I was one of those eccentric billionaires who buy football clubs or who pop up in the news from time to time because they want to do something wacky and essentially pointless like building a Titanic II or a new Crystal Palace, I’d be all over something like this. Sigh.

Ha, true. Either way, I guess there’s probably enough used stuff out there to keep me going for years or even a decade or two yet. It’s the mega-pricey OOP ‘90s stuff that I was still waiting to see reissued that’s possibly looking like it’s sailed off into the sunset now.

 

We cut a bunch of my Dad's '60s-'70s group recordings onto 12" laquer probably from that factory, but it'll be buried with him probably, never pressed to vinyl.

Sad news.

 

I wonder how Rebeat Innovations is coming along on their HD Vinyl process because it looks like we're going to need it.

 

Where's the can do spirit? A few guys in a garage created Apple and a single elderly guy in a Japanese garage provides lacquers for the vinyl world. Clean out the garages and let's get to it. Are we going to be bested by some old guy in a garage in Japan where they don't even have that many garages?

 

Music can speak to the soul but physical things in this world can be stolen, misplaced, broken, or become scarce and too expensive.

Your spirit can survive this. Hopefully.

 

Got a laugh out of me. On reddit, someone posted something that made me laugh similarly:

"Man, now this really is some bad press."

 

I would love to hear an informed answer to this question - because it would be really important to know when trying to determine how much this fire is going to impact the production of new vinyl. I have seen people imply that a lot of vinyl is DMM these days, and I've seen others say this fire might only impact audiophile AAA vinyl output, which is surely not a majority, but I'd love to hear a ballpark figure.

 

Panic in Stylus Park!

 

It’s my understanding that the record shop owners place their order of RSD releases.

If there is an excess of RSD inventory afterwards, it’s the shop owners fault.

 

Selfishness and stupidity.

 

vinyl ain't going anywhere. sorry to all the haters.

 

I've heard that a lot of Music On Vinyl releases are DMM.

 

So they are all going to just gamble their life savings away?

 

It was in one of the articles when the story first broke. I went away for the weekend right after this hit the news, so of course searching now pulls up a vast number of links. This one says "at least 75%": 'Disaster for the U.S. record industry': Experts concerned after 'devastating' fire destroys Apollo Masters

Whether it's 75% or 95% really doesn't matter though, because it's still a major disaster for the industry, it's going to mean a major disruption, and it's not something that can be fixed by market forces in a few weeks or even months. If you've ever lurked on lathetrolls or any site like that, you'd know that MDC is basically a one-man operation who appears to be focused on quality and not quantity, so it's not realistic to expect MDC to be able fill the void.

 

Everything GZ cuts in-house is DMM (and these tend to be the records which get all the complaints about sounding "thin" and "digital" and cut too low). I *think* the same is true for Record Industry, but I'm not sure on that. I can tell a DMM cut by looking closely at the grooves, but I buy very little new vinyl. It's also worth pointing out that while GZ's in-house cuts are DMM, they could also press records from lacquers provided by their clients. So even they will be impacted by this.

AFAIK, there's no DMM lathes left in the US, except one owned by a church.

 

The whole “MDC is at capacity” piece is something that hasn’t really been discussed thoroughly...

I remember this one time I asked this girl out and she said no. She’s my wife now, and still says no constantly

but I digress

If someone was willing to pay them enough, or if a lot of pressers wanted to, are you telling me that it’s not within the realm of possibility that they could expand operations? I just cant imagine they’d turn that down to have the market cornered. Money talks and there’s a price for everything.

 

What a time to get into vinyl.

This week I finished restoring my Lenco L75 two year project with a Stanton 681EE.

Couldn’t wait to get back into vinyl again this year, and just reading the news today.

Wow! Glad no one was injured.

~ Ben K.

 

I was thinking something similar. If I were that person, I would hire some of the displaced workers from Apollo to come over and ramp up my business.

 

Figured you were just being a S-A