{"id":804307,"date":"2020-02-18T11:08:35","date_gmt":"2020-02-18T18:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=951903"},"modified":"2020-02-18T11:08:35","modified_gmt":"2020-02-18T18:08:35","slug":"this-is-disastrous-how-the-vinyl-industry-is-responding-to-the-apollo-masters-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/this-is-disastrous-how-the-vinyl-industry-is-responding-to-the-apollo-masters-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018This Is Disastrous\u2019: How the Vinyl Industry is Responding to the Apollo Masters Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The day that everyone in the vinyl<\/a> manufacturing world has been worried about for years finally arrived. Earlier this month, Apollo Masters Corp., one of the two places in the world that produce the lacquer discs needed to assemble master plates for pressing records, burned down. The blaze reportedly took 82 firefighters and three hours to extinguish. No one was harmed, but the fire obliterated the Banning, California facility responsible for, by most estimates, 70 to 85 percent of the lacquer plates used in vinyl production. There is now just one such factory in the world capable of producing that crucial item, MDC in Japan, leaving the global supply of vinyl in peril.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve all been worried about this, we\u2019ve had meetings about it within the industry,\u201d says Cash Carter, Chief Operating Officer at Kindercore Vinyl Pressing in Athens, Georgia. \u201cWe\u2019ve gotten together with all the other pressing plants, lacquer cutters, everybody, and been like, \u2018What happens if MDC or Apollo goes away? We\u2019re all fucked.\u2019 We were dreading that day, but not thinking it would actually happen \u2014 that before anything disastrous happened, someone would come in and fix what needed to be fixed\u2026 Now, is the sky falling? No. But this is disastrous. I think there are going to be pressing plants that close because of this \u2026 We\u2019ve been saying we need to fix this for years, now we actually need to fix this.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The vinyl manufacturing community is tight-knit, and within hours of the Apollo fire, phones were ringing in pressing and lacquer-cutting plants around the country as people scrambled to reassure clients and reconsider their production schedules for the next few months. There\u2019s also been plenty of talk about what must happen next. No specific details have been announced yet, but there are plans in motion to fill the critical void Apollo has left, according to multiple people in the industry.<\/p>\n

But amidst the sorrow, chaos, confusion and uncertainty of the past few weeks, there\u2019s a cautious hope driving the people in one of music\u2019s most resilient corners. \u201cIt\u2019s a devastating blow, because it\u2019s part of the family,\u201d Sean Rutowski of New Jersey\u2019s Independent Record Pressing, says of Apollo. \u201cIf a plant went down, I would say the same thing. But I\u2019m actually optimistic in the long-term future. I think this is going to be a storm we have to weather.\u201d<\/p>\n

The physical production of vinyl<\/strong> begins with the kind of blank lacquer disc Apollo produced: A heavily polished aluminum plate coated in a solution similar to nail polish that\u2019s soft enough to be cut. Lacquers are shipped to cutters, who cut the audio grooves into the lacquer and use it to make a \u201cmaster\u201d plate, which is then used to make the stampers that are sent to pressing plants where they\u2019re used to finally produce a vinyl disc. (A more in-depth breakdown of the entire process is available via Virginia\u2019s Furnace Record Pressing<\/a>.)<\/p>\n