One of two companies that produce the blank lacquer discs which are needed in the production of vinyl records, went up in flames and was completely destroyed on February 6th in California. Fortunately, no one was hurt at the Apollo Mastersfacility. The other company that creates lacquer is in Japan, so domestic production of vinyl records is sure to be affected. You can check out how vinyl records are made using the lacquer discs in the video below.
It is devastating to lose an entire company that contributes to the creation of vinyl, however experts are predicting that this won’t completely cripple the industry. The pressing companies that heavily relied on Apollo Masters will struggle, however majority of the vinyl that is pressed is created outside of the US and those plants use a different process that does not require lacquer. It takes time to create vinyl pressing so most of the records that were slated to release during the first quarter of the year are already good to go.
Apollo Masters is gone, but the vinyl industry is very resilient so you can expect this hurdle to cause some hiccups in US production without causing a significant halt in record production. In the long term, maybe a company or two will fill in the void or maybe the industry will completely abandon the lacquer process. For now, vinyl lovers need to not fear, Record Day 2020 is slated to be one of the biggest yet around the world this year. What’s your favorite record to listen to? Drop a comment below for DJ cavon please !!
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