Quantegy Bankruptcy, Analog Tape, Etc.

Recording studios concerned after last audiotape manufacturer closes down

Los Angeles Daily News

Monday, January 31, 2005

BURBANK, Calif. -- Smith Craig's ears are so sensitive, he can tell when a guitar riff is recorded on digital equipment versus audio tape.

"Oh, yeah, you can feel it," said Craig, whose ears have been listening to different sounds for the 40 years that he has been an engineer. "Tape makes everything sound simply marvelous."

Those who can hear the difference describe tape as "warmer" and without a "clinical, almost too clean feel" like digital.

But the growth in digital technology has put a crimp in reel-to-reel recording, forcing many high-quality audio tape manufacturers out of business. The last of the major manufacturers filed for bankruptcy protection this week.

And now a scarcity of tape is beginning to worry those recording studios that insist the richness of rock 'n' roll can only be heard on tape.

Recording alternative rockers like Evanescence, Fallout Boy and Jimmy Eats World, the Ocean Studios in Burbank is among the tape purists.

"All of the clients who come here record to tape first, and, with no distributors in Los Angeles, we're certainly in for a tough ride," said Craig, chief technical engineer and manager of the studio.

Professional audio tape supplies have been tight for years; some recording studios have even stockpiled the precious medium. Demand grew even fiercer

after Quantegy Inc., the last big U.S. manufacturer of audio tape, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday.

"They filed and then abruptly closed down, which caused a rather large panic," said Jeff Greenberg, chief executive officer of The Village, a West Los Angeles-based recording studio where Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead and the Rolling Stones have played.

"Everyone is starting to think this could be the end of tape."

The Society of Professional Audio Recording Services is in talks with Quantegy, encouraging the Opelika, Ala.,-based manufacturer to eke out a few batches of tape.

"We don't know exactly how much they're going to give us just yet," said Greenberg, who also sits on the board of SPARS. "We should have a clearer picture by next week. Hopefully, they'll be able to hold us over."

Quantegy executives did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Despite the dearth of tape, all of the rooms at The Village were recording without a hitch Wednesday evening. Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst didn't seem to have a problem with the lack of tape, and the engineers didn't show any signs of tape withdrawal.

That's because most hip-hop and pop artists are accustomed to recording on digital equipment these days. In the last decade, software known as ProTools has dominated the soundboards at most recording studios, providing a nonlinear approach to mixing and munching music.

Tape also costs more; two-inch tape retails for about $180 a reel.

"But I think there will always be people around who want to manufacture it," said Ellis Sorkin, who runs Studio Referral Service in Calabasas. "People don't hear in digital. Our ears hear in analog."

Tape generally comes in three different sizes -- two-inch, half-inch and quarter-inch. The latter two are used for "mixing down," the point in which music is ready for a final polish. Many engineers use tape in conjunction with ProTools, finely tuning their tracks beyond perfection to the layman's ear.

Harold Kilianski, chief engineer at O'Henry Sound Studios in Burbank, said that, in terms of tape, half-inch is probably in more

demand, "but from what I can tell you, we don't see it becoming a problem for us. And besides, I don't think we have much of a reserve."

On Thursday morning, independent producer Neal Avron was cutting tracks at Ocean Studios with Fallout Boy. "And I love tape," he said. "When I'm recording live

instruments, there is a beauty to the analog. It's the way it colours.

"But given the situation ... I guess we'll just have to adapt, even though things will never be the same without tape."

January 13, 2005

BY ETHAN SMITH AND SARAH MCBRIDE

Jeff Tweedy, leader of the band Wilco, prefers to record his music on reel-to-reel tape rather than on the digital equipment that has overtaken the music industry. The Chicago rocker and other purists think it confers a warmth and richness to recordings that a computer cannot.

But last Friday Tweedy hit a snag as he prepared for a session in Wilco's Chicago studio space: Nobody could find any of the professional-grade audio tape the band is accustomed to using.

''I was under the impression that there was a shortage of tape in Chicago,'' Tweedy says.

What he didn't realize was that the shortage is global. Quantegy Inc., which may be the last company in the world manufacturing the high-quality tape, shut down its Opelika, Ala., plant on Dec. 31, leaving audiophiles in the lurch. Quantegy filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday and hopes a restructuring will revive its operations. But its future is uncertain, inasmuch as demand also is dwindling for its videotape.

The news has set off a frantic scramble in the music industry as producers and studios seek to secure as much Quantegy tape as possible. By the middle of last week, most suppliers around the country had sold out their stocks of reel-to-reel audio tape. Prices jumped above the usual $140-per-reel wholesale price of Quantegy 2-inch tape.

NASA in a bind, too

''We'll have to change our approach to life without tape,'' says Walter Sear, a prominent New York studio owner who snapped up 60 or 70 reels -- some at prices that had ballooned by as much as 40 percent.

The crunch reaches far beyond the recording industry. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration uses Quantegy tape on its space shuttles to record information ranging from pressure to temperature. NASA has been trying this week to buy 20 reels from Quantegy.

Tape was used to record most music after World War II. In the heyday of tape recording, it was common for rock bands to run through hundreds of reels of tape in making just one album. Over the past decade, though, the tape has been rapidly outmoded by cheaper, more convenient computer-based digital recording. Today, as few as 5 percent of albums are recorded and mixed using audio tape.

''It's a much more musical medium than digital could ever dream of being,'' says Joe Gastwirt, a mastering engineer who has worked with the Grateful Dead and others. ''It actually does something to the music.''

Quantegy was founded shortly after World War II by John Herbert Orr, who called the company Orradio Industries. Ampex Corp., a maker of recording equipment, bought Orradio in 1959 and renamed it Ampex Magnetic Tape. Over the years, Quantegy went head-to-head with various competitors, including European brands like Emtec Magnetics and BASF. But as the market fell off, Ampex got out of the tape business in 1995, and spun off Quantegy. As computer technology overtook the recording industry in the late 1990s, Quantegy's competitors bailed out. Some tapes are manufactured in China, but audio professionals don't consider them to be of consistently high quality.

Wilco may have to recycle

When Wilco's Tweedy found himself in a bind, he telephoned Steve Albini, a Chicago producer and studio owner known for his work with Nirvana and the Pixies. Albini's Electrical Audio Recording is one of the last major studios in the country to rely exclusively on audiotape. Albini had been stockpiling tape for more than a year, worried that the end of manufacturing was near. But when Quantegy closed its doors, he redoubled his efforts to secure as much as possible. He tracked down around 65 reels, enough to make about 10 albums. Then, he tracked down contacts who buy odd lots of electronic equipment on the salvage market. Through one, Albini hit the motherlode: nearly 2,000 reels of 2-inch magnetic tape, enough to fill a small warehouse. Albini bought 100 reels and is trying to keep his source a secret.

Albini estimates he now has a year's worth of tape, or about 500 reels, on hand. So when Tweedy called last Friday, Albini volunteered two reels of tape -- as ''a professional courtesy.'' But, he says, ''I don't want to go into business supplying tape to people.''

Looking ahead to a tape-starved future, Tweedy has a fallback: The band has an archive of around 100 reels of tape it has used in recording its various albums. By splicing out and saving the final version of each song, he figures they can maintain the archive and also generate a supply of tapes that can be recycled for future recording sessions.

Still, Tweedy jokes, if the tape scarcity continues, ''I'm just fearful that all the master tapes at the loft would be worth more if they were blank."

an interesting theory, but inasmuch as 99.99 percent of all recorded music is heard via a digital source, what on earth does it mean?

i'm probably as much of a crank, but less of a luddite

with a whimper

item #4 on Hilco Industrial - Upcoming Auctions and Ongoing Liquidations

http://www.hilcoind.com/sales/index.asp

Quantegy Recording Solutions
Hilco Industrial Webcast / Onsite Auction
Complete Magnetic Tape Manufacturing Facility
Complete Film Line, Coating Lines, Cutting, Slitting, Calenders, Coating, Toolroom, Rolling Stock, Chemical, Material Handling, Packaging, Warehouse, Solvent Recovery System

April 2 & 3, 2008 Opelika · AL

two events missed since the last post

On April 18, 2005, Quantegy resumed operations under new ownership.
In January 2007, Quantegy announced that it will cease production of magnetic tape in April 2007 and is taking orders up until February 22. The only remaining manufacturer of new magnetic tape for sound recording is RMGI.

i had heard that a company in eastern europe was working on getting lines up and running, maybe that is RMGI?