Record Store

[mossboss]

The Record Store Story
There has been a lot of stuff said about the demise of the local record store, what caused its demise as well as, that due to the store no longer been there record sales suffered which contributed to the demise of Vinyl
Well here is a bit of a story that I been putting together bits and bobs as the come through its been a while since the first bits where put down so it had a long incubation
It was not the record store that closed down that stopped sales of vinyl records
It was the Cunning of Philips Industries and Sony
They developed the CD They had the patents
What's the best way to put a new format into the markets? Kill what is there
They wanted to kill the vinyl record and they did
Briefly than
Optical recording technology was around quite a while
When Philips decided that it was the sound medium of the future they hooked up with Sony so as to develop it
A team was put together so as to work out the format methods techniques as well as other related matters
The recently departed Japanese director of Sony insisted on a minimum of 74 minutes of play time on a CD as he wanted to listen to a Beethoven composition uninterrupted
So much for vanity I suppose
Also he insisted on a 16 data bit rate at 44.1 since they owned the patents for this as applied to video and based on Nyquist's calc's there would be no distortion on the A to D conversion
We know better
Any way the CD was born It was expensive it sounded different but it had 74minutes of music on it whao
Few people bought these CD's but the music related journals went into ruptures it was the future tra lal lala
But it went nowhere for a while
Philips and Sony were to greedy on the royalties licensing arrangements so it languished for a few years
The patents where very broad and wide and they where policed but it was not good to any one in reality
From the method of putting down a track all the way to the manufacture of the actual Disc their patents virtually excluded anyone else getting into the act
They had the Horse the jockey and the race track A full house But sales where not there
-So what happens? In comes the marketing guys with a change of strategy
In simple steps it went like this
Kill your pressing plants Make CD you don't pay royalties for ex years
No heavy stock holdings here are all the pluses
Oh yes will do that
But where do we get manufacturing gear for this things
And here is the Irony
Alpha Toolex were given the technology they made the CD production lines, they already had a few sitting on the floor
The company was a very healthy manufacturing concern but guess what send this 80 odd year old company to the wall CD
Than it happened The majors decided that CD was the way ahead so it was the way
All the pressing plants where shut down by their respective owners
There was not many if any new releases on vinyl records to be seen in the stores
Plenty of CD's but CD replay gear was not for Mr Jo average
It was priced higher than top of the range TT so very few people could buy them not enough to keep sales as with Vinyl records
In about 1.5- 2 years! Good buy Record store as nothing new released was on Vinyl and CD sales where way down
This was due to the very highly priced CD players they did sell but they where dear, so Cd sales where not there plenty of new CD releases but no customers 
The x record manufacturers now CD manufacturers went into shock first and than on the attack
CD player manufacture was pushed like nothing before
More licenses where sold issued allowed whatever so the price started to come down but that all took a bit of time
Nevertheless it eventually delivered results for the participants
Here is a classic
EMI shut down the plant in the UK when the started in CD they farmed out production as it was the best deal they could have had at the time
The manufacturing plant there at Hayes was scrapped but the OS subsidiaries where left alone to be dealt with later
So guess what when Sales and income went down as CD was not selling They went into reverse mode
They gathered all the presses from overseas plants bought them back to Hayes and went back into vinyl record production
These presses where in places like Italy Greece Australia Canada and I also think India
The original installed presses at Hayes where turned into Toyota Crowns and sold world wide
Japan was the biggest scrap metal importer at the time
Back on the theme EMI had this opportunity so did some others but not all
Ironical as it seems the demise of Alpha Toolex the most respected record press manufacturer worldwide was the CD and so it was for the record stores as they had no stock of vinyl records while demand was there
They had  CD stock but no sales as people had no replay equipment Sales of CD's where insufficient to sustain them
So here we are EMI did a full circle and went back into Vinyl record production as they could Others did not
And now why do we still have record presses? Oh That is quite simple really
Overseas plants where mostly joint ventures A major with a local When the decision was made by the majors to shut the record plants down first in line was the joint venture partner
Hey we are out of this game Do you want it? In most cases the answer was Yes so they remained in operation until there was no more
So If one looks at where most presses that are producing today originated it is unlikely one finds them ex CBS or ex RCA
They would have been in a South American subsidiary on countries behind the Iron curtain
The quantity of presses in the USA owned by independents is still there but that is only a very small percentage of what was the installed base
Plants like Archer, Record Tech, Alpha as well as United have been there since those days as well as some other plants
The presses behind the Iron curtain found they way out of there and every where
From Hungary Bulgaria Croatia as well as other places that I am not aware of
They are now running in the UK Germany as well as Italy and other places
Record Industry in Holland Is one of the plants that was owned by a major and it has survived intact through the efforts of Ton who took it over and still produces
The Hayes plant is as I have said prior in the same spot but not with the original gear in it as these presses where gathered
So the demand for vinyl for a while in that interregnum was due to the reasons mentioned above
In the meantime it was curtains for the record stores that relied on Vinyl Record sales The closed due to lack of vinyl stock and low CD sales
So in effect the vinyl record was killed  by the very people who produce them for many years
It is now a niche market from a commercial point of view with sales being quite good in global terms
It never really died as the new boys in the game kept pressing new releases as we all know for DJ's and the people who wanted the sound of vinyl
So what does the future holds? It seems that is going to be around for a while yet
We have the die hard vinyl lovers the people who never left the medium also the DJ's of course who seem to be returning to vinyl after the seratto as well as the dance scene guys
There is a new generation who are buying vinyl It is I suppose the Hip factor in a sense as they want to be different
Is this enough to keep it going? probably but than again who knows what the market will do
In the mean time we will just keep on doing what we love and that is Cut plate and make records
Cheers

[jjgolden]

Thanks Mossy! :>)

[Aussie0zborn]

Neat.

[ArchaicRecords]

To interject what was happening with vinyl at the time:
Between 1979 and 1983, the U.S. record industry was going through a recession. Some blamed disco - it was the most popular fad music at the time and record companies pushed artists to record at least one disco record - most complied.
Also, Columbia Records in particular, in the U.S., were cheating on making good records... they were grinding up old vinyl and mixing it into the vinyl mix, outputting a much higher percentage of used vinyl than ever before or after, and the quality suffered with extra scratch, pops, and hiss in the records. I even found specks of colored label paper ground into the grooves straight out of the sleeve after removing the shrink-wrap. Columbia's 7" 45's were a complete disaster - the polystyrene material was of the worst quality of styrene in 1983 than it ever was before or since. Add to that the record players: the average public bought their cheap-ass record players from Wal-mart and K-mart, made with cheap ceramic cartridges. These players could play Columbia styrene 45s only once and would shred them to pieces. The announcement of CDs came in the same year, and I have met people who said they hauled all their records to dumpsters just on the hearing of the existence of CDs even before they bought replacement CDs!

[noizzer]

The Record Store Story
There has been a lot of stuff said about the demise of the local record store, what caused its demise as well as, that due to the store no longer been there record sales suffered which contributed to the demise of Vinyl
Well here is a bit of a story that I been putting together bits and bobs as the come through its been a while since the first bits where put down so it had a long incubation
It was not the record store that closed down that stopped sales of vinyl records
It was the Cunning of Philips Industries and Sony
They developed the CD They had the patents
What's the best way to put a new format into the markets? Kill what is there
They wanted to kill the vinyl record and they did
Briefly than
Optical recording technology was around quite a while
When Philips decided that it was the sound medium of the future they hooked up with Sony so as to develop it
A team was put together so as to work out the format methods techniques as well as other related matters
The recently departed Japanese director of Sony insisted on a minimum of 74 minutes of play time on a CD as he wanted to listen to a Beethoven composition uninterrupted
So much for vanity I suppose
Also he insisted on a 16 data bit rate at 44.1 since they owned the patents for this as applied to video and based on Nyquist's calc's there would be no distortion on the A to D conversion
We know better
Any way the CD was born It was expensive it sounded different but it had 74minutes of music on it whao
Few people bought these CD's but the music related journals went into ruptures it was the future tra lal lala
But it went nowhere for a while
Philips and Sony were to greedy on the royalties licensing arrangements so it languished for a few years
The patents where very broad and wide and they where policed but it was not good to any one in reality
From the method of putting down a track all the way to the manufacture of the actual Disc their patents virtually excluded anyone else getting into the act
They had the Horse the jockey and the race track A full house But sales where not there
-So what happens? In comes the marketing guys with a change of strategy
In simple steps it went like this
Kill your pressing plants Make CD you don't pay royalties for ex years
No heavy stock holdings here are all the pluses
Oh yes will do that
But where do we get manufacturing gear for this things
And here is the Irony
Alpha Toolex were given the technology they made the CD production lines, they already had a few sitting on the floor
The company was a very healthy manufacturing concern but guess what send this 80 odd year old company to the wall CD
Than it happened The majors decided that CD was the way ahead so it was the way
All the pressing plants where shut down by their respective owners
There was not many if any new releases on vinyl records to be seen in the stores
Plenty of CD's but CD replay gear was not for Mr Jo average
It was priced higher than top of the range TT so very few people could buy them not enough to keep sales as with Vinyl records
In about 1.5- 2 years! Good buy Record store as nothing new released was on Vinyl and CD sales where way down
This was due to the very highly priced CD players they did sell but they where dear, so Cd sales where not there plenty of new CD releases but no customers 
The x record manufacturers now CD manufacturers went into shock first and than on the attack
CD player manufacture was pushed like nothing before
More licenses where sold issued allowed whatever so the price started to come down but that all took a bit of time
Nevertheless it eventually delivered results for the participants
Here is a classic
EMI shut down the plant in the UK when the started in CD they farmed out production as it was the best deal they could have had at the time
The manufacturing plant there at Hayes was scrapped but the OS subsidiaries where left alone to be dealt with later
So guess what when Sales and income went down as CD was not selling They went into reverse mode
They gathered all the presses from overseas plants bought them back to Hayes and went back into vinyl record production
These presses where in places like Italy Greece Australia Canada and I also think India
The original installed presses at Hayes where turned into Toyota Crowns and sold world wide
Japan was the biggest scrap metal importer at the time
Back on the theme EMI had this opportunity so did some others but not all
Ironical as it seems the demise of Alpha Toolex the most respected record press manufacturer worldwide was the CD and so it was for the record stores as they had no stock of vinyl records while demand was there
They had  CD stock but no sales as people had no replay equipment Sales of CD's where insufficient to sustain them
So here we are EMI did a full circle and went back into Vinyl record production as they could Others did not
And now why do we still have record presses? Oh That is quite simple really
Overseas plants where mostly joint ventures A major with a local When the decision was made by the majors to shut the record plants down first in line was the joint venture partner
Hey we are out of this game Do you want it? In most cases the answer was Yes so they remained in operation until there was no more
So If one looks at where most presses that are producing today originated it is unlikely one finds them ex CBS or ex RCA
They would have been in a South American subsidiary on countries behind the Iron curtain
The quantity of presses in the USA owned by independents is still there but that is only a very small percentage of what was the installed base
Plants like Archer, Record Tech, Alpha as well as United have been there since those days as well as some other plants
The presses behind the Iron curtain found they way out of there and every where
From Hungary Bulgaria Croatia as well as other places that I am not aware of
They are now running in the UK Germany as well as Italy and other places
Record Industry in Holland Is one of the plants that was owned by a major and it has survived intact through the efforts of Ton who took it over and still produces
The Hayes plant is as I have said prior in the same spot but not with the original gear in it as these presses where gathered
So the demand for vinyl for a while in that interregnum was due to the reasons mentioned above
In the meantime it was curtains for the record stores that relied on Vinyl Record sales The closed due to lack of vinyl stock and low CD sales
So in effect the vinyl record was killed  by the very people who produce them for many years
It is now a niche market from a commercial point of view with sales being quite good in global terms
It never really died as the new boys in the game kept pressing new releases as we all know for DJ's and the people who wanted the sound of vinyl
So what does the future holds? It seems that is going to be around for a while yet
We have the die hard vinyl lovers the people who never left the medium also the DJ's of course who seem to be returning to vinyl after the seratto as well as the dance scene guys
There is a new generation who are buying vinyl It is I suppose the Hip factor in a sense as they want to be different
Is this enough to keep it going? probably but than again who knows what the market will do
In the mean time we will just keep on doing what we love and that is Cut plate and make records
Cheers

cool!