Hardware vs. Software

[Mindset]

The days of being able to choose not only between Ampex, BASF, Maxell, and many other brands of open-reel tape, let alone different formulations of each brand, are long over, the last time I checked. Last time I looked, for most folks the choices are Quantigy, Quantigy or Quantigy.

Now I admit on not really being up to date on this stuff; maybe some others have gotten back into the game. But it's such a relatively small market that profit margins would have to be extragavant; I can't see very many companies getting into it unless it's to offer a "boutique" tape at inflated prices or to dump some cheap rust-on-a-reel formulation on the market for more reasonable prices.

G.

Still the same. However, from what I noticed in the studio, there's plenty of tape to go around (for the better tape forms) I believe there's a local company here that still sells old style form tapes. I know usually on bands, we send the signal just to the tape, and into pro tools to record that nice sound. I think many larger studios still carry good tape, but at a price...

 

[chessrock]

Should I stick with my Waves Ultramaximizer or invest in a nice tube stereo mastering compressor (like a Manley, etc) for mastering to a final CD?

Since I highly doubt this is for a major release or anthing (just a hunch), then I can't possibly conceive of a situation where such a pricey piece of machinery would ever be called for, or where it's purchase could be justified.

And even if the project was at a high level, I have a hard time rationalizing the idea of not using a reputable mastering house.

.

 

[Robert D]

If you're rich, hey...go for it. I think you'll find that no matter how much you spend, The real MOJO is in the ME, not in the gear. Great gear helps, for sure, but I'd be suprised if any one piece will provide instant gratification for you. Maybe you should check to see if you can rent one for a couple of days. A purchase like that deserves careful deliberation.

 

[SonicAlbert]

It's not even going to be Quantegy for much longer, as they are discontinuing most (if not all) of their magnetic tape products. Check this out: http://www.quantegy.com/

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

It's not even going to be Quantegy for much longer, as they are discontinuing most (if not all) of their magnetic tape products. Check this out: http://www.quantegy.com/

Wow, from the looks of it, that's just about ALL of their audio tape that's being disco'd.

(BTW, am I the only one that finds it kinda strange that they actually put the disco announcement *before* the website's front page?)

G.

 

[Massive Master]

ATR announced their new facility (on the heels of Quantegy's announcement from last week) where they will be manufacturing tape.

1) I think it's great, as it won't be a "small" part of what they do - I don't think it'll be a "loss leader" that will be let go of easily...

2) It's freakin' ATR. If anyplace is going to be a PMF (picky mutha f*****) about QC and such - Let's just say that I think it's going to be great stuff (can't say that about some of the Quantegy stuff I've used lately).

 

[bblackwood]

ATR announced their new facility (on the heels of Quantegy's announcement from last week) where they will be manufacturing tape.

1) I think it's great, as it won't be a "small" part of what they do - I don't think it'll be a "loss leader" that will be let go of easily...

2) It's freakin' ATR. If anyplace is going to be a PMF (picky mutha f*****) about QC and such - Let's just say that I think it's going to be great stuff (can't say that about some of the Quantegy stuff I've used lately).

Just remember that tape manufacturing is not in any way, shape, form or fashion, an easy process. Many companies that had more scientists on payroll than all of ATR-services combined spent decades working out formulations and dealing with issues they thought they had previously licked after they made slight changes to their forumlations.

IOW, while I'm certain Mike and Co. will make a great product, I'm not certain I'd as be willing to trust it right out of the gate as I would established brands like Quantegy...

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Just remember that tape manufacturing is not in any way, shape, form or fashion, an easy process. Many companies that had more scientists on payroll than all of ATR-services combined spent decades working out formulations and dealing with issues they thought they had previously licked after they made slight changes to their forumlations.

IOW, while I'm certain Mike and Co. will make a great product, I'm not certain I'd as be willing to trust it right out of the gate as I would established brands like Quantegy...

Yeah, I'm taking a wait-and-see on this one. While I admire what they currently do, they don't really have experience manufacturing tape. ATR Magnetics will be a different division altogether from ATR Services, and they have bought a lot of manufacturing tools from AFGA/BASF for their new plant, but the question I think is who are they hiring to run the operation and design the tape. Will they be hiring away from Quantegy or elsewhere?

And there's the economic question. There's a few factors and a quote that make me nervous about ATR's evenual pricing. First, the chemicals used to make magnetic tape are in almost as short if a supply as the tape they are made from, and for the same reasons - lack of large demand. That can't make these chemicals cheap. Second, ATR is going to have to pay for the startup costs; I doubt they'll be able to amortize those costs in a manner transparent to the consumer. Third are statements from Carl Rusk (ATR partner) saying that he feels that ATR can make money making tape as "a high-end niche" (one probable interpretation: boutique pricing.)

But we'll see. I'll be anxious to hear what you boys report on the new tape in front-line operation .

G.

 

[Massive Master]

Admittedly, I hope that 10 years from now, I'm not baking it in between lunch and dinner like I have to with some of my old AGFA reels...

 

[Beck]

I really hope ATR pulls it off. Frankly though I'm in a "Once bitten" state of mind right now… more or less a cynical idealist I guess.

There is a lot of tape making equipment out there, as there were once many manufacturers in the states alone. I’m sure ATR isn’t reinventing the wheel (given they are doing anything at all except bluffing).

The idealist in me says there are still a lot of skilled individuals out there that worked for Quantegy and 3M. The most recent incarnation of Quantegy was running with a skeleton crew. A lot of former Quantegy employees have been without tape making jobs since layoffs with the old Quantegy beginning in 1999. And a slew of others that went through the ’05 shutdown never did get back to the new Quantegy.

The cynic says ATR has a stake in creating the impression that there will be tape in the future. And it’s not like starting a restaurant or a new line of celebrity dill pickles. Even Quantegy was getting out some bad batches after the reorganization.

We’ll see.

The good news is I was given free samples of SM468 and SM911 to test for RMGI USA and it is excellent tape… identical in performance to my NOS BASF and EMTEC. So far they seem to be capable of delivering as advertised. I can recommend their tape.

I also expect to see someone purchase a limited line of AMPEX/Quantegy analog formulations and make those available down the road. There were people waiting in line in 2005 to reorganize Quantegy. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone came along and did it right. RMGI is very focused with just a few viable tape products. If Quantegy would have followed that model in the first place they may have made it.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

RMGI is very focused with just a few viable tape products. If Quantegy would have followed that model in the first place they may have made it.

I'm not so sure about that myself. Since this topic came up, I've been reading up on it a bit. From what I've read so far, I personally think it's insane for anybody to get into this market and Quantegy was smart to get out of it.

As of 2003, Quantegy - with virtually no competition to get into their way - sold only 20,000 reels of tape. That is such a miniscule market as to be practically nonexistant. Even if every reel was a 2" that sold for a manufacturers cost of $200, that's only $4M in yearly revenue. Quantegy's entire audio tape line in whole amounted to a total of only $6M in sales for Quantegy in 2004. Can't pay for that many chemists, engineers line workers, raw chemicals, utilities, and loan payments by selling only 20,000 reels of tape.

But I still hope that they'll prove me wrong .

G.

 

[SonicAlbert]

statements from Carl Rusk (ATR partner) saying that he feels that ATR can make money making tape as "a high-end niche" (one probable interpretation: boutique pricing.)

But this is what magnetic tape recording has become, a boutique market. It will be expensive.

I always thought tape was expensive, you really had to budget for it. I remember well estimating how much tape was going to be needed to do a project and putting that into the budget.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

But this is what magnetic tape recording has become, a boutique market. It will be expensive.

I always thought tape was expensive, you really had to budget for it. I remember well estimating how much tape was going to be needed to do a project and putting that into the budget.

It was expensive when there was a quarter-million reel a year market 20 years ago with competition and established companies.

Now we're talking a start-up company marketing to an admittedly high-end and extremely small niche market with very little competition. Get ready to see $500-$700 for a 15/30 minute 2" reel to move from panic buying price to regular price.

G.

 

[SonicAlbert]

IGet ready to see $500-$700 for a 15/30 minute 2" reel to move from panic buying price to regular price.

But after accounting for inflation, that's not so far off the mark of what 2" tape was selling for in the 80's.

 

[MCI2424]

I'm not so sure about that myself. Since this topic came up, I've been reading up on it a bit. From what I've read so far, I personally think it's insane for anybody to get into this market and Quantegy was smart to get out of it.

As of 2003, Quantegy - with virtually no competition to get into their way - sold only 20,000 reels of tape. That is such a miniscule market as to be practically nonexistant. Even if every reel was a 2" that sold for a manufacturers cost of $200, that's only $4M in yearly revenue. Quantegy's entire audio tape line in whole amounted to a total of only $6M in sales for Quantegy in 2004. Can't pay for that many chemists, engineers line workers, raw chemicals, utilities, and loan payments by selling only 20,000 reels of tape.

But I still hope that they'll prove me wrong .

G.

Unfortunately, Quantagy opened the doors for more tape, did an admirable job, and no one stepped up to the plate to buy it.

ATR MAY be able to pull it off, but if they think they are going to go "boutique" with prices, forget it.

Even the die hard analog fans will jump to digital as there will simply be nowhere else to go. I understand people like Steve Albini have to go analog, but he has a boatload of tape in stock. Artists will simply not have the budget for tape if it gets out of hand, and real pros who earn a living have/ are switching to digital for the sake of keeping themselves in buisiness. There is no room for screwing around with tape anymore. There is very little to be gained as the hardware is gone and the old decks will simply be too old and problamatic to be trusted on a daily basis.

Fine for the occasional home recording person, but pros have have the red light on every day all day.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

ATR MAY be able to pull it off, but if they think they are going to go "boutique" with prices, forget it.

I'm not sure how they can afford not to go that way. I'm not condoning it, I'm just thinking out loud that they may have to. 2500' of 2" RMGI Studio Master 468 sells for about $215 ea when bought in 2-packs. If there's only a market of about 20,000 units a year, that's only a $4.3M a year market, a good million or so going to the wholesaler. At that price that would leave maybe $3M per year for ATR to use to pay for their brand new factory, manufacturing costs, payroll, etc. That's not much money.

And now that they have RMGI to compete with for that market, they may just have to try and seperate themselves and increase per unit revenue by going upscale in market position.

And that'll put increasing pressure on them to come up with a killer formulation. Another Quantegy-class tape just isn't going to fly at $500/reel, especially with RMGI in play.

The bottom line is the math just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

G.

 

[Beck]

I'm not so sure about that myself. Since this topic came up, I've been reading up on it a bit. From what I've read so far, I personally think it's insane for anybody to get into this market and Quantegy was smart to get out of it.

As of 2003, Quantegy - with virtually no competition to get into their way - sold only 20,000 reels of tape. That is such a miniscule market as to be practically nonexistent. Even if every reel was a 2" that sold for a manufacturers cost of $200, that's only $4M in yearly revenue. Quantegy's entire audio tape line in whole amounted to a total of only $6M in sales for Quantegy in 2004. Can't pay for that many chemists, engineers line workers, raw chemicals, utilities, and loan payments by selling only 20,000 reels of tape.

But I still hope that they'll prove me wrong .

G.

I wouldn’t hang your hat on that number. The 20,000 reels number is from a 2005 article in the Tennessean. It’s not accurate. According to SPARS Quantegy had backorders in the tens of thousands of reels just from the 4 month shutdown. Plus, whatever the actual number, Maxell, EMTEC and Zonal were still in the 2003 count for all reel-to-reel tape sold worldwide. The misquote by Jeanne Naujeck in the Tennessean is out there now… not much can be done about it.

As of 2005 the Library of Congress and National Archives were still using analog tape for archiving. NASA and other government organizations had many uses for tape as well. The NLS was using tape for mastering, but switched to digital solutions after Quantegy reorganized. They said the tape coming out of Opelika after 2005 was not of the same quality.

I'm afraid it's more like the current owners of Quantegy don't know what they're doing. When Quantegy shutdown in 2005 it set the recording world on its ear (the professional recording world that is). For much of the home recording DAW crowd the issue isn’t even on the radar (no, not that radar ).

What knocked out Quantegy in the first place was the decline in demand for videotape. That was their biggest moneymaker in recent years. They really should have split up to focus on particular markets like EMTEC did. This is also an advantage for ATR (if they’re for real).

If you look at the range of product they were trying to maintain you can see why they failed. Quantegy was also a house divided against itself. That is, they couldn’t market analog tape aggressively like RMGI and ATR can. Quantgey was selling open reel digital, ADAT and hard drives, so they couldn’t very well sing the praises of analog.

EMTEC and ATR are using slogans like “Long Live Analog” and “Nothing Sounds Like Tape.” They’re able to exploit the analog vs. digital issue, where Quantegy couldn’t. Thus Quantegy had virtually no marketing, but relied on already established connections… some of which they lost through pissing distributors off and some bad runs of tape.

The math doesn’t make sense if your staring from 20,000 reels annually. There were probably more lava lamps sold in 2003 than that.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I don''t believe it's wise to use a number based on panic buying to judge a market either. Orders spiked when Quantegy shut down (temporarily) because people wanted to hoard inventory, unsure of future sourcing.

You're probably right that the decline in videotape sales led to the demise of Quantegy magentic tape, but that's because that was all that was keeping their magnetic tape production lines afloat. Even if they increased their sales by 150% and sold 50,000 reels of audio tape, that's still might not be enough in and of itself to keep a tape production line busy for more than a few months out of the year, let alone pay for it...unless the per unit price went way up. By taking the video market away, they were left with an audio market that wasn't strong enough - even at 2 1/2 times the volume quoted - to keep the production lines open. Thus the decision to shut down the whole shebang.

Again, I'm not knocking analog, I love the stuff. I just find the economic numbers to be very discouraging. How many studios are there that still mainline audio reel tape? Start with that number, multiply it by the average number of tapes they burn through in a year. Take that product and subtract the current hoard inventory. That'll give you a rough esitmate of the curent market for open reel mag tape.

Now, take that estimate and divide it by two, just to estimate a very optimistic (on ATR's part) even splitting of the market between RMGI/Emtec and ATR. That'll tell you how many reels ATR can expect to sell in a year.

Finally, take that number and divide it by the number of reels per day that their production line can produce and that'll tell you how long they can actually keep their line running.

Go ahead and plug some numbers in. Put the formula into a spreadsheet and play around. I'd be interested in seeing something more optimistic than what I can come up with. Then again, I'm no Warren Buffett, either . Maybe I'm making some bad assumptions with some of my figures, but the way I slice and dice it, I don't see the numbers working out very well.

G.