Furnace Record Pressing Tour
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- čas přidán 11. 09. 2024
- Eric Astor, Furnace Record Pressing President and CEO invited me to tour the plant for the second time. The first time was a few years ago when the company was just setting up shop in the Alexandria, Virginia building that formerly housed The Washington Post's printing presses. During that first visit, Furnace was still shaking out the vintage Toolex Alpha presses it had purchased in Mexico plus it had added a few new WarmTone presses.
This new tour shows Furnace-now owned by the band Metallica- to be a mature, smoothly running facility with a dozen all new Phoenix Alpha presses and an impressive infrastructure as well as a team of dedicated employees.
VP of Manufacturing Mark Reiter conducted the tour. The video concludes with a short interview with Eric Astor who'd just returned from a short tour with his band and ends with Mr. Reiter explaining the company's new non-crude oil based "green" PVC records that he and Astor claim sound identical to crude oil based PVC. For now the cost is about $1 higher per record. Hopefully over time the cost will reach parity with crude oil based PVC.
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So refreshing to see a company embrace cutting edge tech and DIY along with recognizing how invaluable their human resources are. What a great business model. I wish them much success. Thanks, Michael.
I predict the Bio•Vinyl will take off and be very successful. ♻️
I live less than 10 miles from this plant never knew it was there. I love records and your enjoy your content.
Also great to see an American based product manufactured by a company that takes care of and respects their employees.
Fremer, whoo hoo! Right up front, the location. I love it. Thank you. 😉
Thanks for the tour. ☮️
Very impressive operation! Best of all: the owners and management seem like really nice people and good to work for and with.
What a fascinating tour Michael! I love the redundancy/backup they have and what a tight ship they run with relatively few people. I've never seen exactly how this type of work is done and it was a great tour with some very smart people who know their jobs. I like that they cross train their employees too. Thanks!
Brian in Fort Worth 🎶
This was a good one thanks.
Wow, great pressing company! Shows hard work and determination pays off!
super cool and informative
This video only plays if i download it 😮 weird! Great video though, your factory tours are legend, and i remember the last two on "furnace"!
That is weird. I uploaded it in The Netherlands not sure if that’s involved
Trabajé en una fábrica de vinilos en Uruguay (Fimasa) desde 1976 a 1993 (cuando cerró) ....nunca creí que vería otra vez funcionar una fábrica de vinilos. La vida te da sorpresas, nunca digas nunca...teníamos una de esas prensas suecas Toolex alpha ...son una belleza técnica! Dicen que nuevamente están fabricando repuestos.
These are all new machines!
@@trackingangle929Por suerte la fábrica abrió nuevamente. Recuerdo que Toolex aparte de fabricar máquinas también tenía fábrica de vinilos en Suecia.
Enjoyed it, thanks. Love seeing the passion.
I remember the first time. Yes, it's been a long time looks good.😊👍👍👍👍✌️🙏
That was an amazing tour of the plant… thanks…
32:32 I've been thinking the same lately...
8:58 "Rob, meet Michael" - - - if I were there: "oh, btw Rob, Michael's the reason you're still pressing records in 2023" - - - sorry Mike, couldn't resist - - just my personal opinion, I owe getting my hobby back to you. Actually, thinking about it, you should be receiving a kick back for every record being made these days. Hard to look back and see that many if not most of the old record pressing plants were being scrapped. imo, you're the key guy that's resurrected an entire industry. 🙏
I'm one of many people who helped keep the ball in the air during the "dark days", but thank you...
Michael,
Thanks for doing this. It was very infomrative
Mr. Pete----------->
aging hippie
Nice video, enjoyed that 👍
Aside from my "dream" job working in quality control at a mattress factory, this would be the next on my list.
Absolutely fascinating!
Admirable ,bravo..
Always important to remember the failure rate is quite high (this so many 'dead records'), it's always been that way - however it's far better now than it was before the vinyl resurgence. We've come a long way quality wise ! Helps to explain the retail cost we pay.
Does it explain the cost?, I mean how is it that the company sterlite can make a 100 gallon plastic tub,with 15 times as much plastic in it as a record, And by the way they're making these in the USA, and sell it at Walmart for $7.99?
Granted a vinyl record has a bit more labor involved in terms of the metal stamper and so on, but still it's quite mysterious.
@@Audiorevue I absolutely agree - I was just being balanced about there fact that it's a high cost industry now (compared to the turnover in vinyls heyday). Costs are getting pretty outrageous granted.
@@Audiorevue You have electric, gas, steam, water, compressed air, vacuum, stampers, PVC, labels, sleeves, jackets, stickers, QC, assembly of the records, shrink wrap, pallets, distro, and most importantly the people.. just to name a few
@@dalelynn3886 you know the problem with CZcams comment sections, it's the fact of how hard it is to tell when somebody is being overly facetious.
First bio-vinyl title to be released: Plantasia.
Nice company it seems
Hi Michael, how is your take on Green Vinyl (injection moulded PET LP’s) instead of pressing?
The Company that pioneered this in the Netherlands sold two machines so I am told, and are no longer selling these machines. We di prove where there is also a release agent that comes out of the record at the Making Vinyl event in Hollywood in 2019.
Dual microphones would have made for better audio, given the amount of background noise
I heard something about quick cooling when it comes straight out of the press at 0° Celsius, it's supposed to make for a better detailed lower noise record but can't really find any information about it.
I would say one thing the company could do is put light pipes in the ceilings this is better working environment and saves on literacy not expensive to install
No idea why you would censor/delete my post Michael. It wasn't a personal attack, that's for sure.
Is it just me or is it that people that seem to work in the most frivolous industries seem to be the most serious when it comes to their job.
I mean it,you go in a coffee shop and everybody's all smiles, but you go into a bicycle shop and the guy behind the counter looks like he's thinking real hard about the implications of him designing the successor to the V2 rocket.
This is not a frivolous industry, though of course unlike farming it's not essential.
@@trackingangle929 I didn't really mean it that way Mr framer, at least not in a negative sense. I was more commenting on the seriousness of individuals who work in " non-essential " industries.
Didn't Metallica purchase this pressing plant a couple of months ago?
Any opinions on the difference in pressing quality between domestic Furnace pressings and Pallas pressings? (Through their partnership with Pallas as Pallas USA.)
Inquiring minds want to know…
Hi Michael we never hear anyone mention records pressed at Furnace Records, it’s always QRP or RTI or Palace why is that?
Metallica just acquired Furnace Records, they’ve been doing a lot of runs for them. Just different targets and genre biases.
@@avocadochoethis is the Pallas Usa plant
@@maracalp2900 No longer associated.
@@trackingangle929 Do they no longer offer the Pallas option at all? (For a while they were pressing records domestically, but for a higher price also offering Pallas pressings.)
42:47 Wearing gloves, I like that!😉
Well....at least now we all know if Michael gets fired from Absolute Sound he can fall back on factories likes these for employment...lol.
Bio Vinyl...LOL How much fossil fuels and repurposed Foodland does it take to make your "bio oil"? Bio oil doesn't just happen magically without fossil fuels....LOL Great marketing though, you probably think an EV is environmentally friendly as well...LOL 🙂
When they do state it is not a greenwashing stunt and have it certified, I guess it will be an improvement. Call it progress.