STUDIO

Welcome To 1979 is one of the most unique and spacious recording studios in the country!

With about 7,000 square feet dedicated to one project at a time, Welcome to 1979 is a studio to escape and dig into your music! We are housed in a building rich with musical history, with origins as a record pressing plant, electroplating facility, and eventually CD and cassette duplication!

HISTORY

1900

2018

19

BREAKING GROUND

Alan Bubis aka “The King of the Cheapies” builds the 33,000 square foot record pressing plant at the corner of 48th and Tennessee in west Nashville. Alan and his brother Reynolds ran Tennessee Records until the mid-50s. His business plan was to record knock-offs of hit songs then press and sell the pirated versions though his mail order catalog, which was highly illegal!

1960s

studio mid south records
Image courtesy of Discogs https://www.discogs.com/Tony-Warren-Faith-Hope-Love-and-You/release/7606143
19

MID SOUTH RECORDS

After a few brushes with the Federal Government, Bubis decides to sell his pressing plant to Motown Records and it becomes a legitimate pressing plant called Mid South Records. Motown and Chess Records are the majority of records pressed during this historic music era. Leonard Chess frequents the building and even has a barber chair installed in the area that is now the studio’s dining room.

19

GENERAL RECORDED TAPE

Motown sells Mid South Records to GRT Records (General Recorded Tape) and it becomes the record pressing plant for GRT. GRT begins pressing albums for RCA, Columbia, Capitol, Atlantic, Arista, K-Tel & Ronco Records. At that time, it was estimated that 90% of all retail stores carried music that was manufactured by GRT.

studio grt records

1970s

19

ELECTROPLATING

GRT purchases the adjacent 7,000 square foot building from Lanahan Plastics and turned it into an electroplating facility to service their growing record pressing needs.

19

8-TRACK

GRT does a major overhaul to the operations in the building by adding 8-track duplication. All the record presses were upgraded to automatic SMT presses, allowing GRT to pump out a stunning 50,000 records per day.

studio history
studio
19

ELVIS DIES

Elvis Presley Dies. GRT begins pressing only Elvis records, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for the next 7 months.

19

HAY DAY

GRT resumes pressing for it’s other clients, and records by artists such as The Grateful Dead, Kenny Rogers, Eric Clapton, Crystal Gale & The Bee Gees are pressed.

19

END OF AN ERA

GRT declares bankruptcy and closes down their Nashville operations. As a result, vinyl records cease to be pressed at this location.

Image Courtesy of Discogs https://www.discogs.com/Peter-Prewitt-UA-More-And-More/release/5982669
Image Courtesy of Discogs https://www.discogs.com/Peter-Prewitt-UA-More-And-More/release/5982669

1980s

19

NATIONAL TAPE & DISC

Chuck Duncan purchases the space and starts NTD Corp, manufacturing cassette tapes. Later the company became National Tape & Disc Corporation, or NTC (you can still see where these letters were on the outside of the building.)

19

DIGITAL AGE

NTC enters into the digital age by duplicating Compact Discs.

studio ntc
12622323_10153417572713063_2911595635848694944_o

2000s

200

NTC CLOSES

Due to increasing competition in the CD duplicating market from such companies as Disc Makers and Oasis, NTC is forced to close its doors.

200

NEW BEGINNINGS

Chris Mara leases 7,000 square feet of the building from Chuck Duncan and forms Welcome To 1979 as a recording studio. Mara is unaware of the building’s history at this time, the name of the studio is purely coincidental.

200

MARA MACHINES

Welcome To 1979 adds an additional 1,500 square feet and forms Mara Machines, an analog tape machine restoration company focusing on restoring MCI tape machines that were originally manufactured in the 1970s and 1980s. These are the same tape machines (and consoles) that Welcome To 1979 utilizes.

studio chris mara cameron henry tape op

2010s

studio vinyl mastering suite
20

VINYL MASTERING

Welcome To 1979 adds a vinyl mastering room equipped with a Neumann VMS 70 lacquer cutting lathe in order to serve its growing vinyl needs. A whopping 3,000 vinyl projects are completed in the next two years.

20

RECORD YEAR

Mara Machines becomes the world’s largest tape machine restoration company, restoring & selling 50 machines in a single year.

Electroplating Facility Press Release
MIX Magazine Welcome to 1979 Feature
20

EXPANSION

Chris Mara, Yoli Mara & Lori Hines form Welcome To 1979 Industries and lease an additional 3,800 square feet in the same building. The new company is formed to serve the vinyl industry via their new, state of the art electroforming plant. This new company brings vinyl manufacturing back into the building for the first time since 1979.

TODAY

20
Jason Isbell Live at Welcome to 1979

BACK TO OUR ROOTS 

Welcome to 1979 now operates 4 separate business under one roof, much like in the golden days of GRT in the '70s. 1979 is the only recording studio in the world where a record can be tracked, cut, and plated all in the same day.