History

Greg Orton, founder of Flux Magnetics, has experience in professional audio recording dating back to 1967. His love of music, being a self-taught musician and electronically inclined, opened the doors to many of the San Francisco Bay Area recording studios and resulted in a variety of experience.

In 1972, Mr. Orton first worked with William "Bud" Taber at Taber Manufacturing and Engineering Company in San Leandro, California. He gained further experience in studio recorder and console maintenance by servicing the majority of broadcast and recording studios in the Bay Area. During this period in his career, Mr. Orton obtained an in-depth knowledge of recording head reconditioning practices and head assembly alignment procedures. The eventual need for an in-house source of replacement recording heads lead to a full line of reverse-engineered replacement heads for Scully, 3M, and Ampex equipment. On the job head building experience was gained in the areas of machining, lapping, grinding, assembly, and testing.

In 1979, after Mr. Taber’s retirement, an Ampex AVSD head engineering position was offered and accepted. Mr. Orton provided design support for the ATR series audio recording heads and supported the offshore manufacturing facilities. As Ampex phased itself out of the new audio recorder business in early 1980, his primary responsibility became video/longitudinal head design for helical video and data recorders.

In 1991, Ampex eliminated the after market business for audio head spares, and Flux Magnetics was independently formed to provide new design recording heads for a variety of professional recorders.