Hugo Von Qualen

Danish vinyl cutting/mastering engineer. Active in the period 1954 to 1985, he cut more than 35.000 lacquers. Started out with Ortofon in 1954 installing lacquer cutting machines, an Ortofon product line at the time. From 1970 to 1981 he worked as lacquer cutting engineer at Electric & Musical Industries (Dansk-Engelsk) A/S, the Danish branch of EMI, at that point in time producing vinyl records for the local market. When EMI in 1981 decided to centralize all vinyl production at their Dutch plant, he bought the production equipment and created Dansk Skærestudie. At that point in time he was the only person in Denmark who could operate the lacquer cutting machine. The studio folded in 1995 due to financial struggles and Von Qualen's declining health. He is cartooned on the rear cover of 4314437.