[HN Gopher] Vinyl carver sparking a craze for cutting records at...
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Vinyl carver sparking a craze for cutting records at home
Author : n1b0m
Score : 119 points
Date : 2025-02-25 18:02 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| moffers wrote:
| I didn't realize there was such special equipment needed to cut a
| record at home.
| Etheryte wrote:
| Truth be told, compared to industrial record production this is
| pretty mild. This is a very cool project though, and I'm sure
| plenty of people will love it. Getting vinyl runs done used to
| be a massive chore, now you can, at least in theory, be like oh
| I now want that one.
| krisoft wrote:
| I'm confused about how you mean by your sentence.
|
| Is it that you did not realise that specialist equipment is
| needed to cut a record? (That is you thought the equipment is
| more commonplace?)
|
| Or is it that you didn't realised that the equipment is
| available to be purchased for home use? (That is you thought
| the equipment is less commonplace?)
| hansonkd wrote:
| > specialist equipment is needed to cut a record
|
| I remember there was a Soviet practice of cutting records
| into old XRays (called "ribs") as a way to bootleg them. I
| think those cutting machines were made from retrofitted old
| phonographs.
| 3eb7988a1663 wrote:
| "Bone records"
| (https://www.npr.org/2016/01/09/462289635/bones-and-
| grooves-w...).
|
| For black market uses, the consumers was probably willing
| to bear dreadful audio quality. For a modern aficionado,
| the quality must be good enough to give some justification
| for the endeavor.
| bsenftner wrote:
| Anyone have one and can give personal use details?
| Mizza wrote:
| A buddy of mine just acquired one of these machines (actually a
| beta version of a new product that will hopefully enter the
| market soon), and I've been helping him along the way as we try
| to get some good records out of it.
|
| It's not easy! It's not like plugging in a printer. There are so
| many variables to consider (materials, temperatures, pressures,
| angles, sharpnesses, volumes, phase), magical anti-static
| solution formulas, airflow, isolation, line control. The margin
| of error can be as low as 100 microns, and if you screw up, you
| might break a $200 diamond shank which have to be specially
| manufactured and imported.
|
| And that's before you even get to the actual audio quality!
|
| Still, it's fun to use and great to have 1-of-a-kind dubplates.
| yapyap wrote:
| Reading this it sounds like an early 3d printer, where you'd
| have to manually align stuff and make sure its nicely flat and
| all that.
|
| All in all great fun though!
| namaria wrote:
| Knowing what I learned about vinyl mastering back when I was
| DJing in college... There's about to be a whole lot of shitty
| records out there.
| 6stringmerc wrote:
| Agreed, and that's why I'm sitting this one out and instead
| pouring all my investment capital into the next craze, reel-
| to-reel machines!
| IgorPartola wrote:
| To me there is nothing cooler than a huge reel to reel when
| it comes to different formats. If I had some free time and
| space for it I would definitely want to buy one of the
| giant consoles and then hook up a write head right before
| the read head so that it can play off any digital source
| like Spotify but still do it with the huge reels and
| everything.
| kylebenzle wrote:
| Weird!
| Nevermark wrote:
| Why wouldn't you just use the reel like a visual-only
| scroll bar for stylish physical feedback on play
| progress?
|
| Either way, the physical media in your imagined setup,
| and what you are playing, have no special relationship.
|
| No need to use it like a bad transmission wire. If it
| can't transmit across time (storage) it is not a real
| "reel" anyway.
| card_zero wrote:
| I enjoy noise music, I just finished listening to a
| 20-minute arrhythmic improvisational jazz track with a
| guy singing in a kind of Simlish. So I can imagine that
| lower fidelity, or a bad transmission wire, might be part
| of an enjoyable experience.
|
| On the other hand, apart from the trivial detail of us
| all living in our own unique problem situations, I'm
| pretty sure that my preferences are the best and anybody
| else would be revealed to have stupid ones, if only we
| could communicate about them. But (speaking of bad
| transmission wires) detailed communication about
| ineffable private experiences is patchy at best, so
| regrettably we have to leave one another in peace to
| enjoy stuff, and lay off on the backseat driving.
| miunau wrote:
| You jest, but R2R is what some audiophiles are generally on
| about as being the bees knees, and has been getting popular
| again. I like physical music, but the prices on those is
| too much. I have heard some really good sounding reels,
| though I can never shake the feeling that they just have
| been recorded really, really well, using expensive
| equipment I can't afford to even rent, and would've sounded
| the same having been recorded digitally.
| 6stringmerc wrote:
| That I do and you're also spot on that it does have a lot
| of merit as a medium - Les Paul did so much for music by
| lugging R2R gear around and proving its worth in the
| studio that his legacy is at the pinnacle of any and all
| people who, well, love music!
| miunau wrote:
| Could do worse than investing in some reels in this
| climate. At least they're fungible.
| maccard wrote:
| You can still pay for a master and print the vinyl yourself.
| A 10 track album might cost an extra PS10 per track for a
| vinyl master, but each print of a record is 3x that.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| It sounds fun but reminds me of my recent foray into cassette
| culture where I rediscovered that while I love everything about
| cassettes and making them, I had forgotten they sound like crap
| haha.
|
| I'm currently into making CDs.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| I saw an estimate a while ago that cassettes have like 3-5
| bit depth equivalent on average.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| https://youtu.be/UqiBJbREUgU?t=628
|
| Digital Show & Tell from Monty at Xiph
|
| > Those of you who have used analog recording equipment may
| have just thought to yourselves, "My goodness! That sounds
| like tape hiss!" Well, it doesn't just sound like tape
| hiss, it acts like it, too. And if we use a Gaussian
| dither, then it's mathematically equivalent in every way.
| It _is_ tape hiss!
|
| > Intuitively, that means we can measure tape hiss, and
| thus the noise floor of magnetic audio tape, in bits,
| instead of decibels, in order to put things in a digital
| perspective. Compact cassettes... (Monty holds up a tape,
| then glares at it and flips it over in his hand) ... for
| those of you who are old enough to remember them, could
| reach as deep as nine bits in perfect conditions, though
| five to six bits was more typical, especially if it was a
| recording made on a tape deck.
|
| > That's right - Your mixtapes were only about six bits
| deep, if you were lucky. The very best professional open-
| reel tape used in studios could barely hit - any guesses? -
| 13 bits _with_ advanced noise reduction.
| miunau wrote:
| It's not an apples to apples comparison, really. Tape is
| desirable for its nonlinear (read: saturation)
| characteristics, and those can't really be measured in a
| very comparable manner by taking a regular digital domain
| bit depth analysis and dropping it in the tape world using
| the background hiss and 0dB as a clamp. It's an OK talking
| point, but it's easily oversimplified.
|
| Hiss is variable, too. When calculating the low end of the
| range from the background hiss, do we consider a -80dB hiss
| above ~2000Hz affecting the "bit depth" more than -80dB
| hiss below it? The hiss is nowhere near white noise either,
| so some frequency ranges are more affected than others.
| exitb wrote:
| This can't be right. Tape decks with a separate record head
| allow you to listen to the currently recorded track and
| quickly switch between the track and source feed. Apart
| from the hiss, the difference in quality is rather subtle
| for most people.
|
| Now, whether the store-bought tape from the 90s was
| recorded well, that's a different story.
| EfficientDude wrote:
| Good quality cassettes sound great, as good as CDs. You
| probably just had a shitty deck and shitty tapes.
| miunau wrote:
| Your buddy might like https://www.tokyodawn.net/tdr-simulathe-
| cut/ which simulates the vinyl grooves on your computer.
| kragen wrote:
| I believe that, since a recent fire, there is currently only one
| company that can electroform the masters necessary for mass
| pressing of records, as opposed to cutting them one at a time.
| Despite this "craze" we're closer to losing the technology of
| pressing phonograph records than we've been since it was
| invented.
| wsintra2022 wrote:
| Press on Vinyl are able to make there own masters. Can you
| clarify what you mean?
| kragen wrote:
| I'm kind of vague on the whole lacquer -> father -> mother ->
| stamper -> record process, and I don't remember which of
| these steps has supposedly dwindled down to just a single
| company due to the fire. Googling isn't helping.
|
| Normally "masters" are lacquers, though, so a company that
| makes their own "masters" still probably outsources the steps
| after the lacquer and before stamping finished records.
| beAbU wrote:
| What fire?
| kragen wrote:
| See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43221756.
| fcarraldo wrote:
| There's some detail in the Apollo Masters wikipedia page: htt
| ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Masters_Corporation_fir...
| kragen wrote:
| Thank you! I clearly didn't have a very good grasp of the
| situation, and this is definitely what I was thinking of,
| and it's much less serious than I had thought.
|
| > _With the destruction of Apollo Masters, producing
| lacquer discs fell solely to a small Japanese company, MDC.
| This caused a significant strain on the industry, as Apollo
| Masters was responsible for 70-85% of lacquer
| production.[4][5] As a result of the strain, orders became
| backlogged and delayed, (...)_
|
| > _With a decrease in lacquer production, some vinyl
| pressing plants turned to alternate means of producing
| records, including direct metal mastering, a costly method
| of producing records with copper instead of lacquer._
| JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B wrote:
| _Swan 's Death Records_ could make their own masters too
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_of_the_Paradise, sorry
| for being kinda off-topic)
| someothherguyy wrote:
| Next they'll record on to tape and burn CD-Rs!
|
| I don't see the appeal of spending $5000 to slowly etch vinyl
| away manually. If this really is a "craze", it exemplifies to me
| how those watching influencers get hypnotoaded into pursuing
| hobbies that have huge upfront costs.
| stogot wrote:
| Ya when I clicked I was hoping it would be under PS400
| i_am_proteus wrote:
| If a record nets $10 per, and you etch 20 records per week, the
| hobby pays for itself within a year. If your business happens
| to grow, you could buy another machine and make more records.
|
| If your business happens to not grow, the capital outlay is
| less than $10,000.
|
| Seems reasonable, especially if you otherwise have an affinity
| for vinyl or create your own music.
| analog31 wrote:
| That's $10 more than you can get for selling your recording
| in digital format online.
| itishappy wrote:
| digital: $1 $2 $3 ...
| vinyl: -$4990 -$4980 -$4970
| ...
|
| If my wildly estimated pricing is accurate, the break even
| point is 555 records sold. BandCamp looks to be about $4
| per EP (and you'd get maybe $3 of that), so this may be a
| conservative estimate.
| dylan604 wrote:
| That's $10 per, then the buyer needs to pay for shipping, and
| then taxes. So we're now at least $20 for your etch-a-sketch
| vinyl.
|
| Before I bought one of these, I insist on being able to play
| the vinyl and hear it first. So that means you have to be
| local to me. There are way too many mastering decisions that
| need to be made correctly for vinyl to sound good. And no,
| that does not mean being able to take something from your
| iTunes library mastered for your shitty earbuds.
|
| I do not trust some hobbyist to get any of that right to the
| point of me willing to pay $10. However, if someone with
| actual experience with mastering had one of these then I'd be
| interested, but that dubplate will be way more expensive than
| $10. A pricetag of $10 tells me the person doing it has no
| clue about anything involved and has priced themselves too
| cheap. A person with experience would go broke from the time
| involved to make any money at $10.
|
| Also, 20 records per week? JeebusChristo that's ambitious.
| Your sales team would kill your margins at $10 per. Because
| if you're trying to sell and make the vinyl all by your
| lonesome, just take the money you were going to invest in
| getting set up and light it on fire. It'll be faster and much
| less heartache.
| cjaackie wrote:
| hobbies are spending money irrationally for joys or
| pleasures of the act of doing that hobby, no always about a
| business plan, do you have any?
| dylan604 wrote:
| I'm not the one that came up with the idea of selling 20
| etched vinyls per week at $10 each concept.
| i_am_proteus wrote:
| The vocabulary term "net" means profit after expenses.
| Certainly the retail price would be higher.
| miunau wrote:
| Sorry.. but a sales team for 20 album sales a week? That's
| just what regular artists making a living do. Small labels
| too, majority of which are one-person operations. At $20 a
| pop (cheap these days) that's $20k a year in sales, which
| is doable if you're promoting releases and gigging actively
| in a local scene. Majority of small runs go into local
| shops and get sold at merch boots at shows, not sold b2c in
| a web shop where it needs to be shipped somewhere else.
| Many don't have bar codes, so they can't get on Amazon.
|
| But more importantly, people working in the music industry
| are excited about these developments. I think you as well
| should be, given you're a self-professed vinyl lover. All
| this means more development in cutting heads (the current
| ones cost tens of thousands!), in lathe equipment for
| master cutting, and more modern equipment and capable
| engineers working at pressing plants, many of which have
| had trouble hiring younger people. It also means more
| development in materials engineering for vinyl,
| biodegradable materials being a new movement.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| Bitcoin mining was also a hobby that paid for itself within a
| year. And tulip farming...
| bawolff wrote:
| That sounds like a job not a hobby.
| miunau wrote:
| Getting a hundred records pressed is well upwards of a grand
| just for the records. More than that, not a single soul has
| ever gotten into releasing small run physical albums for the
| money. If you have two million, and want one million, start a
| record label.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > If you have two million, and want one million, start a
| record label.
|
| That's the most tortured version of that phrase that I've
| ever seen.
|
| "If you want to make $1 million with a record label, start
| with $2 million" is the typical way to use the phrase.
| miunau wrote:
| Perhaps it didn't cross your mind that I expressed it in a
| stilted manner on purpose? What a weird thing to get hung
| up on anyway
| dylan604 wrote:
| Your stitled manner loses the nuance of the phrase. Your
| phrasing makes it sound like you're telling an investor
| it's going to require $2mil, where the more common
| phrasing is more of a reality check for a dreamer
| thinking it's a money making idea. It's only weird if you
| have no love for well crafted phrases
| wrsh07 wrote:
| Idk it seems fairly normal to have a hobby (eg photography, 3d
| printing, espresso) where you are able to spend thousands. The
| main issue is that I'm not sure it's easy to get into pressing
| vinyl - what's the starter kit price?
| BoingBoomTschak wrote:
| This whole unhealthy obsession with form over substance (music)
| really is peak 21th century materialism. Sony's and Philips'
| engineers must be turning in their graves.
|
| Disregarding the hipster crowd, so many of these "fiddlers"
| also have such a laughably mundane and insipid taste clashing
| strongly with their proffered love for music that an outside
| viewer can't help but raise an eyebrow; I mean, when your
| musical world is made of Steely Dan, Diana Krall, Neil Young,
| Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, etc...
|
| It's just the man equivalent of collecting porcelain figurines,
| but with an _ad hoc_ rationalization (it really sounds better!)
| to protect the ego. Related to Gear Acquisition Syndrome.
| dylan604 wrote:
| People easily overlook the most important part to me of
| playing vinyl, and get distracted by the "it sounds better"
| conversation. To me, it is the physicalness of holding the
| vinyl, watching/reading the grooves, setting the needle,
| lifting the needle, rinse/repeat for each track you want to
| listen (assuming using singles). There's much more
| satisfaction when you're actively doing things to keep the
| music playing (even if not a DJing) rather than clicking some
| infinite stream where you just tune out of even paying
| attention to the music. Playing vinyl forces your attention.
| That's when you start to become a real music nerd type by
| learning which cut of the release a song was on, which side
| of the vinyl, etc.
|
| That might not be what most people care about, and that's
| fine. They have infinite streaming available for those that
| just need background noise. But to write vinyl off as a gear
| acquisition syndrome just screams to me someone doesn't
| really get it and wants to find a way to mock someone else
| sambapa wrote:
| That sounds too easy, real music nerd types carve their own
| vinyls at home. Realer music nerds build machines that
| carve vinyls. Realerer music nerds work in mines that
| supply metal (no pun intended) for those machine parts etc.
| And I'm just a wanker with Spotify and rate your music that
| accelerated my taste and education in music 1000x times.
| rectang wrote:
| Album art for 12-inch LPs is fabulous.
|
| CD packaging with jewel cases was a major step down in
| experience because of size and also because of the
| inconvenience of getting the booklets out of the case; good
| CD packaging experiences were exceedingly rare.
|
| Art for streaming is a different medium altogether, as it
| is behind a screen but potentially dynamic; it can achieve
| new things, but can't replicate the LP experience any more
| than photographs can reproduce sculptures.
| card_zero wrote:
| The Black Crowes _Southern Harmony and Musical Companion_
| is the size of a jewel case, but cardboard like an LP
| cover, and folds out to reveal an extra six segments as
| well as front and back covers. (Five have pictures, the
| other one holds the CD.) So that 's a good effort, but
| fundamentally LPs are a more satisfying size for looking
| at.
| BoingBoomTschak wrote:
| Those are details not improving the music itself; even if
| cool auxiliary aspects, sometimes. You can listen to full
| albums intently even when using a digital system. In fact,
| do you truly care if you have to be physically
| _constrained_ into doing so?
|
| I'll sound very smug, but so be it: this is a trap very
| easy to fall in. Are you a "proper" christian if you only
| are because you fear hell? Do you care about software
| freedom if you had to be spoonfed baby duck software that
| looks and feels just like Windows to switch?
| cjaackie wrote:
| Sorry there's nuance missing here, I might personally not
| have any records, but I understand how some people must enjoy
| it and I can't judge them. This reads more like 'not for me,
| not for thee' syndrome.
| 6stringmerc wrote:
| Fair point and maybe I can contribute, as I get the
| hostility in the tone. It's in the inherent contradiction
| of the justification of the pursuit, from a music
| appreciation standpoint. Vinyl does not sound better, and
| many of the legacy artists mentioned didn't record great
| quality (sounding) material in the modern era. It's most
| definitely a "splurge" of wastefulness under a decidedly
| erroneous claim.
| cjaackie wrote:
| Yes I see what you mean, with hobbies sometimes better
| costs is equal to better quality (probably not in a
| linear sense). Records are not that, but ig there's other
| examples like old cars that fit the same profile. Really
| the root question might be, what is better quality?
| There's definitely a quality of experience with physical
| media that there isn't an analog to in the digital world.
| I'm sure there are other examples on both sides.
| globnomulous wrote:
| > Vinyl does not sound better
|
| Have you listened to vinyl on a good system? I have
| trouble believing anybody who says this has ever listened
| to a decent record on a decent stereo.
|
| Not all vinyl sounds better in my system. Some really is
| crap. But when I directly compare, and all other things
| are equal (or seem to be), vinyl normally sounds better
| than digital.
|
| This is more often true of more recent records, too,
| though some of Deutsche Grammophone's Archive Production
| records from even the 50s sound astonishingly good.
|
| I understand that objectively vinyl doesn't measure as
| well as CD, but I'll be damned if it doesn't sound
| better. My partner thinks it does, too, and she has no
| patience for audiophile nonsense.
| BoingBoomTschak wrote:
| > though some of Deutsche Grammophone's Archive
| Production records from even the 50s sound astonishingly
| good.
|
| For what it is, i.e. a rock being dragged through a
| groove. But I'm very surprised to see this used as
| example, since orchestral music is the worst case
| scenario for vinyl: the reduced dynamic range makes good
| reproduction of those peaks simply impossible (labels
| like BIS would never have been able to engineer their
| magic such as on this CD - see the warning on the cover -
| https://www.discogs.com/release/16832175-Carl-Nielsen-
| Gothen...) and the surface noise really impacts the
| quieter moments.
|
| Don't get me wrong, some CDs were brickwalled while the
| corresponding LP got a way saner master (e.g. Celtic
| Frost's _Monotheist_ ), but with similar masters, CD
| simply always wins as a medium. In this case, I digitize
| the LP while its surface wear is at its lowest.
| 6stringmerc wrote:
| Very excellent citation and explanation - one of my main
| attractions to drum & bass over the years has been the
| amazing capitalization upon dynamic range possible with
| modern systems. Why would I listen to Sub Focus on vinyl
| when the corresponding digital file (even 320 kbps - not
| to even mention "lossless" being somewhat possible) does
| not suffer from physical interface complications? I'm
| glad you brought up mastering and the "loudness wars" who
| CB is absolutely great reading for those interested in
| audiophile related endeavors!
| 6stringmerc wrote:
| Sound being a highly subjective term, I will grant vinyl
| can sound "warmer" on an A/B test but it does not sound
| "better" as a standing point. Every system "colors" sound
| to a certain degree - a la Beats headphones artificially
| enhancing the bass profile to suit market fit - but when
| talking quality, no, vinyl is still a problematic medium.
| Source: 20 years of audio production spanning tape to
| modern tools, and opinions based on experience and
| qualitative analysis where possible.
| JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B wrote:
| I'd say the whole Baroque movement in the 17th century was
| form over substance too but not necessarily linked to our
| definition of materialism. At least they knew how to play
| instruments back then...
|
| I now see that I didn't understood your comment. Yeah, the
| vinyl form was interesting back then (because it was cheap)
| but it sounds like shit to me now. But you see this
| everywhere a company sees a trend and exploit it: anime
| figures, nostalgia, ... You can't do anything about it
| anyway, I gave up on that a long time ago. I draw the line
| where the whole music itself is disconnected from what you
| are trying to achieve (treating it as fast food, buying manga
| in Japanese without being able to read Japanese, any kind of
| collecting that you don't have the skills to experience...)
|
| One last thing though. You can have better music than all the
| CDs in the world if you are looking for a private or concert
| experience. It all depends on what you seek. Woodstock guys
| thought they would change the world (and they did in their
| own way), and the Beatles got their own spiritual/mystical
| experience in India (which George Harrison used to add the
| sitar in some songs).
| tabony wrote:
| You're way overthinking it.
|
| I go to a show. There's maybe 50 people in a dark, dingy
| room. I want to support the band so I buy a shirt and a
| record from the merch table.
|
| Sometimes I'm right by the record store so I stop and browse.
| I see an LP for an album I like, either used or new. I buy
| it.
|
| Now I have a stack of records. I go home and play records. I
| still use Spotify.
| JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B wrote:
| I never experienced that but some people do enjoy it, and
| it's fine as long as it's not a temporary obsession (but
| that's still my debatable opinion).
|
| I remember my aunt saying that she went to a Santana
| concert in the 70s. She only remembered that "there was a
| lot of smoke in the room." Did it change her forever? Maybe
| not, only she knows. But even single experiences can have
| long-lasting effects that, I'm sure, we'll never be capable
| of sharing fully.
| globnomulous wrote:
| I was about to criticize your comment for unnecessary mean-
| spiritedness, but then I remembered that I don't have the
| moral high ground.
|
| I once stayed with wealthy tech CEO whose had a very
| expensive MacIntosh-based stereo, plus some rather expensive
| looking speakers. His musical library? Grateful Dead,
| Chicago, Neil Young.
|
| The guy gets the enjoy what he enjoys. More power to him. I
| just can't imagine spending so much for, musically, so very,
| very little.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| The Dead, at least, were a band that absolutely pushed the
| limits of sound engineering in concerts as well as
| encouraging incredibly elaborate concert recording setups.
| The wall of sound, and the entire culture of high quality
| live recordings by 3rd parties is a huge part of their
| popularity.
|
| Why wouldn't you want to listen to them on a nice system?
| globnomulous wrote:
| That's a good point. I withdraw my criticism and admit my
| error.
|
| > Why wouldn't you want to listen to them on a nice
| system?
|
| They just aren't my cup of tea.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Gotcha.
|
| What it comes down to is that for a lot of people,
| operating and owning certain equipment is what gives them
| joy. You see this in a lot, maybe all, of hobbies and
| pleasure. It's like the guy who spends $1k on a 3d
| printer to make trinkets that you can buy at the dollar
| store.
| kiddico wrote:
| I think the appeal is having audio you made or sourced on a
| medium that is normally reserved for record manufacturers doing
| a large volume production run...
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| I didn't see any mention of precautions relating to vinyl
| spall/dust produced by these lathes. As far as I know vinyl is
| toxic, and I'd expect to see some kind of extraction tube or
| enclosure if this is being done in a domestic setting.
| Mizza wrote:
| One of the many secrets of lathe cutting is that these aren't
| actually PVC, but rather PETG. They actually play nicer and are
| more durable than pressed PVC records and can have a lower
| noise floor. On a good day, we can make a cut record that
| sounds nicer than a pressed one.
| bjackman wrote:
| Back before CDJs people in the UK used to cut records like
| this for playing unreleased music in clubs. We referred to
| the material used for this as "acetate" but I don't know what
| it was technically. You didn't do it at home though, so maybe
| the businesses that did it had to have air filters.
|
| We called these records "dubplates" since this practice came
| from West Indian soundystem culture. I'm sure there are still
| DJs that do this today.
| Mizza wrote:
| Acetates are still used in the manufacturing process - even
| pressed records need to be cut once - but they aren't great
| as products to send to home-users because they degrade from
| usage very quickly.
|
| We are also running a soundsystem and mainly cutting for
| other DJs.
|
| Records are cool!
| unitexe wrote:
| You right. This practice lives on in dubstep and
| soundsystem music in general.
| usrusr wrote:
| That was my first thought reading this: if these devices
| spread too far, all the magic will be gone. Dubplates are
| special not because they are one of a kind, they are
| special because they are one of a kind while also being so
| much more exclusive than mixtapes (which can be just as one
| of a kind, but aren't exclusive at all). Widely available
| home-cut vinyl might perhaps breed an awesome new culture,
| but if that happens it will definitely kill the incumbent.
| card_zero wrote:
| Nitrocellulose lacquer on a substrate, says Wikipedia.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetate_disc
| crowselect wrote:
| I guess you'd really have to get your bed leveling dialed in
| perfectly to 3d print a record
|
| edit:
|
| ok I googled it: 3d printed playable record:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM7hwAuXqCE
|
| 1. yes it's possible - using some kind of resin printing
| method, not FDM.
|
| 2. no it doesn't sound very good.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| > As far as I know vinyl is toxic
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ2czFuIYmQ&pp=ygURYmVubiBqb...
|
| "Vinyl: Maybe it's time we had an intervention" by Benn Jordan.
|
| tl;dw: He puts a VOC meter to a vinyl record and yep they're
| definitely toxic. Remember, if you smell something, it's going
| inside your body. That includes "new plastic smell", farts,
| etc.
|
| > This is just my objective opinion based on a whole lotta
| research... if you're an avid vinyl collector whose pee-pee
| hurts after watching this video, understand that my pee-pee
| hurts a whole lot more.
| ofrzeta wrote:
| If you are interested in vinyl take a look at this video:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJjkSDObblY
|
| It's a small shop (and another guy who does the "metal plates")
| with guys from a punk/hardcore background who are running a
| basement vinyl production. The video includes a nice simulation
| of cutting the grooves.
| walthamstow wrote:
| What's the point in cutting vinyl from a digital source? Fashion?
|
| I thought the whole point of vinyl was that it maintains analog
| from recording to playback
| etothet wrote:
| It depends who you talk to. Some people feel vinyl "sounds more
| analog" just because of the format. Some people feel it adds
| natural saturation. In my opinion what matters most is the
| recording source. That said, bass frequencies respond very
| different on vinyl. Because of this, it's pretty common to make
| a separate master for digital and vinyl.
|
| FWIW, almost all vinyl records produced today will come from a
| digital source. Even if the music was recorded directly to
| tape, there's very likely a step of getting that audio into the
| digital domain.
| redeux wrote:
| I think the compression format is what people point to when
| they say that digital music isn't as full or "analog"
| sounding, and that would be true for vinyls made from a
| source that uses the same format, but there's also the
| potential to use the raw WAV file which wouldn't have this
| issue even if it's digital.
| aczerepinski wrote:
| For me part of the appeal is to have something physical that I
| truly own and can enjoy without being tracked by algorithm.
| Blue Note Tone Poets (which are analogue all the way) got me
| into the hobby but I also buy new records, especially when they
| are available in a signed version.
| ljm wrote:
| I like to think that different things have a 'substance' to
| them, not unlike the nebulous concept of quality in Zen and
| the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
|
| In this sense, the appeal is not just in the tangible record
| but also in the ritual of listening to it on a turntable.
| That process of choosing a record to play and then listen to
| it is quite a deliberate one, and you probably wouldn't do it
| if you didn't intend to appreciate it. It's a hobby or an
| enthusiasm you have and there's an effort involved in
| curating your record collection.
|
| I compare that to the process of opening up Spotify of Apple
| Music where most of that intentionality is stripped away. It
| serves a totally different purpose as a passive activity, not
| unlike leaving the radio on in the background, rather than an
| occasion you'd take time to enjoy.
|
| In my imagination I just picture those scenes in the Bosch TV
| show where he puts on a classic jazz record, with the view of
| LA sprawling into the distance in the background. And it
| wouldn't be a vibe if he just said 'Alexa play smooth jazz.'
| risyachka wrote:
| For starters it will outlast your digital content. Also it
| won't get deleted if you forget to pay for cloud storage. And
| your kids can inherit it without breaking into your cloud
| accounts.
| homarp wrote:
| but why a vinyl instead of a cd? or a mp3 on an
| iphone/sdcard/hard drive?
| interglossa wrote:
| There is an argument that the loss of dynamic range and
| other factors in the compression required in mp3 or CD
| recordings make the latter inferior to vinyl. This was a
| prolonged debate forty years ago
| Symbiote wrote:
| CDs have better quality than vinyl in every way. If you
| want the sound of a vinyl, apply the modulation and
| record the result on a CD.
|
| In practise, popular music recorded on CDs often had poor
| mastering (see "loudness wars") where the dynamic range
| was reduced to make the recording sound louder.
| dijksterhuis wrote:
| > CDs have better quality than vinyl in every way.
|
| that's an entirely subjective statement which critically
| hangs on what "quality" means to the audience.
|
| i don't agree, but then i'm not limiting myself to define
| quality in terms of how some signal reproduces sounds.
| sambapa wrote:
| That's why some deaf people feel superior
| dijksterhuis wrote:
| huh?
| card_zero wrote:
| Deaf culture, presumably.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaf_culture
|
| "Refuge from the grinding frustrations of the hearing
| world", appreciation of the quality of no sounds, sort of
| like John Cage's 4'33" but quieter.
| mrob wrote:
| Dynamic range compression is not "required", it's a
| choice of the mastering engineer. You can produce MP3 or
| CD recordings with higher dynamic range than vinyl if you
| want to.
| tiagod wrote:
| This is the reason why classical music CDs (and radio)
| usually sound much quieter. More dynamic range.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Dynamic range compression is often used on most
| mainstream music because said music is rarely listened in
| perfect conditions in one's living room. They need to
| sound decent enough in the street, in a car, on a
| metro/train during rush hours, in the kitchen while
| cooking, on the beach, from allkinf of devices from
| crappy smartphone headphones, phones and computers
| integrated speakers or cheap bluetooth speakers.
|
| Ideally one would own 2 different recording of the songs
| they like. One for good listening environments and high
| quality equipment, one for more hostile environments. Or
| have devices that apply dynamic range compression on the
| fly when needed.
| dijksterhuis wrote:
| not the parent.
|
| tl;dr version - because i prefer it. doesn't make it right.
| doesn't make it wrong. makes it what it is.
|
| * i prefer the weightiness of vinyl (although it make
| moving flat a pain in the arse)
|
| * most of the stuff i buy is limited run stuff that wont
| exist again, each release i buy is its own thing that wont
| exist again -- even later pressing runs can come out
| different
|
| * a lot of the time, someone putting out a small limited
| release is a good signal to me they give a shit about what
| they're doing, so i pay attention more to what they've
| done, and i enjoy it more as a result
|
| * i like having a wall shelves filled with vinyl in my
| flat, i like collecting stuff
|
| * i like putting records on and sitting and listening to
| them and watching them go round and round on my decks, i
| like interacting with them, i like the feel of them, they
| feel more intimate than just plugging a USB in and going
| through a menu
|
| * i'm forced to listen as the artist intended - ain't no
| skip or shuffle button!
|
| * beat matching with vinyl is far more of an art form -
| there ain't no magic "sync" button when you're mixing with
| vinyl
|
| * i think it sounds better
|
| * it's the hobby i picked and i enjoy it
| bradly wrote:
| For me, I choose vinyl because I had to pick one of those
| and I really enjoy 1.) listening to full albums 2.) Album
| art and 3.) That act of collecting something physical.
| TeaBrain wrote:
| >but why a vinyl instead of a cd? or a mp3 on an
| iphone/sdcard/hard drive
|
| There's no bit corruption with vinyl like with digital
| storage formats or disk rot like with cds.
| tiagod wrote:
| If you store files properly they won't corrupt. If you're
| that worried, use ZFS or something similar.
| TeaBrain wrote:
| >If you store files properly they won't corrupt.
|
| Chemical degradation of CDs can occur over time even in a
| relatively stable environment. Flash memory is also known
| to be volatile and most people aren't storing data on
| flash memory in a redundant storage system.
|
| >If you're that worried, use ZFS or something similar.
|
| I'm not personally storing stuff on vinyl, nor am I
| "worried", although I have bought a few vinyl that are
| over 50 years old that play perfectly.
| squeedles wrote:
| An excellent argument for physical artifacts. I take an
| archivist's point of view and digitize my photos and music
| for convenience then store the original for long term stable
| preservation. But I keep everything locally, unlike my kids
| who seem content to rely on an unchanging world where
| everything will be around forever.
|
| A few years ago, I realized that the use case for CDs no
| longer held. Vinyl will persist for experience seekers, lossy
| audio (MP3 et al) for convenience seekers including
| streaming, but the audiophiles are now being served by FLAC
| downloads, which can exceed CD quality. If you poke around
| bandcamp you'll find many labels selling vinyl with
| associated 24bit/96k FLAC downloads tossed in as part of the
| deal.
| fumeux_fume wrote:
| Ideally you can maintain the analog chain from recording to the
| listener's ear, but that really isn't feasible for a lot of
| artists today and could also suffer from generational loss
| through the process. With cutting a record from a digital
| source you can control the digital to analog conversion rather
| than relying on the listener's DAC (usually not high end) and
| it only costs you one generation of loss. I don't think it's a
| huge deal, but maybe a benefit.
| bradly wrote:
| > I thought the whole point of vinyl was that it maintains
| analog from recording to playback
|
| That may be one point for some people, but not mine. I have my
| music on vinyl and that is how I listen to it. Regardless of
| the quality or analog vs digital or any of that, if I want to
| own an album, it needs to be available on vinyl for my to
| purchase. There are albums I want that I cannot purchase today.
| This is _my_ walled garden.
|
| You still see cassettes used today because of the ease of home
| distribution, and bridging the gap between those indie music
| makers and music consumers like myself is something I am
| looking forward to.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| So, what is your point for owning vinyls?
| bradly wrote:
| - I prefer to own vs rent music - I prefer physical
| to digital (albums often come with digital downloads)
| - I enjoy listening to full albums - I enjoy the
| album art, liner notes, posters, special releases, etc
|
| Not all the music I want to own is available on vinyl, but
| at the same time, some of the music I listen to is not on
| streaming services. And some isn't available on CD. Nothing
| is perfect. I choose vinyl as it provided the best set of
| trade-offs for how I enjoy music.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| > I have my music on vinyl and that is how I listen to it.
|
| If I'm reading this right, he owns vinyl music recordings
| for the purpose of playing back music.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Listening to music?
|
| When I was a teenager I recorded vinyl, cassette, cd and
| even music from the radio on reel to reel tapes just
| because I liked using the Akai reel to reel tape deck my
| father was no longer using. Everything in it felt just more
| satisfyingly sturdy and mechanical to use than my other
| audio devices made with shitty plastics.
|
| Sometimes the ritual matters more than the outright audio
| quality.
| dist-epoch wrote:
| > You still see cassettes used today because of the ease of
| home distribution
|
| That can't be the reason, USB sticks are much easier to
| get/make/distribute
| bradly wrote:
| I don't fully understand the cassette thing either to be
| honest. I've heard something about it being a mix of analog
| + digital, but I'm not positive the draw. Artists that I
| enjoy like Atmosphere and The Midnight both release their
| albums on cassette, though, so I imagine a good number of
| people enjoying them.
|
| They usually include the digital download as well so maybe
| it is just a fun way to get the digital music?
| prmoustache wrote:
| there is more chance your cassette is readable 20years from
| now (mine are) than data in a single solid state memory
| device so there is that.
| dist-epoch wrote:
| > It is therefore ironic, that most vinyl records that were cut
| after the late 70s went through at least one round trip of
| analogue to digital and digital to analogue conversion. This is
| because a digital delay is almost always used in the cutting
| process in order to get better cuts.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM7sI7GZPbk
| beAbU wrote:
| I might be totally wrong, but I won't be surprised if even
| commercial vinyls by modern artists come from digital masters.
| Surely mosts big studios have moved on from tape based systems
| by now?
| goosejuice wrote:
| See Richard Houghten https://www.richardhoughten.com/
|
| The holograms are very cool
| interglossa wrote:
| The fascination with home recording on disc is not new:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42037367
| mk_stjames wrote:
| I'm almost positive I've seen those drivers that are being used
| on the cutting head before...
|
| They look like.... yeah:
|
| Waterproof audio transducers, make by a company called PQN and
| designed for hot tub sound systems.
|
| https://www.ebay.com/itm/174285036157
|
| I guess that is one way to get a premade, high-displacement,
| powerful enough voice coil in an easy to mount package at a
| normal speaker impedance. Genius.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| I don't understand vinyl itself, but I understand having a hobby
| that you can't really explain to other people. Mine is throwing
| car batteries into the ocean.
| ffsm8 wrote:
| Your hobby is polluting the local area with highly toxic
| material? Dang man, that's evil
| robocat wrote:
| A cubic kilometre of untainted seawater (pacific island)
| contains about 3.5g of Pb. A battery contains about 9000g of
| Pb. So one battery could affect a lot of seawater IF it were
| to be soluble. Lead concentrations in
| offshore waters are ranging from 0.0035 (American Samoa,
| South Pacific Ocean) to 0.150 pg/L. (Western Mediterranean
| Sea; Copin-Montegut et al. 1986). A lead-acid car
| battery typically contains 16-21 pounds of lead
| For comparison: average concentration of 20 mg/kg of soil
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