One thing I didn't realize for a long time is that it turns out that a lot of these machines have a digital stage. To cut a disk you need to pack the grooves as close as possible. But the spiral isn't fixed, it's adjusted dynamically. Quiet sections can be packed close together. That means that before cutting, the machine needs to know how much physical space it needs for the audio it's about to put on the disk. And that requires a buffer, and that's very often digital. So it turns out there's precious little vinyl out there without a digital step being involved out there.
Not that it matters anyway, since vinyl is a pretty terrible technology, but still, it's kind of funny.
show comments
tcbawo
I always loved the story of the "three-sided" Monty Python record, where the B side had two parallel concentric grooves, causing different tracks to play depending on where the needle was dropped. I always wondered what kind of equipment went into producing it.
show comments
iainctduncan
This is fantastic. There is a shortage of places that can press vinyl, making it very difficult to start an indy label. Vinyl (believe it or not) is going up in sales, many young people want to own a physical product of music, even if they don't have turntables. It's a way to support acts. Selling vinyl is thus one of the ways indy acts and labels can actually make money.
Is there a performative and marketing element? sure. But that's the music world, a great deal is performative. We have depended on patrons who want to support the arts and be seen supporting the arts for time immemorial.
show comments
navaed01
In a world of digital rationality, I’m glad teenage engineering are here to design the absurd and analog. It doesn’t make rational sense - and I think that’s the point
show comments
PCI-eX16
our shared vision is to enable access to anyone who wants their music or sound on a physical record.
FWIW, You can get 100 records + jackets printed professionally for ~$10 a pop.
Gakken toy record cutter is low quality, but costs $160.
I wonder what this would cost. Surely it's impractical for personal use, as marketed.
show comments
avsn
Originally lathe cuts were used by producers in electronic genres namely jungle/DnB as a way to test yet unreleased tracks on the dance floor. Those records were created in very low numbers and could only survive a handful of plays. As stated here in the comments, producing such records requires a great amount of skill and understanding of the process, as well as understanding the way tracks translate to physical media. TE here again does a great amount of art-washing and Supreme-isation of previously "niche" things for the audience that treats music culture as a costume. A great toy for average Rick Rubin book enjoyer.
show comments
musictubes
Dinsynch makes an “acoustic lathe” for a little less than $2k. It doesn’t look nearly as cool as the TE setup but will probably be similar in execution and quality.
Actual transcription lathes will be much more expensive and I think can record on better material. Those can be used for direct to disc recording production. I’m not sure if what TE and Dinsync offer can make something that can be used for production.
gregsadetsky
Unrelated, but related - if you want to have 1 record made, reach out to https://recordcut.com/
Their hours are "2:30 PM to 12 Midnight", I sort of believe... 7 days a week?
Rich will actually answer the phone, and guide you. I've done it a few times (it's an incredibly cool gift). A single record is $12. Extremely worth experiencing it.
show comments
mvkel
Don't think of Teenage Engineering as a device product company. Think of them as a device art company. Suddenly it makes sense.
show comments
jrflo
I think it's cool that they make stuff like this. It's refreshing to see something engineered for the sake of being beautiful and cool, instead of worrying about BOM cost and margin.
MoonWalk
Thought cool; clicked on the link; saw it was Teenage Engineering; and closed the tab.
Their track record consists of vastly overpriced and under-functioning products.
protocolture
Every Teenage Engineering Product:
Damn I would buy this for 50 bucks.
I actually have a project that requires a bunch of custom vinyl, but I am guessing this is not economical.
I remember to listening to some in my childhood and never understood why the tech was not the standard (relative to the brittle cumbersome vinyls). Maybe the sound quality is worse. Unsure
show comments
Arainach
Not even a price listed. I don't understand the market for this - fancy musical instruments for creativity, sure, there's a market, but who wants to own cutting vinyl? How many records would you need to make for this to be more economical than paying a dedicated shop? How many would you need to do to "achieve higher quality"? How consistent are your results?
show comments
trumpdong
> direct drive precision polished tungsten shaft
Isn't marketing wonderful. Who cares what the motor shaft is made of? (and why not ordinary steel? tungsten just sounds cooler? they want to reuse it for a lightbulb filament later?)
show comments
georgelyon
Cool, but can it make parallel grooves like HENGE’s Journey to Voltus B?
I love this company and wish there was more like them.
nubinetwork
Aren't vinyls typically pressed, not carved from a blank? I wonder how accurate they can actually get if they have to carve every notch into the groove.
show comments
999900000999
Very strange.
It appears they’ll just rebrand a few record cutters and call it a product. TE always comes off as really low quality for the types of prices they charge.
The MPC Sample is 400$ and looks well built, the KO2 is 300$ and has faders falling off.
Roland has a few samplers in the same price range as well.
stigz
Price? If you have to ask, you can't afford it.
emsign
Fancy machine for just making dubplates.
xrd
Has anyone tried to 3d print vinyl?
show comments
edb_123
Vestax actually did something similar in the early 2000s with the VRX-2000 lathe cutter. It cost around $10K back then.
The audio wasn't the best, but hey, you could make your own dubplates, and it did so in stereo!
fragmede
APC is an interesting choice of name. A Professional record Cutter.
I wonder if they chose it because of the APC40, which is a delightful set of MIDI pads.
vr46
I looked and went, "WTF is that? Looks like a record cutting machine"
Scrolled down
WTAF
I'm a total TE fanboi, I have the OP1F and OP-XY, they're everything I ever wanted and my MPC and Digitakt haven't be touched in months. And the Digitone Keys is unplugged propped against the bookshelf. It's extraordinary how addictive these two little synths are for making things happen.
The APC-2, however, is a fascinating outcome of what happens when you have a bunch of creative people who like - and can - do things that are new to them and make them new to others. It's no wonder they keep getting asked to do cool stuff like Panic's Playdate, Baidu's Raven, Nothing Smartphones and Headphones.
TE have retained this incredible playful vibe that has long drained from Sony and Apple.
I've heard every lazy comment about hipsters and rich kids who are supposedly their target audience, and the cost of the products, as if the visible ingredients are all that accounting measure. Swiss watches cost orders of magnitude more than TE's amazing inventions, and their only purpose seems to be to remind the wearer how amazing they are when they look at it.
"God, I'm good," thought the Rolex wearer as he glanced at his wrist.
Hipsters will buy anything that looks cool. But that doesn’t mean anything that looks cool was made for them.
show comments
gf263
Inb4 all the commenters going “umm, why would I want this? I could simply burn a CD or make a Spotify playlist if I wanted to share music”
snvzz
Why wouldn't you use an ADC and store music digitally?
How does it buffer audio?
One thing I didn't realize for a long time is that it turns out that a lot of these machines have a digital stage. To cut a disk you need to pack the grooves as close as possible. But the spiral isn't fixed, it's adjusted dynamically. Quiet sections can be packed close together. That means that before cutting, the machine needs to know how much physical space it needs for the audio it's about to put on the disk. And that requires a buffer, and that's very often digital. So it turns out there's precious little vinyl out there without a digital step being involved out there.
Not that it matters anyway, since vinyl is a pretty terrible technology, but still, it's kind of funny.
I always loved the story of the "three-sided" Monty Python record, where the B side had two parallel concentric grooves, causing different tracks to play depending on where the needle was dropped. I always wondered what kind of equipment went into producing it.
This is fantastic. There is a shortage of places that can press vinyl, making it very difficult to start an indy label. Vinyl (believe it or not) is going up in sales, many young people want to own a physical product of music, even if they don't have turntables. It's a way to support acts. Selling vinyl is thus one of the ways indy acts and labels can actually make money.
Is there a performative and marketing element? sure. But that's the music world, a great deal is performative. We have depended on patrons who want to support the arts and be seen supporting the arts for time immemorial.
In a world of digital rationality, I’m glad teenage engineering are here to design the absurd and analog. It doesn’t make rational sense - and I think that’s the point
our shared vision is to enable access to anyone who wants their music or sound on a physical record.
FWIW, You can get 100 records + jackets printed professionally for ~$10 a pop.
Gakken toy record cutter is low quality, but costs $160.
I wonder what this would cost. Surely it's impractical for personal use, as marketed.
Originally lathe cuts were used by producers in electronic genres namely jungle/DnB as a way to test yet unreleased tracks on the dance floor. Those records were created in very low numbers and could only survive a handful of plays. As stated here in the comments, producing such records requires a great amount of skill and understanding of the process, as well as understanding the way tracks translate to physical media. TE here again does a great amount of art-washing and Supreme-isation of previously "niche" things for the audience that treats music culture as a costume. A great toy for average Rick Rubin book enjoyer.
Dinsynch makes an “acoustic lathe” for a little less than $2k. It doesn’t look nearly as cool as the TE setup but will probably be similar in execution and quality.
https://youtu.be/udQC04YrXq0
Actual transcription lathes will be much more expensive and I think can record on better material. Those can be used for direct to disc recording production. I’m not sure if what TE and Dinsync offer can make something that can be used for production.
Unrelated, but related - if you want to have 1 record made, reach out to https://recordcut.com/
Their hours are "2:30 PM to 12 Midnight", I sort of believe... 7 days a week?
Rich will actually answer the phone, and guide you. I've done it a few times (it's an incredibly cool gift). A single record is $12. Extremely worth experiencing it.
Don't think of Teenage Engineering as a device product company. Think of them as a device art company. Suddenly it makes sense.
I think it's cool that they make stuff like this. It's refreshing to see something engineered for the sake of being beautiful and cool, instead of worrying about BOM cost and margin.
Thought cool; clicked on the link; saw it was Teenage Engineering; and closed the tab.
Their track record consists of vastly overpriced and under-functioning products.
Every Teenage Engineering Product:
Damn I would buy this for 50 bucks.
I actually have a project that requires a bunch of custom vinyl, but I am guessing this is not economical.
I wonder if it can make a flexidisc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexi_disc
I remember to listening to some in my childhood and never understood why the tech was not the standard (relative to the brittle cumbersome vinyls). Maybe the sound quality is worse. Unsure
Not even a price listed. I don't understand the market for this - fancy musical instruments for creativity, sure, there's a market, but who wants to own cutting vinyl? How many records would you need to make for this to be more economical than paying a dedicated shop? How many would you need to do to "achieve higher quality"? How consistent are your results?
> direct drive precision polished tungsten shaft
Isn't marketing wonderful. Who cares what the motor shaft is made of? (and why not ordinary steel? tungsten just sounds cooler? they want to reuse it for a lightbulb filament later?)
Cool, but can it make parallel grooves like HENGE’s Journey to Voltus B?
https://www.outofrage.net/post/review-henge-journey-to-voltu...
Very cool.
I love this company and wish there was more like them.
Aren't vinyls typically pressed, not carved from a blank? I wonder how accurate they can actually get if they have to carve every notch into the groove.
Very strange.
It appears they’ll just rebrand a few record cutters and call it a product. TE always comes off as really low quality for the types of prices they charge.
The MPC Sample is 400$ and looks well built, the KO2 is 300$ and has faders falling off.
Roland has a few samplers in the same price range as well.
Price? If you have to ask, you can't afford it.
Fancy machine for just making dubplates.
Has anyone tried to 3d print vinyl?
Vestax actually did something similar in the early 2000s with the VRX-2000 lathe cutter. It cost around $10K back then.
The audio wasn't the best, but hey, you could make your own dubplates, and it did so in stereo!
APC is an interesting choice of name. A Professional record Cutter.
I wonder if they chose it because of the APC40, which is a delightful set of MIDI pads.
I looked and went, "WTF is that? Looks like a record cutting machine"
Scrolled down
WTAF
I'm a total TE fanboi, I have the OP1F and OP-XY, they're everything I ever wanted and my MPC and Digitakt haven't be touched in months. And the Digitone Keys is unplugged propped against the bookshelf. It's extraordinary how addictive these two little synths are for making things happen.
The APC-2, however, is a fascinating outcome of what happens when you have a bunch of creative people who like - and can - do things that are new to them and make them new to others. It's no wonder they keep getting asked to do cool stuff like Panic's Playdate, Baidu's Raven, Nothing Smartphones and Headphones.
TE have retained this incredible playful vibe that has long drained from Sony and Apple.
I've heard every lazy comment about hipsters and rich kids who are supposedly their target audience, and the cost of the products, as if the visible ingredients are all that accounting measure. Swiss watches cost orders of magnitude more than TE's amazing inventions, and their only purpose seems to be to remind the wearer how amazing they are when they look at it.
"God, I'm good," thought the Rolex wearer as he glanced at his wrist.
Hipsters will buy anything that looks cool. But that doesn’t mean anything that looks cool was made for them.
Inb4 all the commenters going “umm, why would I want this? I could simply burn a CD or make a Spotify playlist if I wanted to share music”
Why wouldn't you use an ADC and store music digitally?