Laser cut records made from wood?
LokoOne
1,823 Posts
Sorry if its a latte pass - I did a search and nada came up but I'd assume something like this would have made it onto the boards by now.
Forget vinyl, engineer produces the world's first laser-cut records made from WOOD
By VICTORIA WOOLLASTON
You can now turn your favourite music downloads into playable records made from materials you have lying around the house.
Amanda Ghassaei, 24, from San Francisco has created the world's first laser-cut wooden records using songs from Radiohead and Joy Division.
Software engineer Amanda Ghassaei has created a way of creating wooden records using laser cutters. She turned MP3 downloads into waveforms and then used the lasers to cut these waveforms into the wood.
The grooves in Ghassaei's wooden records are twice as thick as vinyl records because the laser's resolution is larger than the vinyl presses. The tracks still play but it means that only three minutes of a song can fit onto the side of a record. It also means the quality isn't as good as vinyl
Ghassaei previously used 3D printers to print records from her MP3 downloads. She wanted to find a way for people without 3D printers to make their own records, and has designed a way of making records out of paper, acrylic and wood.
Ghassaei created a digital waveform file from the MP3 and converted into a PDF. Needles on a record player pick up vibrations based on the shape of the record's surface. The waveform was then cut into the wood using lasers to create the 'shape' of the song.
Because the resolution of the laser is thicker than the vinyl record presses so Ghassaei had to make the grooves twice as larger as they would be on a vinyl record. This means that a wooden record can only fit around three minutes of song onto one side, and this means the song becomes more distorted as the needle moves towards the centre of the record because the sampling rate decreases.
Ghassaei explains that if people don't have a laser cutter, they could try a CNC mill or a CNC razor blade paper cutter.
Full article with more videos here: wooden vinyl?
The vimeo she posted of one sounds like shit though...
Forget vinyl, engineer produces the world's first laser-cut records made from WOOD
By VICTORIA WOOLLASTON
You can now turn your favourite music downloads into playable records made from materials you have lying around the house.
Amanda Ghassaei, 24, from San Francisco has created the world's first laser-cut wooden records using songs from Radiohead and Joy Division.
Software engineer Amanda Ghassaei has created a way of creating wooden records using laser cutters. She turned MP3 downloads into waveforms and then used the lasers to cut these waveforms into the wood.
The grooves in Ghassaei's wooden records are twice as thick as vinyl records because the laser's resolution is larger than the vinyl presses. The tracks still play but it means that only three minutes of a song can fit onto the side of a record. It also means the quality isn't as good as vinyl
Ghassaei previously used 3D printers to print records from her MP3 downloads. She wanted to find a way for people without 3D printers to make their own records, and has designed a way of making records out of paper, acrylic and wood.
Ghassaei created a digital waveform file from the MP3 and converted into a PDF. Needles on a record player pick up vibrations based on the shape of the record's surface. The waveform was then cut into the wood using lasers to create the 'shape' of the song.
Because the resolution of the laser is thicker than the vinyl record presses so Ghassaei had to make the grooves twice as larger as they would be on a vinyl record. This means that a wooden record can only fit around three minutes of song onto one side, and this means the song becomes more distorted as the needle moves towards the centre of the record because the sampling rate decreases.
Ghassaei explains that if people don't have a laser cutter, they could try a CNC mill or a CNC razor blade paper cutter.
Full article with more videos here: wooden vinyl?
The vimeo she posted of one sounds like shit though...
Radiohead - Idioteque - Laser Cut Wood Record from Amanda Ghassaei on Vimeo.
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