3-D printer prints vinyl, slightly lossey, mild attenuation

[timcoalman]

http://www.wired.com/design/2012/12/3-d-printed-record/

While reading article some intermittent thoughts: ''

1) Add some grit and warmth to harsh digital files!
2) A new Lo-Fi tool!
3) The ability to sell digital downloads to vinyl enthusiasts who can match your release to their collection standards
4) Digital errors made manifest!
5) '?It?s surprising how much you can deform and down-sample an audio file and still recognize it,? says Amanda Ghassaei, assistant tech editor at Instructables,' - more surprising people will love and/or prefer MP3
6) Reminds me of the Nirvana book I read in high school where Cobain mentioned feeling Nevermind was entirely too clean and his thought was to play it through some tape deck/"ghetto blaster" and track, then release that version.

"For her printed records, Ghassaei sets the machine to its finest setting, 600 dpi, with 16 micron steps, about the highest quality available on the market. But it?s still far lower resolution than on a vinyl LP, by a factor of 10 or so; hence the muddled sound that results in part from the needle responding to the layering of the printed plastic. Ghassaei used an 11 Khz sampling rate ? the highest the resolution would allow, around 1/4 what you get from an MP3. Even at that low of a rate, the printer?s deficiencies cut off the song?s high-range tones."

Snark notwithstanding, I am curious to hear the quality as it improves.

[jgimbel]

These kind of technological advances always start out kind of slow and then improve exponentially, I'm definitely curious to see where this goes. It'd be nice to be able to do easy short-run vinyl.

[Smitty]

Hooray for this and hooray on you for posting it. Neat article.

[Nick Sevilla]

I loved this article.

And I happen to know someone who just ordered a 3-D printer...

[timcoalman]

I think relatively soon the process will be invaluable for many in Tape Op community. Having followed several of the articles on wired about 3D printers and printed objects, the entire technology is fascinating. After rendering a scan of something in 3D and printing, I think the DIY ethic of many here would result in us printing broken pieces on vintage gear, slight modification to existing piece of gear, experimenting with various choices before committing, sending out specs for people to print and then selling the final once approved, et cetera.

[kslight]

3D printing will be a life changer, I think, in many ways as already addressed here (making custom parts for obsolete/vintage gear, made to order vinyl, product design, etc). I've been very tempted to buy one, but the price is still quite high, and of course the quality (especially on the models that cost less than a car) is not there yet. But its getting there. In 5 years I bet most geeks will have them, in 15 almost everyone will have one.

[jhharvest]

I would be very surprised if 3d printers were ever used for printing vinyl for listening. The way they work makes it pretty damn difficult to get the resolution needed and printing would take ages.

[The Scum]

It seems to be that something like a 2.5 axis CNC machine would be pretty easy to program to cut a spiral groove into some sort of solid slab. Perhaps like a record lathe running at something slower than realtime.

It would totally avoid the granulatiry and fragility of the deposition methods.

Wav file to g-code converter, anyone?

[the finger genius]

I haven't had time to read the article yet, but don't you have to convert it to digital before "printing" the record? This seems like a novelty / fad, not sure what the actual value is of making a "vinyl" copy of a digital file.

[timcoalman]

Yes on converting to digital, in fact the original source in the Wired article is MP3; this is a vinyl rendering of an MP3. And without looking at it to confirm, I believe there was additional reduction in data to make due with current state-of-the-art standards in 3D capabilities. But still, one day...

[GooberNumber9]

I'm imagining a DJ creating a bunch of loops and then dropping them into their vinyl authoring program, 3D printing a plate, and then using their brand-new loops that same night at a gig. That would be cool.

[timcoalman]

http://33third.blogspot.com/2011/04/lat ... d.html?m=1

Portishead's Geoff Barrow and friends created loops and samples and then pressed to vinyl. When initially reading the Wired article I immediately thought of Barrow and others who would likely utilize the 3D printing. Perfect.

[dfuruta]

It seems to be that something like a 2.5 axis CNC machine would be pretty easy to program to cut a spiral groove into some sort of solid slab. Perhaps like a record lathe running at something slower than realtime.

It would totally avoid the granulatiry and fragility of the deposition methods.

Wav file to g-code converter, anyone?

I wondered about that also. If microgroove needles are 25 microns or less in diameter, seems that one might need a fairly expensive machine & some fairly expensive (and probably prone to breakage) bits to get the necessary resolution.

Would be very cool if it's possible, though!

[LowG]

This is interesting but certainly not the future of DYI vinyl. You can already cut your own for much cheaper than a 3D printer:
http://www.vinylrecorder.com/

3D printing is cool for making models and stuff but the limitations are not stressed very often (naturally).

[calaverasgrandes]

meh, on the enterprise we have replicators.
Earl grey hot.
Can you print tea?