Here's What a 3D-Printed Record Sounds Like

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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Just because you can, doesn’t always mean you should. Case in point; it is now possible to take your favorite 12” vinyl record (for those of you old enough to ever have one) and print out a copy using your handy-dandy 3D printer. It’s possible, but why? The cost alone is prohibitive and most of the sound quality is left in the scrap plastic at the bottom of the printer. :D

That's because even at the highest resolutions available in 3D printing, you can print audio grooves only fine enough to capture a fraction of the resolution and sampling rate of a even decent-sounding MP3.
Click to expand...
 
I was under the impression that the people who like Vinyl's argument is that digital can never sound as good as an analog media. Doesn't 3D printing (at any resolution) totally negate that "advantage" and thereby make the resulting media inferior in all possible ways, even if they did get the resolution up?

The only reason I can see to playing 3D printed records over the digital originals is personal smugness.
 
Vinyl sounds different, though I would not always argue better.

This seems more like a, "because we can", sort of thing. I really can't wait for the tech to get to the point where the resolution is high enough, the printing mediums strong enough, and the costs low enough, to make these things more useful than as mockup tools.
 
Quix said:
I was under the impression that the people who like Vinyl's argument is that digital can never sound as good as an analog media. Doesn't 3D printing (at any resolution) totally negate that "advantage" and thereby make the resulting media inferior in all possible ways, even if they did get the resolution up?

The only reason I can see to playing 3D printed records over the digital originals is personal smugness.
Click to expand...

Do you honestly believe they were doing this because they really wanted a copy? ;-) It's a proof of concept... a "because we can".

:p
 
At first I was like "Man that sounds like complete ass" ... then I remembered it was Nirvana *rimshot*
 
this would be GREAT for preserving the wax cylinder recordings that are over a 100 years old, if they can perfect it.
 
you can get 1 off vinyls cut into acetate for a lot less than what it probably cost to 3d print that vinyl... very cool tech demo though
 
3D printing is interesting to say the least. I would love to have one of those machines. It has alot of possibilities. I agree that printing a vinyl is a proof on concept if not a "because we can". However, I also think it's a very good way to keep a digital backup (a kind of .iso) of something. Ultimately, I believe that as time goes on, 3D printing will mature and maybe morph into something else that will end up hitting the masses like crazy...similar to what social networking did. Unless it remains in the hands of a select few and then it will become a manufacturing process just for producing cheaper goods. Who's to say for sure? Sony's Walkman teaches us alot about this sorta thing. So does the idea of the telegraph. At the very least, 3D printing already has the perfect means to create molds for other things. That in itself makes it worthy to spend money on.

On a secondary note:
When I clicked on the link and went to the site a funny thing happened. The webpage would continuously refresh without letting me do anything. It's because of the filtering I have in place to prevent outside cookie tracking. When this sorta thing happens...it tells me that sites like that are to be avoided. Not because I had an issue within my browser, but because of the way they code using cookies tracking.
 
This would be cool once the resolution of 3D printing goes up. You can scan an original album, fix the scratches, re-cut the album.

A lot of the problem with Album transfers when CD's first appeared is that they were also 're-mastered'. They weren't faithful attempts at reproducing the vinyl edition deliberately (somebody thought they could mix it better). Or they didn't have the original tracks to go direct to CD. Eventually they'll be able to do a true reproduction provided the album is in reasonably good condition.
 
Wow, this is really cool.

I can't wait for further advancement of 3d printing.
 
wtf, what is the point of this? Sounds like shit, we've got mp3 decoders that sound really good packaged up in a player for less than $10? Why?
 
Forget the jibber jabber. I find it amazing that 3d printing has progressed into this level of resolution.
It was able to reproduce the low frequency music but the upper range wasn't there. But still we are talking microscopic detail. AMAZING!
 
sfsuphysics said:
At first I was like "Man that sounds like complete ass" ... then I remembered it was Nirvana *rimshot*
Click to expand...

Ouch. Nirvana fan here. :)

Reminds me of driving in the middle of no where with a radio station barely working.

Proof of concept, and it's nice that it works. The technology will keep improving. Hell, if you can create a perfect 1:1 copy of a vinyl record, that would be very accurate when to comes to creating other objects with tiny components.
 
The science behind the analog/digital comparison is real. The ear is an analog device, and the sharp turns of a digital wave form.... even a high sampling rate one... still leaves some with a feeling that something is "off".

Though most of society has long forgotten or has never heard real high quality "hi-fi", some of us remember.

I've been trying to work out how to design a 21st century version of "vacuum tubes" to be used as the output stage of audio amplifiers, even on our motherboards. The analog nature of a tube's function acts as a high resolution "integrator" that smooths the resulting waveform in a way that the information fidelity is maintained, but the human ear finds it a warmer pleasant feeling. A better way of removing the "harshness" of transistor switching.
This is the concept used in super high end audiophile amplifiers, though current supplies of old design perfectly matched high quality tubes is part of the extreme costs of the amps.

A lot easier way of accomplishing making a "record" would be to have am aluminum coated ceramic disk, and have a laser cut the "grooves" into the surface.... not as Morse code on a CD/DVD but literally as analog grooves just as the grooves in a vinyl record are melted into the plastic.
 
For those asking why, it is just proof of concept and a bit of a check to see where the tech is at. Sure you could get a dubplate cut in acetate for cheaper and it is crappier sounding than even a low bit rate mp3, but it will get better. For any audio type people, that has around 6 bits and a sample rate that is pretty low (~10k) as well. The fact that the tech has moved to this point from where it was just a few years ago would make me think that in 5-10 years you will be able to print vinyl quality stuff on a consumer ($1000 or less) 3d printer though. That is pretty cool.
 
This test was flawed from start to finish. First Stereolithography can reproduce the grooves, I've heard a record that was made on a good 3D printer (think about 30k to start for the cost of the printer) from a good sound source. The recording industry was thinking of going this way back in 2008. I have no idea what happened to that idea. Records will always have issues with long runs and Bass. So if you start from something that was fit to a record and can get an accurate copy of the grooves that were used on an actual record not some crappy MP3 copy that when smoothed out has major issues. Like say from Processing the author used... Then you will be able to print out either a CNC image or using a Stereolithography 3D printer a good copy of the record. Right now it does not make sense as they only Stereolithography printers are all very expensive and Form 1 is still going to cost 3 to 5 dollars. The rest of the 3D printers simply don't have the resolution be anything other than a toy.

You might be able to scan a record and create a height map but if the grove goes under the surface at an angle your screwed. If there is not original record in good quality you will have to remaster the groove placement and good luck with that engineers got paid a lot of money back in the day to do that part. It would be cheaper and simpler to just buy a few extra copies of your records or setup a good receiver and tube amp. The tube amp and a good quality source will sound better than the record especially if you like music with bass lines in it.
 
Most hipsters I know own vinyls for "aesthetic purposes." Not to play them. This has the novelty of actually putting them on a vinyl, because the paper's not much good for anything else at that point.
 
xX_Jack_Carver_Xx said:
The science behind the analog/digital comparison is real. The ear is an analog device, and the sharp turns of a digital wave form.... even a high sampling rate one... still leaves some with a feeling that something is "off".

Though most of society has long forgotten or has never heard real high quality "hi-fi", some of us remember.

I've been trying to work out how to design a 21st century version of "vacuum tubes" to be used as the output stage of audio amplifiers, even on our motherboards. The analog nature of a tube's function acts as a high resolution "integrator" that smooths the resulting waveform in a way that the information fidelity is maintained, but the human ear finds it a warmer pleasant feeling. A better way of removing the "harshness" of transistor switching.
This is the concept used in super high end audiophile amplifiers, though current supplies of old design perfectly matched high quality tubes is part of the extreme costs of the amps.

A lot easier way of accomplishing making a "record" would be to have am aluminum coated ceramic disk, and have a laser cut the "grooves" into the surface.... not as Morse code on a CD/DVD but literally as analog grooves just as the grooves in a vinyl record are melted into the plastic.
Click to expand...
Any shortcoming in digital vs. can be overcome. Most of the shortcomings people are familiar with come form the economy of space needed in the 80's and 90's which is no longer really an issue.

One problem, is that the CD is about two bits short of where it should be as well as about 10-20% lower in sample frequency than it should be. If it wasn't for that, the vast majority of those who could tell the difference would no longer be able to.

The other problem is reconstruction. The easiest thing to do is to do stair steps going from one sample to another and then smooth that with some filter. The ideal would be a curve fit reconstruction. The problem is that to get the best reproduction, you need to encode with knowledge of how its going to get reconstructed.

Compress issues can be overcome by doing lossless which is quite doable now.
 
xX_Jack_Carver_Xx said:
A lot easier way of accomplishing making a "record" would be to have am aluminum coated ceramic disk, and have a laser cut the "grooves" into the surface.... not as Morse code on a CD/DVD but literally as analog grooves just as the grooves in a vinyl record are melted into the plastic.
Click to expand...

Or just have a SACD?

But anyway, you cant actually tell the difference once the sample rate goes over a certain level as your brain doesn't "sample" fast enough. Audiophiles write lots of crap about this and invent lots of psedoscience terms, but you shouldn't really pay any attention to them.

Not done by idiots, digital sounds more like the thing that was actually recorded, even done by professionals analog never does. Vaccum tubes and other analog components don't make it sound like the original, it makes it sound like a lower quality version of the original with blur placed on it and ever decreasing quality. Now people like blur and "soft focus" because it helps to hide crap. Of course, if you want blur (or the ever annoying "warmth" aka crackle) you can just place it (digitally) on the recording then output it to something clean and there will be no decernable difference.
 
DeathPrincess said:
Or just have a SACD?

But anyway, you cant actually tell the difference once the sample rate goes over a certain level as your brain doesn't "sample" fast enough. Audiophiles write lots of crap about this and invent lots of psedoscience terms, but you shouldn't really pay any attention to them.

Not done by idiots, digital sounds more like the thing that was actually recorded, even done by professionals analog never does. Vaccum tubes and other analog components don't make it sound like the original, it makes it sound like a lower quality version of the original with blur placed on it and ever decreasing quality. Now people like blur and "soft focus" because it helps to hide crap. Of course, if you want blur (or the ever annoying "warmth" aka crackle) you can just place it (digitally) on the recording then output it to something clean and there will be no decernable difference.
Click to expand...

Pretty much the last of what you said. I always hated that crackle as it does nothing but detract from what I'm listening too. Same thing for the imperfections in film vs digital. I had a fantastic high fidelity setup years back with vinyl. It was nowhere near the quality that a good lossless digital can achieve. Some people are just snobs for the sake of being snobs despite being wrong.
 
DeathPrincess said:
Or just have a SACD?

But anyway, you cant actually tell the difference once the sample rate goes over a certain level as your brain doesn't "sample" fast enough. Audiophiles write lots of crap about this and invent lots of psedoscience terms, but you shouldn't really pay any attention to them.

Not done by idiots, digital sounds more like the thing that was actually recorded, even done by professionals analog never does. Vaccum tubes and other analog components don't make it sound like the original, it makes it sound like a lower quality version of the original with blur placed on it and ever decreasing quality. Now people like blur and "soft focus" because it helps to hide crap. Of course, if you want blur (or the ever annoying "warmth" aka crackle) you can just place it (digitally) on the recording then output it to something clean and there will be no decernable difference.
Click to expand...

the problem simply comes down to retarded recording engineers I think, I have SACDs that sound terrible, I can hear the distortion in really high resolution though

ironically in the whole analog vs digital thing most of the music I listen to was originally recorded onto 24 track 2" tape then transfered to SACD...

theres actually a group trying to make new runs of 1/4" 1/2 track and 1/4 track open reel tapes, that would be cool, but too expensive at the moment... would give me something to play on this Otari I have sitting in my sound system :D

I have mixed feelings about "hipsters" on one side I am glad they have created a demand (even if artificial) for vinyl and it seems now more and more are hovering towards reel to reel machines, since even back in the day it was superior to vinyl (quality does not degrade as you go along the tape vs vinyl where quality degrades the closer you get to the center of the lp) ... but then they are also driving up the price of old stereo equipment, especially on ebay... sometimes quite a bit... saw an Otari MX5050 go for over $1k on ebay! I remember when $200 was a lot for one of those, you know, like a year ago... sigh... get off my lawn!
 
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