3D printer (3D Printed Record by Amanda Ghassaei)

[Masterlabs]

http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/21/3790224/joy-division-and-daft-punk-reproduced-with-3d-printed-records

[chaosbc]

Interresting....and I am convinced eventually, they will make it.
That said, I don't understand why the article mentioned sampling and bitrates : Ok the source is maybe digital but in the end, the stylus is playing a physical groove so I am not sure it really makes sense.

[jjgolden]

Interesting!
Funny, I think that's the sound of the printer mechanics you can hear on both recordings...?...

JJG

[Angus McCarthy]

This pretty much confirms what we determined in the earlier discussion - that the current resolution of 3D printers is no where near high enough to reproduce anything approaching even a Recordio could produce! Just a matter of time, though.

[opcode66]

My thoughts exactly. And, once we are there it would mean that we would have far more accurate stepper motors. For those who still want to cut conventionally, at that point in time, we could change out to using stepper motors for platter and feed.

[Steve E.]

A how-to by Amanda on Instructables:

http://www.instructables.com/id/3D-Printed-Record/?ALLSTEPS

3D Printed Record

[Steve E.]

The original article, reproduced for archival purposes:

http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/21/3790224/joy-division-and-daft-punk-reproduced-with-3d-printed-records

Joy Division and Daft Punk songs reproduced with 3D-printed records

We've seen numerous objects created with 3D printing, but Amanda Ghassaei has been working on a rather specific use of the technology: using it to help turn digital audio files into albums you can play on your record player. In a detailed post at Instructables, she covers the testing and production process — she used "Debaser" by The Pixies as a demo track — needed to create the 33rpm records. Ghassaei has gone on to create records of songs from a number of different artists, including New Order, Joy Division, Radiohead, and Nine Inch Nails. Links to several of the 3D printing files needed to recreate them are even provided, allowing readers with the right equipment to try their own hand at printing records.

Unfortunately, the sound quality won't be acceptable to the high-end audiophile. Even with a 600 dpi printer capable of rendering layers just 16 microns thick, the audio from the records has a sampling rate of 11khz at a resolution of up to 6 bits — a fraction of what's provided by even a mediocre MP3 file. However, she writes that her goal with this specific project was to simply "produce something recognizable by approximating the groove shape as accurately as possible with the tools I had" — and in that goal she has clearly succeeded.

Audio Tests