Gakken Toy Record Maker: Ovservations and Questions

[Dusty]

Cool mrd! Any idea where I can get an Astatic m-41? Do you know of any other compatible cutter heads that would not require modification of my m-12?
Thank!

[mrd]

Usual places - here, scouring eBay, classifieds, try record cutters guild on fb - think Mike had some for sale on there.
That's a laydown head though right? Might be worth looking into if you can make a bracket or mount as it will open up what you could put on there, though the laydown heads seem to go for less money so... depends on what you want I guess. Mine's a M12S and the mounting bracket on that is for an upright head. In terms of what's a straight fit then someone else would have to chime in but I think most things can be made to fit one way or another with the right mounting adapter (might need to have this machined). Good luck!

[Dusty]

mrd,
Do you know of any other cutter heads that will work without modifying the m-12 other than the Astatic m-41?

[Dusty]

Cool, thanks!

[chaosbc]

Hi there,
What I found very surprising is the fact that this device cuts with a tungsten stylus. I did not know it was possible.
It should not be too hard to resharpen.

[urieldeveaud]

Hi there, i am using this gakken toy form about 6 months and tried many techniques on it..


For me, this was working quite well, even if i still have some background noise. The quality of the cut is good, bass, mid and high are fine.
some of my techniques used to improve quality:
- grease on any moving parts (sliding arm, reducer and plate)
- no RIAA but a nice curve with freq. cuts 150Hrz-12k Hrz on external digital EQ)*
- hot lamp over the discs for about 5min before cutting
- getting the plastic out of the disc from outside of the recorder (not to the center)
- full stability of the recorder, set on the base, no vibration from outside

Now, as it is, i am looking to build some mods for it:
- an little box on the side with Integrated EQ IN/OUT
- Replacing integrated amp into the same little box
- trying to automate the lead in
- motor control with infos (LCD screen option)
- Levels visualizers (in/out)

Does anyone got some mods for it ? i am very curious to look at other works..
i know this toy is only a basic processing device, but i am learning a lot from it, things that i cant really test on my other 12" custom cutter. and it is very fun too.
hope to get some comments and new techniques to try, thanks guys, have a great day
uriel

[mrd]

Now, as it is, i am looking to build some mods for it:

- trying to automate the lead in

for this you need to add a separate motor for the pitch. There is enough space for a small DC turntable motor internally in the corner - I used something from an old turntable I had lying around. You need to make a solid mounting point and then work out how you are going to control the speed of this motor. It's all doable and I'm sure other people might have different ideas, but pretty simple solutions can be an off the shelf motor control board possibly with a notched pot or otherwise variable way of switching between the lead in or pitch speed, or would be pretty straightforward to do with an arduino and some basic coding in which case you can do whatever you like in terms of timing the lead in and various other behaviours. I can dig out and upload some internal photos of my quick and dirty setup if that helps

[urieldeveaud]

thx mrd, looks very interesting, i have a couple of arduino i dont use, so i will go this solution.. i also have a set of components for it, pots, screens,etc..
lets see what can be done,
yes, it would be fabulous to see some pictures of your work here

[CutR]

thx mrd, looks very interesting, i have a couple of arduino i dont use, so i will go this solution.. i also have a set of components for it, pots, screens,etc..
lets see what can be done,
yes, it would be fabulous to see some pictures of your work here

What did you use to mount the motor in the case, do you have any pics of the install?

[mrd]

Here's the motor mounted and the position. There's a screw hole underneath that stick on foam I've used to mount an angled corner brace on if you want. I also drilled through the rear of the case to add another steel 90 degree corner brace to mount to the top of the motor and for stability as pictured the two screw holes line up and are secured with a nut and bolt though you could easily glue this. The motor is run from an external power supply and off the shelf PWM based DC motor controller - shown working in the instagram link earlier (here again if you want: https://www.instagram.com/p/CP3KXQqHsNv/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link)



Another fun mod here the original motor has an upper and lower limit adjust (which you can access without taking the backplate off like I have done here) using the two flatblade screws. It's possible to adjust this and then splice a variable resistor inline to have control over the speed of the turntable working backwards from the highest value. By doing this the 33/45 switch does not work as expected and the control over speed comes from the variable resistor (as long as you have the unit set to 45 on the switch.. you could bypass this entirely if you wanted i guess, though I've not done this personally).

[CutR]

Thank you very much for posting this mr d, nice install mate. This gives me a much better idea of what i need to do.

Thank you very much sir.

[mrd]

Thank you very much for posting this mr d, nice install mate. This gives me a much better idea of what i need to do.

Thank you very much sir.

No worries dude, good luck with the install. Got some ideas for upgrading the cutterhead too but need some time! Will keep you posted if I get round to it

[boryo]

Impressive ideas guys! Looks like this is a great candidate for mods! The same happened with Numark PT01 and the world exploded Good job!

[mrd]

Impressive ideas guys! Looks like this is a great candidate for mods! The same happened with Numark PT01 and the world exploded Good job!

Oh yeah man, a whole little scene of mods like that would be cool Someone should get retrofitting a better cartridge/tonearm Jesse Dean style..

[CutR]

Impressive ideas guys! Looks like this is a great candidate for mods! The same happened with Numark PT01 and the world exploded Good job!

Oh yeah man, a whole little scene of mods like that would be cool Someone should get retrofitting a better cartridge/tonearm Jesse Dean style..

Cartridge wise, I'm not 100% sure. But this looks like it could be a direct upgrade for the crappy original.

[SKRTM]

Hi all! My name is Andrey. I bought Gakken recorder 2 weeks ago, Gakken is my first lathe, so I do not have a big experience in cutting/embossing records. But I think I achieved not bad results with this "toy".
I spent much time to experiments with this lathe (different EQ settings, weight, rotate stylus for 180degree, cut on CDs...), so now I using 0.6 PETG plastic and cut blanks using scissors) I added 15g additional weight (coin on my video). And find head resonance near 400Hz and 2.8kHz using tone test. Also I use RIAA curve, I cut all bass after 80Hz, cut a bit 400Hz and 2.8Hz also I added a bit more gain after 800Hz, also use compression - 3:1. I know it is not a maximum quality and settings can be better, but for now I'm happy with this results, one thing emboss records have a bad tracking on real record turntables. Maybe some one know the tips how improve quality and tracking (without adding the weight)? Also I bought a 0.6 PVC plastic plate? (sorry English is not my native language) and continue experiments on the next week

Video link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MHfspVheYgXKyBQIYpCWa0ZwhTu4YRWN/view?usp=sharing
Audio from Gakken: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wXjkEaLyiBhhyU1O-u-W4e7hhGHPK8Ao/view?usp=sharing

[discosdecorte]

Hi!

This is suspiciously similar, right?
https://teenage.engineering/products/po-80

Edit: Yuri Suzuki name on it, so it seems legit

BR,
Fer

[markrob]

Hi,

I just ordered one to play with. Should be fun to hack. It is definitely tied in with Gakken as stated on the site. It seems be a newer updated version. Teenage Engineering has some cool low cost synths and I think they will be better able to market and support this. They even have an online file processing service to make it somewhat idiot proof. I can see lots of areas to hack. I'll report back when I get my unit. The sound samples sound quite good as a low-fi cutter.

Mark

[concreteutopia]

To emboss on the Gakken, do you flip the cutter end over end so the flat end is against the record or is it rotating the needle in a circular motion 180?

My first cuts on the stock blanks sound pretty decent in a lofi warbly way. I’m impressed considering its a toy kit.

I also ordered some Blanq discs…is it a for sure way to destroy the cutter? Any adjustments to be made?

[abracadaniel]

To emboss on the Gakken, do you flip the cutter end over end so the flat end is against the record or is it rotating the needle in a circular motion 180?

I would also like to know this - I'm still new to this record maker but I'm still struggling to understand why the softer BLANQs are harder to cut and easier to emboss. Wouldn't softer material be easier to cut not emboss?

Also, what are the normal PO-80 / Gakken Record Maker blanks made of? Is there anywhere I can source them other than the replacements the branded replacements?