Progress at the record company

Big improvements today; I bought a spindle of 100 DVDs, as they’re really beautiful purple and, well, we only cut records into the most gorgeous materials at my record company (still without a name).

But more importantly, major progress on transcribing longer continuous audio, and even some in recording at the correct pitch, more or less. Check out this test, where I also recorded the audio from the output.

Still quite muffled, but doing a lot better than before. And I timed myself, I can get about 1 minute onto a disc, holding the stylus by hand. I think when I automate tracking, we could probably fit up to 2 minutes.

One issue is that I’m having trouble cutting deep enough on the outer edge. I plan to try adding more weight or possibly swapping for a sharper needle.

Anyhow, here’s a great photo where you can see the waveforms. This was when I was using too high a volume, and the stylus couldn’t follow these lines. But they looked beautiful!

IMG_20160325_225721

Update: More progress, this time cutting on a record player with a heavier platter, which worked really well:

Again, this work is inspired by that of rubixcube6 on YouTube.