I tested cutting with this today but it came out very wobbly — not sure why pitch would be unstable but I wonder if it’s related to how I hold it? More tests necessary.

Back to the Sylvania, which is available for $28 in pink… $32 in other colors. Easy decision; people must have terrible taste not to want pink.

Good news on record time, though; 1:16 worth of Starfucker fit on the DVD at top. Partially due to the K’nex piece I’m now using as a turntable clamp, which opens up the last few seconds of space on the disc.

I still need to build an arm or mount for this, but it’s the first record cutter I’ve made that doesn’t require any tools except scissors to make. Instead of disassembling a speaker to get the voice coil, I drove a pin directly through the cone of a speaker. To stiffen the “ball-end,” I drove it through a piece of stiff card paper, which you can see taped to the speaker side.

The vibration is plenty strong to cut grooves, so I’m optimistic that we’re one step closer to an easy-to-build kit.

Update

http://spectragram.org

This is my current setup to cut records — trying to keep it as portable as possible, as I’m typically recording people in person now. My goal is to do a lot of recording as I improve the design, so that I learn more about what works and doesn’t through real use. Also, I learn what’s truly portable and durable enough to travel with!

The new v2 cutter is really nice and small (see yesterday’s post). And it’s quite high fidelity — see this recording I did yesterday off an MP3: