Vinyl Recorder, a small company based in Germany, has created a machine that carves MP3s into vinyl, thereby marrying audio's future with its past.
After setting up the machine and learning its ropes, you can transfer any MP3 in your possession onto your own personal mix-tape-on-vinyl. But why go through the trouble if you love digital? Wesley Wolfe, Vinyl Recorder’s representative in the United States, explained that, with vinyl’s resurgence in recent years, music listeners -- and not just audiophiles -- are rediscovering vinyl’s quintessential "warm" sound.
Digital files, he said, have laddered sound waves. But when you transfer MP3s onto vinyl using Vinyl Recorder’s machine, the sound waves are smoothed out. The result, Wolfe said, is a so-called audio “sweet spot” only achieved on vinyl.
To see just how the process works, watch the video embedded above the article.
7. "The video says you can use any audio source - even tape" In response to Reply # 5 Mon Mar-17-14 01:43 PM by c71
MP3 is just what the written article says. The video says anything (tape, mic's/mixers).
But for MP3 both the video and the written article say the square compressed wave forms of MP3's (and CD's) can be "smoothed out" by the "cutting needle" of the vinyl recorder because the vinyl recorder cutting "needle" (I guess) can't make a "rigid 90 degree "shift" to make a digital wave's exact waveform.
So........
If I got a bunch of MP3's and I for some reason want a certain track to sound more "smoothed around the edges", I would probably want to put it on vinyl (hoping, of course, that the sound wouldn't deteriorate too much in the transfer process).
Since the video say you can use anything as a source, I would if I had the $$$$ would put some live recording of me and a band recorded with tube mic on some 2 inch tape to the vinyl disc probably using a mixer too (very loud) to get a full analog tube-y vinyl blow-out experience. I'd do that way more than transfer MP3's to vinyl.
It's essentially a lathe cut. The guy who does it in the US went and was *certified* in the process across the pond.
Regardless of what the source is (We used high quality master files (24/48) as far as vinyl sound goes the audio is pretty bad. It's just not an audiophile process but more a quick way to put anything on vinyl. A novelty item which worked for what we were doing (our vinyl is actually more about audio book than music) but is hardly about getting good sound.
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