A new way to make your own records

[bitewerksMTB]

http://www.wired.com/design/2012/12/3-d-printed-record/

You can make guns & records on 3-D Printers! I would imagine the ATF will show up eventually about the guns though.

[Zeno Marx]

That link didn't work for me, but I've been having problems with my IP.  Another article with a Vimeo clip of how awful they sound.  Still a cool deal, though.

from the coder:
http://www.instructables.com/id/3D-Printed-Record/

article:
http://readwrite.com/2012/12/29/heres-what-a-3d-printed-record-sounds-like-video

"For one thing, this method of creating records is pretty expensive. Between printer usage time and the raw materials needed to print a 12-inch disc, it probably costs several hundred dollars per record. For the price tag of two or three 3D-printed records, you could press 100 real vinyl albums."

"The audio on the records is very low resolution, it has a sampling rate of 11kHz (a quarter of typical mp3 audio) and 5-6bit resolution (less than one thousandth of the resolution of typical 16 bit audio), but the result is easily recognizable."

"this is the max quality you can get at 33rpm with the resolution of the printer, you could get a higher sampling rate with 45 or 78rpm (up to ~22khz with 78) but you can fit less music on a side. right now you can fit about 5-6min of audio on a side. check out the instructable if you're curious, I've posted a lot of information there."

[HongKongGoolagong]

Always fun to see new methods of audio preservation.

As far as GOOD vinyl reproduction goes, the best experience I ever had was pressing this album - http://rateyourmusic.com/artist/intravenous_in_furs___ape_shit - both sides sorta out there and insane rock music with noise elements, one side a short-lived local band with me singing, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSnEkpPuZAM . Paid for an edition of 100 with an east German company called RAND Muzik cos I had some spare money and wanted to release a crazy uncommercial album in a tiny edition. These RAND Muzik people (who mostly specialise in dance 12"s I believe) did one of the most amazing and perfect mastering jobs I could have imagined.

[Jordan]

There's also been this recently:

http://boingboing.net/2012/12/28/working-record-made-from-ice.html

Amazing about the 3-D printer though. Hopefully they become more accurate and the sound will be better than a badly cut lathe. Still amazing that they can actually do that fine of a printing job.

That link didn't work for me, but I've been having problems with my IP.  Another article with a Vimeo clip of how awful they sound.  Still a cool deal, though.

from the coder:
http://www.instructables.com/id/3D-Printed-Record/

article:
http://readwrite.com/2012/12/29/heres-what-a-3d-printed-record-sounds-like-video

"For one thing, this method of creating records is pretty expensive. Between printer usage time and the raw materials needed to print a 12-inch disc, it probably costs several hundred dollars per record. For the price tag of two or three 3D-printed records, you could press 100 real vinyl albums."

"The audio on the records is very low resolution, it has a sampling rate of 11kHz (a quarter of typical mp3 audio) and 5-6bit resolution (less than one thousandth of the resolution of typical 16 bit audio), but the result is easily recognizable."

"this is the max quality you can get at 33rpm with the resolution of the printer, you could get a higher sampling rate with 45 or 78rpm (up to ~22khz with 78) but you can fit less music on a side. right now you can fit about 5-6min of audio on a side. check out the instructable if you're curious, I've posted a lot of information there."

Considering all this stuff is still relatively new, maybe in ten years it'll be affordable and high quality.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

yeah, I read about this in finnish media.
First when I was reading "printed records", I thought about this digital file preserving system that's available for free. You print out complex barcode type things, which contains the data of digital file. Then anytime you can scan it back on computer and transform back to digital file. Works as hard-copy storage of important files. I assume it works most of all for small files of text/databases etc. Would imagine saving music as barcode would be impossible, heh.. Was reading about it from science magazine. Program is free of charge. 10 codes fits per A4 sheet, so they're much bigger than usual barcodes. Even if somewhat nerdy idea, instead all those silly download cards, I think better would be to just have booklet of those barcodes, hah..