For all of the advances in music know-how, slicing a vinyl file stays one of many trade’s most unique crafts, counting on decades-old machines and a shrinking variety of specialists. Teenage Engineering thinks it’s time that modified.
Its reply is the APC-2, an expert record-cutting lathe developed with analogue specialists SUPERSENSE. Designed to make vinyl slicing extra accessible with out compromising on sound high quality or craftsmanship, the 104kg, made-to-order machine cuts authentic playback discs in actual time, with out the necessity for a conventional urgent plant.
The APC-2 pairs a stereo suggestions slicing head with a direct-drive motor, built-in amplifier and vacuum pump, alongside Ethernet and Wi-Fi connectivity for distant management and DAW integration.
The purpose, says Teenage Engineering, is to “modernise file slicing” by making the method extra accessible to artists, studios and small-scale producers.
In accordance with TE, a lot of right this moment’s vinyl trade nonetheless depends on restored classic lathes such because the Neumann VMS70 and VMS80, whereas the variety of engineers able to sustaining them continues to dwindle. Constructing a contemporary equal isn’t merely a matter of copying outdated designs both, with the slicing head remaining probably the most troublesome parts to breed.
Which is why the corporate has teamed up with Swiss inventor Flo Kaufmann, whose DIALBA slicing heads are recognized to rival (and even exceed) the efficiency of the originals, to create their very own skilled cutter.
The result’s an all-in-one slicing machine that mixes the slicing {hardware} with a vacuum suction system, customized playback tonearm, built-in amplification, energy provide and Wi-Fi configuration.
However Teenage Engineering believes the APC-2’s greatest promoting level isn’t technical.
“Historically, slicing a file meant coming into a closed system that required entry, approval, a file label, and sources,” the corporate says. “For a very long time, the machine itself acted as a gatekeeper. We hope the APC–2 can start to take away that barrier. In that sense, the APC–2 modernises file slicing and modifications who will get to do it, and the way.”
The group behind SUPERSENSE believes that might open the door to a wholly totally different method of constructing data.
“It would sound bold, however the dream is evident: that this machine will result in tens of millions of data that might by no means have existed by conventional urgent vegetation. We’re not making an attempt to compete with large-scale manufacturing. We’re opening up one thing totally different.”
As an alternative of changing standard urgent vegetation, the imaginative and prescient is for the APC-2 for use for small-batch releases, data minimize on demand and even stay performances changed into bodily data moments after they’ve occurred.
“That is about accessibility: small editions, data on demand, totally different styles and sizes, made wherever… It’s about creating a brand new atmosphere for making data. Not factories, however lovely areas the place sound may be captured and changed into a bodily object in the identical second.”
“I don’t but know precisely the way it scales globally, however that’s the route. It’s about altering the connection folks have with data. On the similar time, we need to introduce the machine slowly, study from it, and perceive how folks truly need to use it. What do they make? What do they want? How can we transfer past the boundaries of the outdated system?”
Study extra at Teenage Engineering.
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