Laser Cut Wooden Record

Amanda Ghassaei has produced the world’s first laser-cut vinyl disc made of wood, made using a 3D printer and cut with grooves up to ten times the width of standard vinyl.

Software engineer Amanda Ghassaei from San Franscisco has created a way of creating wooden records using laser cutters. She turned MP3 downloads into wave forms and then used the lasers to cut these wave forms into the wood.

Ghassaei’s first output includes The Velvet Underground’s ‘Femme Fatale’ and ‘Sunday Morning’ etched on maple, and a copy of Radiohead’s ‘Idioteque’ printed on ply. As you can probably guess — they don’t sound great. These wooden laser-cut versions are more of an experiment about what is possible rather than an attempt to best vinyl. Due to the limitations of the the wood and lasers involved, the grooves are significantly larger than vinyl records, and the turntable has to be set to 33.3 RPM just to be able to fit one song per side.






You could say it sounds a bit 'grainy' (groan). I'm wondering if using a very hard tighter grain of wood you could improve on the quality  And what size needle do you need for a groove which is ten times wider than a standard vinyl record, one thing for sure I wouldn't suggest using the same needle back on your prized vinyl.