Very basic explanation of how records work

A simple explanation about how records work

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• How
• records
• work
• vinyl
• turntables

[TezzleNZeek]

I understood that perfectly. Thanks a lot. Until tonight, records might as well have been crazy magical discs as far as I knew.

[FelixTheHouseFreak]

No problem! Im glad i made sense! XD

[faithycoins]

@TezzleNZeek Dude, this has blown my mind for years, and it still makes no sense, why don't the album just sound like noises....the exact same sound? Makes NO sense at all!!

[FelixTheHouseFreak]

@faithycoins Sound is vibration, in other words rapid up and down or side to side movements.

Lets say we have a device that moves a needle up and down 1000 times a second. Like a tattoo machine. Youll hear a buzzing sound or a tone. Now lets put this needle on top of a spinning disk. It will begin to carve a groove but also make a deep pit when the needle moves down and a shallow pit when it moves up.

(continued as a second comment)

[FelixTheHouseFreak]

@faithycoins (continued)We then spin the disk at the same speed and run a needle with a cone attached over the same groove.

The needle will move down every time it encounters one of the deep pits, and up every time it goes over a shallow pit. Reproducing the same up and down movements that were carved in, at the same speed which would make the same buzzing sound come out of the cone. This is a crude recording.

In real recording you record TONS of different vibrations that make up the sound.

[drakekrause]

I finaly Get It. Thanks man, made so much sence. Good Video

[Flippyy1]

@clairebellehackett he would use bigger words lol.

[skindredzakuska]

The only correction to note is that there is only one continuous groove on each side of the record. Thanks though, this really cleared things up between my father and I. He thought there was a magnetic recording on the record itself. I knew there were grooves, but hadn't thought that the needle worked like a magnetic guitar pickup.

[clairebellehackett]

I don't get it. Stop using all the big words. Please get Thomas to come explain it to me!

[keshafureverrr]

Thomas Edison did not invent the Vinyl record. He invented the Phonograph cylindar.

[micheals1992]

A good why to explain is with the vibration is a guitar sting (or other string instrumments). When you play the string you can visually see it moving side to side and up and down, which is the string vibrating (which is what he explains in this vid). On an electric guitar the magnets in the pickup convert the electromagnectic fluxuations caused by the string interfering with the magnetic feild to sound(They have also recorded the sound of jupiter and saturns magnetic feild using the same method)

[gpg20s]

Good job and thank you!

[drunkgorilla]

thank you Wikipedia

[asleepMS2]

good shit. 

[acoreth42]

Brilliant, thankyou! Just like asking a very knowledgable friend!