Incredible clip shows exactly how vinyl records are made but people are left with one crucial question
Topics: Music, Science, Technology
Joe Yates
Featured Image Credit: tenderofficialmusic/Instagram
Topics: Music, Science, Technology
We've been listening to music our whole lives, and have never questioned how on earth music is coming out of these discs.
Or, at least, the majority of us haven't.
I am 27 years old and own a record player, but not once in my entire life have I even thought about it, to me it has just always been a thing - so why would I need to?
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Well, my eyes have been opened, and I'm not the only one.
The genius behind vinyl records is simply magic; how someone has thought of the entire concept is incredible.
A tiny, sharp needle sits in a groove on a piece of plastic and, as it spins around in a circle, it produces sound - not just sound: music.
Well, a clip has been created to demonstrate exactly how vinyl records are made.
A lump of plastic is compressed into a disc - that can come in all different colors and designs.
Okay... well, we knew all of that, really, but there is one crucial question that has gone unanswered.
The question was asked after the video got uploaded onto Twitter, as one user delicately wrote: "How do you get the music on that h*e tho?"
And it was exactly what everyone was thinking.
According to the London Sound Academy, 'to understand the genius behind vinyl, you first need to understand how sound waves work'.
Let's get into a bit of science.
To try and dumb it down as simple as possible (mainly for me), sound moves through the air in waves, as vibrating particles.
We hear the sound when those waves hit our eardrums, causing them to vibrate.
On a vinyl, the grooves you can see on the surface hold a reflection of these sound waves. The cuts within the groove are a physical recording of how sound waves behave as they move through the air.
As the needle rests on the vinyl, it vibrates through the groove and its bounces are transmitted down the metal bar to meet an electromagnetic device called a cartridge, which contains a piezoelectric crystal, or electrical coils, and a magnet.
Each time the metal bar moves, it wobbles the crystal or pushes the magnet past the coil, generating an electrical signal which is fed out to the amplifier, resulting in the music we hear.
So, that's how it works.
A little bit of trivia for you anyway - now we can go enjoy our music in peace, I've really gotten into Untold River recently, chilled country vibes... if you like that - give him a listen on Spotify.