A subject I would be interested in seeing produced via 3-d printing on a large scale is the vinyl record. Being a huge music nerd and someone who collects this “dead” medium I would like to see the demand for this product met. Because the demand for vinyl has resurged due to a comeback in the medium for this generation, almost all artists big and small are releasing or re-releasing their music on vinyl. Unfortunately due to the increase in demand this has put enormous pressure on the very few vinyl pressing factories left who have very few pressing machines. To make matters worse the number of  record pressing machines is also limited and the mechanisms within the machine are very delicate and are not being reproduced on a large scale.  Taking this a step further into an area of greater negativity is that major labels ,with all their money and power, are clogging up the vinyl pressing schedules at all the plants with re-issues of albums and compilations that don’t sell well or that no one actually wants. Since most see this as a fad, there is a great risk and uncertainty around opening up more record pressing factories to meet the yearly increasing demand. This is where 3-d printing comes in.

While many music blogs have expressed concern over opening up new factories, there is a clear desire and joy for the mediums revival. Unfortunately, 3-d printing technology is not quite yet able to print objects with a second function imbedded within the manipulated material. Records require grooves to be “carved” into an aluminum disk that goes through rigorous tests in order to be labeled a “master copy” and then mass produced. Luckily there has been a great stride in changing this problem. 3-d printing technology can be aided by mp3 files in Arduino (as described in the Inscrutable article) in order to be pitch-shifted so that grooves can be manually be pressed on a 3-d printed record. While Amanda Ghassaei’s records don’t sound as good as real vinyl at the moment I would not be surprised to see this becoming a viable solution for the increasing demand. Imagine now small independent artists don’t have to wait in line behind the gargantuan music labels to get their small pressing batch of 10 inches printed conveniently and quickly.

1) http://noisey.vice.com/en_uk/blog/how-independent-artists-and-labels-are-getting-squeezed-out-by-the-vinyl-revival

2) http://pitchfork.com/features/articles/9467-wax-and-wane-the-tough-realities-behind-vinyls-comeback/

3) http://www.instructables.com/id/3D-Printed-Record/

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5) http://3dprint.com/9465/3d-printed-record/