SIGNALS

Some people think that digital audio is cold. That's debatable. But it's almost universally accepted that analog audio is cool. It is also funky, weird and apparently makes people say and do strange things. Digital audio comprises binary data offering relatively few opportunities for freakish mischief. Analog audio, on the other hand, offers endless possibilities. For example, I am sure you have noticed that flour tortillas fit nicely on a turntable platter.

But before we bite into that topic, let's consider just a few other examples of analog strangeness. First up: did you know that wood glue can be used to (apparently) clean LP records? At least that's what several YouTube videos purport to do. Consider this video that demonstrates how to clean an LP with wood glue. Could that really work? I have no idea, and no keen desire to try it on any of my records. It does occur to me, however, that you could probably spray some oil on that positive impression, apply another layer of glue, separate it and thus create a playable record made of wood glue. Perhaps Elmer's could start its own record label?

Another YouTube example of analog strangeness is this one that shows what tree rings sound like played on a record player. As it turns out, they do not sound very interesting. Somehow, conceptually, this interests me. If every tree ring is a year, that means the record in the video is playing through years and years of history. On second thought, that doesn't interest me.

Which brings us to the raison d'etre of this blog. This YouTube video purports to show a record being made from an uncooked flour tortilla, using a laser cutter to create the grooves. Apparently the cutting takes about 30 minutes and the record plays about 30 seconds of music, with a little thumb help on the tonearm.

Is this for real? The poster claims that he is responding to previous tortilla posts that were clearly dubbed-in fakes. A follow-up video shows the poster engaging in some flour tortilla record R&D, demonstrating that a 78 rpm speed is superior to a 45 rpm speed. Fascinating. Or maybe not.

Because in analog records, higher rotational speed is always better, why not carry that idea to its logical and yet ridiculous extreme? Here is an odd video showing an extreme speed record player. I sincerely hope that the guy doing this was wearing safety goggles. Hell, I had to put on safety goggles just to watch the video. At the end of the video you'll see very analog-looking smoke curling up from the extreme speed record player. Can your MP3 player do that? I don't think so.