While millions of people have turned music on vinyl records into MP3 files, Amanda Ghassaei gained notoriety a few months ago when she wrote online about her experiences doing the opposite—turning an digital audio file into a physical record by using a precision 3D printer. Now Ghassaei has followed up that project with instructions on how to use a laser cut machine to create records using a variety of materials, including wood, acrylic and paper.
“The laser cut records are an extension of the work I did with the 3D printer,” Ghassaei said. “This time I was hoping that others could replicate what I’ve done, as laser cutters are much easier to come by than precision 3D printers.”
The records were cut on an Epilog 120 Watt Legend EXT to a precision of 1200 dpi. The audio on the records has a bit depth between 4 and 5 and a sampling rate of about 4.5 kHz.
In her article on instructables.com, she gives detailed explanations of her process using the laser cutter, and provides videos of her testing each record. As she goes through each test, she explains to her readers her observations and how she continued to try to figure out how to accurately replicate the mp3 onto the new material. Ghassaei also provides instructions on how to try the project yourself, and provides links for the software needed to cut the files into the different materials.
“The project is really just meant to be fun and informative,” said Ghassaei. “I posted all the code and other documentation up on Instructables so that anyone can try the process out for themselves.”
