Great job Joe. Like others who replied, it took me some time searching to finally get to this video. That is exactly what I wanted to know (and get a visual idea) about the technology of vinyl records, stereo reproduction, stylus, etc. This is much better than the standard "it just reads grooves in the vinyl" explanation. Well done.
No, not blocked. They just would not put any ads in it but it started to piss me off that I was being ignored so I dumped it. I'll do something better on the same subject soon. :) JC
How in the world would they think there's a copyright issue with a video where you merely talked about 45's?! Still, this video is very informative. Keep it up!
Since working on my homemade record lathe for some time now, this is the most informative video I've seen regarding my issues with making a functional cutting head. I would love to see you make more videos like this. Great job and many thanks JC!
Great video! I always wanted to know how they got two channels out of one groove! I kind of imagined it would be like that, but this is the first I've seen detailed explanation. The phase reversal of left and right was totally unexpected, but makes sense after watching. I also like the fact you described alternative methods and why they are not used.
I had to take it down... TH-cam's idiot robots thought there was copyrighted materiel in it. I tried to get them to actually look at the video but after more than a week I just gave up. :) JC
One thing I noticed after building my record lathe recorder was vinyl is a poor medium to record directly to. It may press best but recording analogue on a CD surface is the best to emboss (record) on. DVDs tended to have far more pops, most likely due to impurities. Any Lexan (polycarbonate) piece of plastic works as long as it has an extreme high gloss "glasslike" finish.
This is interesting and everything. But I want to know - how does the sound get recorded? How does it go to the stylus, how does the needle produce the same back?
The cutting stylus digs out a groove while it is vibrated by whatever sound you want on the record. The vibrations represent an exact analog of of the sound pressure waves... The playback stylus tracks that groove and its motion is converted to electrical impulses in he cartridge. Those electrical impulses are amplified and go to a loudspeaker. A loud speaker converts electrical energy into physical energy... It actually moves the air around it and sets up pressure waves that our ears detect and We call it sound. It really is that simple. :)
To fully understand how the stylus and grooves produce sound, we have to relate to the physics of electricity and magnetism. It's a little complex matter to discuss here, but the cartridge works in the same way a diesel or gas generator works. When you apply movement to the generator it produces electricity, right? So, when the stylus apply movement to the coils (or magnet) inside the cartridge, produces an electrical signal analogue to the grooves. Sorry for my bad english. I hope this helps.
JC, thanks a lot for it! But I still don't get the lateral movement part, so basically it's a stylus moving through a place with lots of lump going on? and I don't know how to "read" the grooves. Could you make a video to explain it? I've searching for this information hard and I still don't get it.
Thanks JC. What I don't get is how exactly the grooves and the stylus produce sounds and how can you read the grooves(like the ones you show us in the top right corner)
Thank you very much for making this video. Here is a technical question about the needle. What type of output voltages would be expected from the needle converting the groove from mechanical into electrical energy? The reason I ask is that I would like to test a used turntable by injecting a sine wave from a signal generator directly into the tonearm contacts, but I do not know what the average input voltage would be that the first stage of the turntables preamplifier would see. Also the tonearm terminates in four contacts and I was wondering if the pinout would be universal between tone arms
The standard output from a moving magnet cartridge is in a range from 3 to 5 mV. The standard impedance that would be loaded down with is 47 killoohms. The color coded wires are: Left = white wire Left Ground = blue wire Right = red wire Right Ground = green wire
Joe Collins Thanks Joe! This is exactly what I was looking for!!! Exactly!!! On the other vinyl board I subscribe to, I got "buy a headcase and cartridge. They are not too expensive, you will need them anyway. Duh,.... not if the TT is toast. Thanks for the help!
I don't get it, how can the stylus read both channels simultaneously? If the 'data' for the left channel is on the left, and the stylus has to go left to 'read' it, wouldn't the right channel be silent at that fraction of a moment?
It isn't 'data' but a continues representation of the original stylus movement of the cutter. That stylus moves on two planes at once. one plane being left and the other right. They can both move at the same time because the cutting head is free to move in all directions. The direction of the cutter determines left, right or both at the same time. :)
The grooves in a vinyl record is the actual analog representation (more or less) of the sound that we hear, whereas a CD contains a DIGITAL DESCRIPTION of the sound. This description has to be converted BACK TO ANALOG because we hear in analog. I, along with many audiophiles, consider "vinyl" to be more MUSICAL than digital recordings because of these conversions.
I'm not sure what you're not getting here... A lateral recording means the cutting and playback styli move back and forth across the surface of the record. Stereo recordings are really two vertical cuts on each groove wall at 45 degrees. The channels are out of phase meaning that if you send a dual mono signal (two channels that are exactly the same) you get what looks and acts like a lateral mono recording. That's why a stereo cartridge can play the original mono records. :) JC
thehollyrocker69 All sound is nothing more than a pressure wave going through air. The microphone detects it, turns into electricity and that electricity drives the cutter head. Yeah, there are more steps in between but it doesn't matter. As long as the pattern is faithfully recorded, the output from your turntable will sound just exactly like whatever was recorded. The needle doesn't know or care what sound it is, it just follows the vibrations in the groove walls. turns them into electric currents and those currents are amplified loud enogh to move the drivers in speakers which set up the same vibrations as the original in the air in your room. :). :)
Joe Collins Thanks for your comment, well yeah that's clear to me, and of course the needle knows nothing just picks up vibrations, but still is an amazing intellectual achievement, especially when the Harmonics (Timbre) is a complex wave containing more than one frequency. Then, the transition from analogue to digital system was a logical consequence of the first, for me, represents a major success
+Joe Collins Even without electricity you can record sounds, think about the first Edison cilynder phonographs. You still don't explain the main question, which is: how can a zig zag sounds like a kick drum, and how can another zig zag sound like a guitar? The problem is all about this. And unfortunately, nobody can give a certain answer to this question.
+My Uncle Every unique sound or timbre in the case of a guitar or trumpet has a unique vibrational pattern. That's the important part. A loudspeaker works in the same manner. So if we wonder how the grooves contain the music we should also wonder how a coil and cone produce of a woofer makes movements that our brains perceive as unique and specific sounds. FYI ... all speakers are simply air pumps. Understanding how our eardrums operate and how our brain interprets those signals is paramount to the understanding the physics of audio
Just imagine that a sound has been slowed down a thousand times or more. If we somehow "map it out" and draw it on paper, it will look like an ornament - a comb, or a back of a porcupine, or a mountain range. Each sound - human voice, guitar, a kick drum - has a characteristic pattern of these hills and valleys, peaks and abysses. There are just so many of these ornaments, hills and valleys in each tiniest sound that you can't wrap your head around it. They are just too quick and numerous - many thousands each second. But machines can "listen" to these very fast vibrations, "re-tell" them to each other as electrical signals, and wiggle things around very quickly and very precisely, generating almost exactly the same sound. A vinyl groove wiggles the needle around, the needle tells the "pattern" to the machine, and machine wiggles around the coil in the speaker, making sounds. So these regular smooth big "zig-zags" in the video are just for demonstration; actual "wiggles" in a real vinyl groove zig-zag all over the place, slightly changing direction thousands of times for each inch of the groove. Just look at the video on TH-cam, at [youtube address]/watch?v=GuCdsyCWmt8 . It's easiest to imagine this with a digital analogy. Imagine, again, that you've slowed down a sound (like a kick drum) 1000-fold, then "chopped" it into tiny parts, each one much shorter than the blink of an eye. And you assigned a code to each tiny part. You get something like a roomful of sheets of paper with endless numbers on them. No HUMAN could look at THAT and think "yup, that's a kick drum sound". But a computer can read these codes one after the other crazy fast (like 40 thousand times per second) - so fast that it reads them with the same speed as the air vibrates when the drum is hit. And again, turns them into real physical wiggles of a speaker coil. And voila, you, the human, are deceived, and you hear a perfectly realistic drum sound.
I finally found an explanation that I have been looking for for a long time. Congratulations and thank you very much.
Great job Joe. Like others who replied, it took me some time searching to finally get to this video. That is exactly what I wanted to know (and get a visual idea) about the technology of vinyl records, stereo reproduction, stylus, etc. This is much better than the standard "it just reads grooves in the vinyl" explanation. Well done.
Very good explanation, just that what I was looking for, saved me from a lot of frustration looking for it, thank You for that.
Thanks. :)
Finally. Thanks for explaining instead of dumbing it down like everyone else.
No, not blocked. They just would not put any ads in it but it started to piss me off that I was being ignored so I dumped it. I'll do something better on the same subject soon. :) JC
That was well explained. I so appreciate the technical details.
How in the world would they think there's a copyright issue with a video where you merely talked about 45's?!
Still, this video is very informative. Keep it up!
Since working on my homemade record lathe for some time now, this is the most informative video I've seen regarding my issues with making a functional cutting head. I would love to see you make more videos like this. Great job and many thanks JC!
Great production, awesome audio and clear explanations!
Fantastic. Thank-you for this, it's the best explanation I've ever see .
Fantastic Info - Thanks JC
Bravo. Nice and clear presentation.
Finally a video that explains this stuff. Thanks for uploading! It definitely deserves more views though. :)
Great video! I always wanted to know how they got two channels out of one groove! I kind of imagined it would be like that, but this is the first I've seen detailed explanation. The phase reversal of left and right was totally unexpected, but makes sense after watching. I also like the fact you described alternative methods and why they are not used.
I had to take it down... TH-cam's idiot robots thought there was copyrighted materiel in it. I tried to get them to actually look at the video but after more than a week I just gave up. :) JC
Thanks JC,it was really interesting
very educational. You did a lot of research. I learned something new.
One thing I noticed after building my record lathe recorder was vinyl is a poor medium to record directly to. It may press best but recording analogue on a CD surface is the best to emboss (record) on. DVDs tended to have far more pops, most likely due to impurities. Any Lexan (polycarbonate) piece of plastic works as long as it has an extreme high gloss "glasslike" finish.
Still a very good and clear explanation. Thanks!
Great video!
Thanks a lot for this video Señor Collins :)
great video, thanks for posting it! (didn't get the 180 out of phase remark but after a bit of googleing i understood)
This is great, thanks Joe :)
Great video. Thank you
Thank you, Joe!
I JUST NOW became interested in this (2018) Thx for the info.Eventually , I'll "Get It"!
Oh, thanks for the simple explanation. You are awesome!
:)
This was great. Thank you.
Great video, thanks.
A great video.. Thank you.
I was wondering this yesterday!
great video
This is interesting and everything. But I want to know - how does the sound get recorded? How does it go to the stylus, how does the needle produce the same back?
The cutting stylus digs out a groove while it is vibrated by whatever sound you want on the record. The vibrations represent an exact analog of of the sound pressure waves... The playback stylus tracks that groove and its motion is converted to electrical impulses in he cartridge. Those electrical impulses are amplified and go to a loudspeaker. A loud speaker converts electrical energy into physical energy... It actually moves the air around it and sets up pressure waves that our ears detect and We call it sound. It really is that simple. :)
Joe Collins
I see! It's just a frequency with all the necessary information. Thank you.
+Joe Collins It's not simple at all. You keep forgetting that electricity is not needed to record sounds.
spot on! Totally answered my hole ;)
Great video. It took me some time to finally find this video. I thought all phonographs are mono.
To fully understand how the stylus and grooves produce sound, we have to relate to the physics of electricity and magnetism. It's a little complex matter to discuss here, but the cartridge works in the same way a diesel or gas generator works. When you apply movement to the generator it produces electricity, right? So, when the stylus apply movement to the coils (or magnet) inside the cartridge, produces an electrical signal analogue to the grooves. Sorry for my bad english. I hope this helps.
I heard once that better cartridge are quieter - meaning "needle talk" less :) there is less leakage.
Hey JC, nice video, but here is a question for you, what about quad albums? What did they do to manage that?
JC, thanks a lot for it! But I still don't get the lateral movement part, so basically it's a stylus moving through a place with lots of lump going on? and I don't know how to "read" the grooves. Could you make a video to explain it? I've searching for this information hard and I still don't get it.
Thanks JC. What I don't get is how exactly the grooves and the stylus produce sounds and how can you read the grooves(like the ones you show us in the top right corner)
precision engineering
Thumbs Up !! but how in the world is video put on records ( SelectaVision ) ?
Thank you very much for making this video. Here is a technical question about the needle. What type of output voltages would be expected from the needle converting the groove from mechanical into electrical energy? The reason I ask is that I would like to test a used turntable by injecting a sine wave from a signal generator directly into the tonearm contacts, but I do not know what the average input voltage would be that the first stage of the turntables preamplifier would see. Also the tonearm terminates in four contacts and I was wondering if the pinout would be universal between tone arms
The standard output from a moving magnet cartridge is in a range from 3 to 5 mV. The standard impedance that would be loaded down with is 47 killoohms. The color coded wires are:
Left = white wire
Left Ground = blue wire
Right = red wire
Right Ground = green wire
Joe Collins Thanks Joe! This is exactly what I was looking for!!! Exactly!!! On the other vinyl board I subscribe to, I got "buy a headcase and cartridge. They are not too expensive, you will need them anyway. Duh,.... not if the TT is toast. Thanks for the help!
Didn't you use to have this same video online?
It has to do with tracking force. Anything over 2 grams will tend to sing loudly. :) JC
I don't get it, how can the stylus read both channels simultaneously? If the 'data' for the left channel is on the left, and the stylus has to go left to 'read' it, wouldn't the right channel be silent at that fraction of a moment?
It isn't 'data' but a continues representation of the original stylus movement of the cutter. That stylus moves on two planes at once. one plane being left and the other right. They can both move at the same time because the cutting head is free to move in all directions. The direction of the cutter determines left, right or both at the same time. :)
The technology here seems futuristic, like more advanced than cd players haha:)
The grooves in a vinyl record is the actual analog representation (more or less) of the sound that we hear, whereas a CD contains a DIGITAL DESCRIPTION of the sound. This description has to be converted BACK TO ANALOG because we hear in analog. I, along with many audiophiles, consider "vinyl" to be more MUSICAL than digital recordings because of these conversions.
I'm not sure what you're not getting here... A lateral recording means the cutting and playback styli move back and forth across the surface of the record. Stereo recordings are really two vertical cuts on each groove wall at 45 degrees. The channels are out of phase meaning that if you send a dual mono signal (two channels that are exactly the same) you get what looks and acts like a lateral mono recording. That's why a stereo cartridge can play the original mono records. :) JC
Ah, ok. Thought I was going (more) crazy.
wow
how does the actual sound hold onto a medium ??
The medium is a representation of sound. There is no sound until it's played.
I still can´t understand how the needle knows how an instrument sounds like
thehollyrocker69 All sound is nothing more than a pressure wave going through air. The microphone detects it, turns into electricity and that electricity drives the cutter head. Yeah, there are more steps in between but it doesn't matter. As long as the pattern is faithfully recorded, the output from your turntable will sound just exactly like whatever was recorded. The needle doesn't know or care what sound it is, it just follows the vibrations in the groove walls. turns them into electric currents and those currents are amplified loud enogh to move the drivers in speakers which set up the same vibrations as the original in the air in your room. :). :)
Joe Collins Thanks for your comment, well yeah that's clear to me, and of course the needle knows nothing just picks up vibrations, but still is an amazing intellectual achievement, especially when the Harmonics (Timbre) is a complex wave containing more than one frequency. Then, the transition from analogue to digital system was a logical consequence of the first, for me, represents a major success
+Joe Collins Even without electricity you can record sounds, think about the first Edison cilynder phonographs. You still don't explain the main question, which is: how can a zig zag sounds like a kick drum, and how can another zig zag sound like a guitar? The problem is all about this. And unfortunately, nobody can give a certain answer to this question.
+My Uncle Every unique sound or timbre in the case of a guitar or trumpet has a unique vibrational pattern. That's the important part. A loudspeaker works in the same manner. So if we wonder how the grooves contain the music we should also wonder how a coil and cone produce of a woofer makes movements that our brains perceive as unique and specific sounds. FYI ... all speakers are simply air pumps. Understanding how our eardrums operate and how our brain interprets those signals is paramount to the understanding the physics of audio
Just imagine that a sound has been slowed down a thousand times or more. If we somehow "map it out" and draw it on paper, it will look like an ornament - a comb, or a back of a porcupine, or a mountain range. Each sound - human voice, guitar, a kick drum - has a characteristic pattern of these hills and valleys, peaks and abysses. There are just so many of these ornaments, hills and valleys in each tiniest sound that you can't wrap your head around it. They are just too quick and numerous - many thousands each second.
But machines can "listen" to these very fast vibrations, "re-tell" them to each other as electrical signals, and wiggle things around very quickly and very precisely, generating almost exactly the same sound. A vinyl groove wiggles the needle around, the needle tells the "pattern" to the machine, and machine wiggles around the coil in the speaker, making sounds. So these regular smooth big "zig-zags" in the video are just for demonstration; actual "wiggles" in a real vinyl groove zig-zag all over the place, slightly changing direction thousands of times for each inch of the groove. Just look at the video on TH-cam, at [youtube address]/watch?v=GuCdsyCWmt8 .
It's easiest to imagine this with a digital analogy. Imagine, again, that you've slowed down a sound (like a kick drum) 1000-fold, then "chopped" it into tiny parts, each one much shorter than the blink of an eye. And you assigned a code to each tiny part. You get something like a roomful of sheets of paper with endless numbers on them. No HUMAN could look at THAT and think "yup, that's a kick drum sound". But a computer can read these codes one after the other crazy fast (like 40 thousand times per second) - so fast that it reads them with the same speed as the air vibrates when the drum is hit. And again, turns them into real physical wiggles of a speaker coil. And voila, you, the human, are deceived, and you hear a perfectly realistic drum sound.
Sounds complicated. Why not just use an Ipod?
+habyss You can't be serious :P
whelp that explains it