APC–2 – A professional record cutter for producing original playback discs

Arainach

Not even a price listed. I don't understand the market for this - fancy musical instruments for creativity, sure, there's a market, but who wants to own cutting vinyl? How many records would you need to make for this to be more economical than paying a dedicated shop? How many would you need to do to "achieve higher quality"? How consistent are your results?

protocolture

Every Teenage Engineering Product: Damn I would buy this for 50 bucks. I actually have a project that requires a bunch of custom vinyl, but I am guessing this is not economical.

navaed01

In a world of digital rationality, I’m glad teenage engineering are here to design the absurd and analog. It doesn’t make rational sense - and I think that’s the point

stigz

Price? If you have to ask, you can't afford it.

PCI-eX16

our shared vision is to enable access to anyone who wants their music or sound on a physical record. FWIW, You can get 100 records + jackets printed professionally for ~$10 a pop. Gakken toy record cutter is low quality, but costs $160. I wonder what this would cost. Surely it's impractical for personal use, as marketed.

georgelyon

Cool, but can it make parallel grooves like HENGE’s Journey to Voltus B? https://www.outofrage.net/post/review-henge-journey-to-voltu...

vr46

I looked and went, "WTF is that? Looks like a record cutting machine" Scrolled down WTAF I'm a total TE fanboi, I have the OP1F and OP-XY, they're everything I ever wanted and my MPC and Digitakt haven't be touched in months. And the Digitone Keys is unplugged propped against the bookshelf. It's extraordinary how addictive these two little synths are for making things happen. The APC-2, however, is a fascinating outcome of what happens when you have a bunch of creative people who like - and can - do things that are new to them and make them new to others. It's no wonder they keep getting asked to do cool stuff like Panic's Playdate, Baidu's Raven, Nothing Smartphones and Headphones. TE have retained this incredible playful vibe that has long drained from Sony and Apple. I've heard every lazy comment about hipsters and rich kids who are supposedly their target audience, and the cost of the products, as if the visible ingredients are all that accounting measure. Swiss watches cost orders of magnitude more than TE's amazing inventions, and their only purpose seems to be to remind the wearer how amazing they are when they look at it. "God, I'm good," thought the Rolex wearer as he glanced at his wrist. Hipsters will buy anything that looks cool. But that doesn’t mean anything that looks cool was made for them.

spicyusername

Very cool. I love this company and wish there was more like them.

999900000999

Very strange. It appears they’ll just rebrand a few record cutters and call it a product. TE always comes off as really low quality for the types of prices they charge. The MPC Sample is 400$ and looks well built, the KO2 is 300$ and has faders falling off. Roland has a few samplers in the same price range as well.

mvkel

Don't think of Teenage Engineering as a device product company. Think of them as a device art company. Suddenly it makes sense.

xrd

Has anyone tried to 3d print vinyl?

jrflo

I think it's cool that they make stuff like this. It's refreshing to see something engineered for the sake of being beautiful and cool, instead of worrying about BOM cost and margin.

snvzz

Why wouldn't you use an ADC and store music digitally?

gf263

Inb4 all the commenters going “umm, why would I want this? I could simply burn a CD or make a Spotify playlist if I wanted to share music”

tcbawo

I always loved the story of the "three-sided" Monty Python record, where the B side had two parallel concentric grooves, causing different tracks to play depending on where the needle was dropped. I always wondered what kind of equipment went into producing it.

gregsadetsky

Unrelated, but related - if you want to have 1 record made, reach out to https://recordcut.com/ Their hours are "2:30 PM to 12 Midnight", I sort of believe... 7 days a week? Rich will actually answer the phone, and guide you. I've done it a few times (it's an incredibly cool gift). A single record is $12. Extremely worth experiencing it.

edb_123

Vestax actually did something similar in the early 2000s with the VRX-2000 lathe cutter. It cost around $10K back then. The audio wasn't the best, but hey, you could make your own dubplates, and it did so in stereo!

fragmede

APC is an interesting choice of name. A Professional record Cutter. I wonder if they chose it because of the APC40, which is a delightful set of MIDI pads.