How about this for an idea?

F

five.pence

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i was thinking the other day that it would be great if i could play some of my mp3s i've got in with my records and this idea struck me.

Imagine a turntable without a tonearm, but all the other bits & bobs, like pitch control etc. But on top of the platter you could have a your slipmats movement read by an optical lasery thing, kinda like optical mice, the platter could have a clear section in it so the slipmat could be seen by the laser mounted underneath

You could then hook up the TT to a computer via firewire or USB or some fast connection and using software on your computer you download tracks to your TT's RAM, possibly decoding the track as it goes, then however the slipmat moves would affect the track playing, if you adjust the pitch then the slipmat would change speed thus changing the speed of the track.

Another thought just struck me, you could just get a new platter and a litlte laser and attach it to your exsiting TT via a little box or something.

Whats the general opinion on this idea?

No arguing about sound qualitys though! We all know MP3 is crap in comparison to Vinyl!
 
Oops! I forgot something!

You would have to have the seperate box hooked up to the line in bit of your mixer! Cos the sound wouldn't be going through the stylus would it!
 
i dont think it would work because vibration is how the needle reads the tracks on the vinyl and thats how it produces the sound. an optical laser thingy wouldn't be able to detect the vibration. good idea though
 
i once saw something like that... hey Tricky do u remember it?
it was a special vinyl with special box that connect ur TT and ur PC, and a PC program
so this is how it works, u put the vinyl on the TT, connect the TT to the PC via the box, and load the song u wanna play to the program, and u control it through the TT!!
it was long time ago when i saw it, i posted a link on Pio or CDDJ bbs...
 
Reply to V:

I was kinda imagining the slipmats movement being read by a optical laser mounted underneath, so no vinyl is involved, as it's all digital, nothing analogue would be used so the turntable wouldn't need the tone arm or any of the hardware used to capture the vibrations from the vinyl. All of the sound with vinyl is produced by the movment of the stylus across the surface, what i'm suggesting is more like a 12" CDJ, but using RAM as the source for the music, not a CD

I have loads of CDs and mp3s that i would love to be able to play out to a crowd, my only option at the moment is to get a plate cut at 50 or 60 quid and who can afford that for every couple tracks they want! I certainly cant!

The more i think about this the more useful it sounds, and in my mind at least, the more plausable. Hmm... I think i might make a trip to the patent office sometime soon!
 
i'm not sure i fully understand what you're talking about. from what i gather there would be no turntable involved at all. sounds like you're describing a cd player
 
Replete was talking about something like this
check the scratching section

angelic - yep i remember its an audiophile laser turntable and costs a bomb ! not what a dj can afford ! :D
 
I remember reading something about that too, and actually it worked if I'm not mistaken! Hell, I'll go back to my mess and see if I can find the mag... :D
 
Tricky:
no no no!
read it again, it's a regular (1200) TT using some special vinyl, and a box to connect to the PC and control the mp3 that being played
 
And what does it use as pick-up, I mean, in the place of the cart & stily?
 
You're referring to the ELP Laser Turntable.

http://www.elpj.com/

It expalains how they use five lasers to read and track the groove of the vinyl.

Looks like an old-school video player, and it seems that only middle-aged Japanese businessmen can afford them.

I'm probably showing my age here, but does anyone remember the Paula Abdul music video where the DJ was spinning 12" laserdiscs on the turntables? Hahahahahahahahah!
 
OK...one more time!
this is what i remember from what i saw:
i got ur REGULAR Technics SL-1200MK2 TT, WITH REGULAR CARTS!, and u put a SPECIAL vinyl on it and connect the TT out to a SPECIAL box, connect the box to ur PC, and than u load songs into the SPECIAL program!
so when u pitch up a song on the TT, the pitch on the PC will change too
i don't know how it works or IF it works, it was an experimental thing, but my guess is that on the vinyl there is a monotonic sound all along the grooves, and that box just pick up that sound and sense the changes on it and that way it sends signals to the PC to bend up, or down or whatever!
but it was long time ago!, i can't remember clearly, and it's just my theory!
hope u got what i'm saying
 
No Vinyl!!! ;)

The way i got thinking about it was because i spent the entire of an all night free party lugging my record collection around with me, i was thinking (admitedly not in a completely clear head) that if i had someway of playing my music without carrying 50 or 60 records around with me. I thought of computers.

V is kinda right, What i'm suggesting is 1200 sized CDJ, the only thing is, it doesn't use CDs, instead it uses solid state memory or RAM of some description, you aren't placing anything on the turntable cos its all internal, the music is sent to the memory in the turntable, the movement of the slipmat is monitored via an optical laser (through a clear platter) and the data the laser sends affects the way the tracks playing.

Basicly i'm imagining a modified MP3 Player that holds 1 track at a time, is permantly hooked up to a computer, that gives the ability to scratch & mix the mp3s using a 12" jog pad. The advantage is that if the tone arm & everything was still in place, the device could still play vinyl cos its the correct size and uses the same motor to turn the mat. ie. 1 device, 2 uses, cheap at half the price, guvner!
 
Thats what i thought! ;)

the only problem is that i wouldn't have the faintest idea how to go about producing a prototype or to code the relavent software! Damn!
 
Good plan, but slight flaw! Willing sponsers are quite thin on the ground in the area of the UK that i live in! Unless your inventing a new kind of Cider, then you'll get tons on cash!!! :D
 
in reply to five.pence:

OK, Now i understand what you're saying. for example: you'd use a slipmat on the TT instead of an actual record and when you move the slipmat with your fingers, the optical laser eye under the platter reads the slipmats movements and then sends that data to your computer which applies those movements to the track that is playing on your computer (and that track is what you'd be playing on the TT if it were on vinyl).

that way you could play and control an MP3 file as if it were an actual record, and you could then mix with it and so on and so on..... and the optical laser thing is just an addition to the TT and the TT still functions as normal. you could have a switch that turns on the optical laser eye when you want to use that function.

Is that what you mean?? if so, i think its a great idea!

[Edited by V on 02-23-2001 at 06:17 AM]
 
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