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I just noticed while skipping through a prince record that when I stand directly over my turntable I can veritably see the waveform light up on my record... allowing me to catch the snare and just generally have some other kind of reference besides my ears to guide me.

Don't know if this is common knowledge but it freaking blew my mind (for a second there I had thought I had super powers or something). How the hell did Technics engineers think this up? Or am I seriously tripping?

This phenomena is not as obvious with all records (my dubstep records don't seem to 'light up').

Can anyone shed some on this?

i'm sorry, what??

LOL WTF

tell me more!

I know it sounds crazy, but just keep a look out and you might notice it too, so far this only happened with this one Prince record...

video please

TeReKeTe wrote:video please

or a photo,

failing the above, perhaps a diagram.

sorry but I really just don't care enough to capture any proof or example of this. having a video and/or digital camera or some kind of visual artistic ability would probably motivate me though.

so why make such a claim and post in on here then, surely you mustve expected someone to ask for proof

Well, you can see the patterns of loud and quiet bits on a record by reflecting light off it and seeing that quiet bits show up differently. And I've got a few techno records where the placing of hits in the bar is regular enough and minimal that that shows up too - you get slightly curved 'spokes' coming out of the centre of the record representing each hit.

I'm not sure how much use it'd be though, and I'm not sure that's what you're talking about, either. I've heard of people using the quiet bit / loud bit thing to know where the drop is, but not the individual beats.

What you smoking? Are you talking about just cueing by looking at the grooves of the record or that you have actually seen a waveform magically appear? If it's the latter, then yeah, you're definitely tripping.

darkmatterUK wrote:so why make such a claim and post in on here then, surely you mustve expected someone to ask for proof

just thought it was interesting, and anyway what would be the incentive for fabricating this kind of bullshit?

...and no I'm not talking about just grooves.

The white light that spreads across the record creates a shape when you stand directly over it. On some records it just looks random, on this particular record (at 45 rpm) you can actually see the snare/hi-hat/crash hits as they run across the needle.

What Prince record and track/time location? I want to try this myself although I don't think it's physically possible. Essentially you are saying that you can put sound into light and have it reflect visible waveforms. That's like saying you can produce a visible waveform of a radio signal by playing the radio into a flashlight or other light source. That would seem to be defying the laws of physics although I don't know much about physics.

Take any hallucinogens lately? They tend to allow you to have the perceived abilities of smelling/tasting/seeing sound and other crazy things that are not physically possible with your standard 5 human senses.

Thats not the "waveform" per se...

Its the way records work...

You see, records are essentially wax platters, with grooves cut into them. The nature of the grooves (depth, width, etc...) are what make the sound you hear when playing on a record player (or with a needle and tube of paper, if you prefer)...

You are seeing the areas on the record, where there is more or less wax, which as you noticed, represents the snare in this case. Most records are like that, especially properly mastered or professionally pressed records, as they often withstand a more costly pressing process (i.e. they are thicker sturdier vinyl, more accurate cutting mechanisms).

with the modern turntable lights, its usually pretty easy to see these patterned grooves.

Does that sound like what you are seeing? Sort of minor, yet perceptible differences in the grooves, that follow a pattern?

Well, when you think about it the "sound" on the record is physically cut into it, perhaps what I'm seeing is the shadow cast by the needle bouncing up and down in the groove.

I did drink some mead last night and I'm pretty sleep deprived but my girlfriend confirmed what I was seeing, so I'm 99% sure that it's real.

Prince - Ultra Rare 12" Mixes - PD Records 2003 PD001

It's the 21 min version of America.

thesynthesist wrote:Thats not the "waveform" per se...
You are seeing the areas on the record, where there is more or less wax, which as you noticed, represents the snare in this case....

with the modern turntable lights, its usually pretty easy to see these patterned grooves.

Yea that sounds like what I'm seeing... not the exact waveform (some kind of pattern in motion) but I can anticipate and see when the snare is going to come. The illuminated "waveform" looks like it's emanating in a line from the center of the platter and traveling out towards the needle. very cool.

and I am done talking about this. sweet jesus.

some weekends i start seeing waveforms on the walls and on people