Here's an idea for a new format

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I was thinking about something last night. How possible would it be to make a vinyl-based format which has a thin exterior coating which gradually rubs off through extended playing. This would mean that you could add and take away extra layers so that the music changes the more you play the record. Who knows, you could buy a record of something really minimal and then after loads of plays it eventually becomes an OTT orchestral arrangement with hyper-complex drum'n'bass beats... Would this be implementable in a CD format? Has anything like this been done before? Is it even possible?

:-)

― dog latin, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

love it. Entropic beauty. God speed

― jessica, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

― MarkH, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The only thing I've ever heard of that is remotely similar to this (and I mean barely) is a record that when you play it chooses different tracks. Say there are 4 tracks, each enter at a different point, so you could play all four different songs but each starting from the "beginning" of the album. I remember an old flexi-insert record from Mad Magazine being like this when I was a kid. There were 3 tracks, I think and you played it and whichever groove it took first, that was the song you got.

I would so buy into that, though. Some kind of freaky wax-track.

― kate, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The nearest thing has to be the Blondie picture disc where Debbie Harry's clothes were scratched off by the stylus. Musically, I'd heard that a laser stylus has been created, which could edtit out scratches etc. That technology sounds like a good starting point...

― Jez, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

That laser stylus was a bit of a flop cause it was so sensitive to dust and dirt that records had to be throughly cleaned before every play, which in the end was judged to wear the vinyl down more than a needle did.

Still, that Blondie picture disc sounds fantastic

― N., Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

You're all mad.

― Nick Southall, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Is that for real?

― Tracer Hand, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Absolutely - if you're referring to the pic disc & laser stylus - a free book came with the nme a few years ago, with a section dedicated to picture disc gimmickry...that's how I found out it wasn't my mate at school pulling my leg. Needless to say, I've never actually seen one of them.

― Jez, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

... the Blondie picture disc where Debbie Harry's clothes were scratched off by the stylus.
Somebody please provide concrete evidence of this! Post a photo, if possible!
― briania, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

sorry
― briania, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

hrm.

You could implement it in CD format by making your music a PC executable, but then the thing wouldn't play on proper CD players the same way.

― thom, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

long ago when I was a small child I bought a single of one of the tracks from 'War Of The Worlds' for 5p. The b-side was that rather spooky number with the theremin bits... for some reason there was a thin skin of plastic all over the vinyl that was rotting away, so the whole thing jumped and made interesting krrrrrch noises. I used to play it to death.

― marinecreature, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

wow, that is just such a fucking good idea. Unfortunately it would never work, but I like to be proved wrong.

Re: the 4 tracks thing, A friend of mine had a Kate Bush 12" (Hounds Of Love?) that was like that, except that half the time it would play the full version, and the other half it would play the instrumental. T'was quite cool, and made even cooler after he accidently scrached it and it would occasionally switch between the two different tracks in a dub styl

― Chewshabadoo, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I wholeheartedly support this idea or product.

― dleone, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

This reminds me of the time I tried to play the b-side of the Dinosaur Jr. "Just Like Heaven" 12-inch single.

― Sean Carruthers, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

If this is indeed possible, there is only one man who could pull it off.

― Mark, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

How about it, Janek?

― Mark, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Of course you could do something like this in a computer based format, there could be a program that keeps track of times played and plays back various things (and you could do a lot of other things that way too), That would be pretty easy to do. As for a format that would work with current cd players or records i don't think this would be possible. DVDs would be more likely to be able to do this (they can fit more). If you want to make and entirely new format a neat thing to do would be implanting of MEMS (micro electric mechanical systems) or normal memory chips onto a disc which could alter a disc in many different ways, but you would need some way for the player to supply power to the disc once it is put in so that the device could do thier jobs. Its an interesting idea, but I doubt anything like this would ever catch on. It would just be a funny novelty.

― A Nairn, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

talking bout janek schaefer, i just saw him and a whole bunch of international nerds kill some records on the final date of the 'turntsble hell' tour.(www.cmntours.org.uk) absolute magic. schaefer was most definately the nerdyest, otomo yoshihide was great, hitting some kettles. steve noble was supercool and martin ng's record collection was a treat. martin tetreault scores top marks for his scary green record player, battling it out with yoshihide's cymbals in a noise-fest-up-rock. top quality vinylpunking that blew the eardrums of the crowd. me and my crew played hiphop n reggae in the bar. it was a nice night, but over too soon.

i like picture discs, has anyone done a s&d of picture discs??

― dbini, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

But...funny novelties make the world go 'round! (well, mine at least)

― kate, Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

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