How do record players work?

Question

It has record discs going in circles and making noise. But how does it make songs? And how do you have people singing on them?

Answer 1

Charinders gives a great answer. i would only add that, ironically (except for actualy touching the platter) CDs work essentialy the same way, but with light instead if a needle an tone arm.

-a guy named duh

Answer 2

On each side of the record is a tiny v-shaped groove that goes from the outside to the inside of the record. The stylus, which is a tiny pointed thing on the end of a little arm, sits in this groove.

The sound wave is encoded into the groove by changing the depth of the groove. At least, that is how it works if it is a mono record (no stereo information). On a stereo record, the groove moves at an angle of 45 degrees to the surface of the record. One way for the left channel, and at 90 degrees to that for the right channel.

The little arm with the stylus on it is connected to a cartridge. This decodes the wiggling motion of the arm into electrical signals for left and right channels. They get amplified and filtered, and then you have beautiful stereophonic sound!

The cartridge is mounted on a tonearm, which is carefully balanced so that it applies just the right amount of downward force on the stylus - too little and it jumps off the record, too much and it digs its own groove in the record.

The earliest record players, or gramophones, had no electrical amplification. They used a metal needle connected to a big trumpet to amplify the sound.

The earliest records were made of shellac, a hard resin made from beetles (insect, not band). They were thick, heavy and single sided. and they turned at 78 revs per minute, which is a h**l of a l**k, so despite their size you didn't get much music on them.

Later, vinyl was used, with smaller "microgrooves". The better quality of the vinyl records meant they could turn slower without degrading the sound quality. LPs turn at 33 RPM, so you could get about 25 minutes of music on a side. Singles are smaller discs that play at 45 RPM.

Edit:

One more thing... a record player has a built-in amplifier and speaker/s, a record deck uses an external amplifier.

Answer 3

you use a recording program that puts it on the black stuff

the scratches make the music

kinda like a cd