Piezo Transducer Stylus Experiments

These experiments came from the idea of sound describing a surface or texture, similar in principle to vinyl recorder player but without a recording, the inate topolgy of a material being the source of sound events. I began making crude styluses using wire soldered to Piezo's and exploring different materials by placing them on a turntable. These included card, glass, metal, slate and modifying the surfaces with scratches or insulation tape. These different surfaces were mixed together and I tried some actual vinyl records as well. The most surprising results came from using CDR's, their smooth surfaces creating some interesting sounds that could be easily scratched into making rhythmical clicks. “Grooves” made by playing the disc as the process is destructive, seemed to create crude recordings of the noise produce. Which then appeared to be played back when using a finer needle. I also experimented with types of needle using wire springs and different thickness, even trying a polystyrene wedge.

I want to explore the principle behind these experiments further. There are some basic ingredients or variables: a path of motion, a needle and a surface. Disc or cylinder? - multiple needles? – hand cranked? – speed? – size? – automatic or played? – acoustic?.

Is what I am doing here a misuse or abuse of an audio technology or has it become its own thing? Records to me have a mysterious quality, this innocuous black disc, which on its own doesn't really say anything about sound or music. You then put it in this device, that is actually very simple and music comes out. To me it somehow doesn't add up (although there are some people that claim to know what records sound like by just looking at them.). By subverting this technology it reveals a kind of material truth, it is just a surface texture read by needle then amplified. So what is a “record player” without a recording?