Stockholm, Sweden
Swedish Teenage Engineering’s latest product—the PO-80 Record Factory—expands the company’s reach into a new demographic that audio tech never really considered—kids.
Designed in collaboration with Yuri Suzuki, the Japanese artist, designer, electronic musician, and partner at Pentagram, the Record Factory is a compact and portable record cutter that allows kids to create their own 5” vinyl records and playback in lo-fi sound.
It features a record cutter that engraves audio onto 5″ vinyl discs, giving kids the ability to record and playback their own LPs the old-fashioned way, quite like how millennials made mixtapes and burned their own CDs.
The device is perfect for kids to experiment, allowing them to plug into an audio source using the 3.5mm input to engrave any audio directly onto the vinyl disc.
It’s not studio-grade equipment, but it does add a creamy muffled, audio effect that totally sounds like the 1940s and 1950s.
The record cutter turns any audio into a pleasant lo-fi tune with a retro warmth.
Teenage Engineering also supplies a vinyl mastering app on their website that takes any MP3 and WAV files and plays with the equalizer settings to ensure the track is record-ready.
The 3.5mm jack also allows a connection to the company’s Pocket Operator series of MIDI controllers directly to the cutter, converting the audio that is played on the devices into LPs.
Alternatively, kids can even listen to records using a separate player head and the Record Factory’s built-in speaker.
Designed to build yourself; the kit includes everything one needs–just add your tracks.
The product starts at $149 USD and is not recommended or intended for children 0-12 years of age.
Project: PO-80 Record Factory
Designers: Teenage Engineering AB and Yuri Suzuki
Manufacturer: Teenage Engineering AB
