What does a vinyl record groove look like?


I have been scouring the internet in an effort to better understand how vinyl is cut and what the groove actually looks like, and therefore tracks like. This is what I think I have learned. A record cutter is a 90 degree V-shaped chisel that undulates back and forth and up and down and in so doing cuts vertical tracks into the sides of the groove it cuts. Bass notes are large undulations (relatively speaking) with midrange and treble undulations riding on top of them and along with them. According to Neil, who might chime in here, the cutter is tilted back 1 degree like a chisel might be, in order to peel up the vinyl that it removes as it cuts. Am I right when I say the cuts in the 90 degree sides of the groove are then 1 degree of vertical (as you look at a groove from the side)? What confuses me is I keep reading articles that talk about 22 degree, or 24 degree, or something like that, cutting angles. What is this all about? My whole purpose here is to completely understand how a groove really looks so I can better understand how a stylus can best track that groove. Not to mention it is flat out amazing to me that all that information can be cut into the groove of a chunk of vinyl in the first place.
240zracer

Showing 1 response by fatparrot

Dougdeacon, I thought that the lateral movement of the stylus produced only the mono signal, and the vertical movement gave the signal the stereo balancing. Am I wrong about this?