FAD GADGETS

Rhodri Marsden on three of the latest must-have gizmos currently putting the prog into progress.

TEENAGE ENGINEERING PO-80

A few years back we featured a cute compact record cutter that produced neat little 5” vinyl discs on a budget. Japanese in origin, it was, we said, due to land on UK and US shores imminently, but that turned out to be a little optimistic. It’s here now though, having been taken under the wing of Swedish synth wizards Teenage Engineering. Bright orange in hue, it might look like a kids toy, but under-12s are apparently not to mess with it for some reason. We’re also told that the 5” discs it cuts are “ultra lo-fi”, which makes a change from being told about vinyl’s supposed “warmth”. www.teenage.engineering

GUITAR PEDAL LPS

Nobody has ever wished that a vinyl LP was also a guitar pedal, or vice versa. But when someone runs with a mad idea, mad innovations come to pass. The record itself (Skin Walker by US duo Brother O Brother) is one-inch thick and thus will only play on turntables with enough vertical adjustment to lift the tone arm high enough. But wait! You can also plug it up between your guitar and amp to create a bunch of delay and distortion sounds. Just don’t try doing both at once, because your cables will get in a tangle and you’ll look silly… www.romanusrecords.com

SAMPLEBRAIN

It’s Aphex Twin’s third release in eight years, but it’s not a record – it’s a piece of software (Mac or PC) that allows you to generate unusual sounds from run-ofthe-mill samples. “It processes a target sample,” says the blurb, “chopping it up into blocks in the same way, and tries to match each block with one in its brain to play in realtime.” And if that makes no sense, whoo-wee, just try using it. “We gradually added more and more tweakable parameters until it became slightly out of control,” it continues. You don’t say… www.bit.ly/samplebrain