1.05.2016

45 Spinners

On New Years Eve, my brother John and I closed out the year revealing a new vinyl-compatible custom piece. The vinyl this fits however, is not of the articulated type, but audible.

Years back after a particularly hazy night of spinning old Jamaican 45s, John began sketching new designs for record adapters. Most people are at least familiar with this iconic item even if they've never used one, but there was a time when these mini plastic "spiders" were ubiquitous with any music collection (allowing 45 rpm singles to jump from jukeboxes to turntables). Their popularity may have peaked a few years before we were born, but after inheriting our father's 45 box at a young age, we've always had a fascination with 7" vinyl.

Since 2015 was the first year we recorded a cassette-only album in over 15 years, it seemed fitting to cap it with another tribute to anachronistic technology. It also happened to be when our bandmates 10 Ft Ganja Plant booked a very rare live performance and asked John to DJ the event. I'll spare the details of the big steps our country made this year in states like Colorado, too... let's just say the timing for this particular design felt right. Long story short, we finally had the means and inspiration to see this project through and began producing them in the weeks leading to the NYE show.

Thus, the first batch of 45 Spinners are here!

Big thanks to all who have supported my side quests with Music ADD and Bit Figs. These adapters are just a tiny portion of the things we've been developing and 3D printing over the past few months. Much progress has been made on the Bit Figs front, and we'll be sharing the next part of their plan in early 2016 as well. Stay tuned!


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