Frieve Vinyl Explained: A Microscopic Physics Simulation of Analog Stylus Mechanics
Frieve Vinyl Explained – Microscopic stylus/groove physics simulation
I built a simulation that models a vinyl stylus tracing grooves using real microscopic physics like Hertz/Winkler contact and viscoelastic damping. Instead of visual tricks, this tool calculates how pink noise transforms through the RIAA chain, revealing how inner-groove distortion and pinch effects emerge purely from geometry. The results are validated against real-world orders of magnitude for SNR and distortion.
At 2g VTF, the contact pressure reaches about 0.4GPa, well above the yield stress of PVC, meaning microscopic asperities inside the contact patch are crushed and averaged.
- Luc
Accompanying blog post with some good explanation: https://note.com/frievea/n/n849abe8e46a7?hl=en
- quakeguy
The visualisation of the detail in the groove is pretty eye-opening, seeing how much ”data“ is being stored as soundwaves in between the main grooves is astounding.
- stickac
mandatory Applied Science video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuCdsyCWmt8