Features Podcasts Family Video Comics Music Tech Science Books Film & TV Games ✚

Jill

LP collection comes with a battery operated toy car that is a record player.

Mark Frauenfelder at 7:50 am Wed, Feb 20, 2008

— FEATURED —

Science

Last chance to enter the Armchair Taxonomist challenge!

Book Review

Black Code: how spies, cops and crims are making cyberspace unfit for human habitation

Book Review

We Can Fix it! - a graphic novel time travel memoir

Science

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

— FOLLOW US —

Boing Boing is on Twitter and Facebook. Subscribe to our RSS feed or daily email.

 

— POLICIES —

Except where indicated, Boing Boing is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution

 

— FONTS —

Tweet
Kindle
John of Insound says:
200802200949 I just wanted to tip you off to an insanely cool item Insound just started carrying. It's a limited 5LP set with tracks by Cat Power, Animal Collective, The Knife and more that comes in a domed case that also housing a custom-made MINI Clubman "Vinyl Killer" Record Player: a battery-operated toy car containing speakers and a needle. As the little car drives along the record's groove, it plays each track, acting as a fully portable record player and sound system.
Link

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

MORE:  Funny • Gadgets

More at Boing Boing

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Hackers prepare for first "national holiday" in their honor

  • historyman68

    @6 “Wears thin pretty quick.”

    pun intended?

  • DMcK

    From what I’ve heard, “Vinyl Killer” is a pretty apt moniker. It’s a great gimmick, but better employed on records you don’t mind destroying, rather than limited editions.

  • Baldhead

    Aside from one of these toy cars (which, at least the ones put out however many decades ago they first showed up, sounded TERRIBLE) being included in a limited edition vinyl set… nothing new here. Not even very interesting.

  • arkizzle

    ..yeh, really, these have been around for years.
    We had a little VW camper van one.

  • kip w

    I pointed one of my art teachers to one of those around 1982, and he bought it. At his next party, he announced a special playing of a scene from “La Boheme.” Setting the Seraphim LP reverently on a cloth, he explained that in this scene, the heroine is dying of a terrible illness. Then he brought out the little VW bus and let it go, doing terrible, terrible things to the music.

    I salute you, Dr. Tichich! You Are The Man!

  • Downpressor

    As said before do not use one of these on a record you care at all about.

    @9 You forgot the Numark PT01.

  • moderngeorgia

    Love BoingBoing, but, er, isn’t this product placement a bit obvious, with banner and display ads for the Clubman on display, or is this a happy accident for Mini…

  • jahfool

    Its an issue of Visionaire magazine- one of their “sense” issues. The magazine often seems cool but my working-class sensibilities (and love of, among other things, food, drink, and clothes) won’t let me spend the hundreds of dollars it takes to purchase an issue.

    This one seems cheap relative to other issues- maybe it isn’t selling as well, although it strikes me as a pretty cool idea, and I’m pretty sure that David Byrne was involved in the production. The vinyl and the “vinyl killer” are for show and collector value- it also comes with a CD that contains all of the sounds in the set.

  • Kim Scarborough

    Yeah, I had one of those VW van ones too. They sound cool in theory, but what nobody realizes until you get one is that the sound is always screwed up due to the Doppler Effect. So it’s basically like listening to a record that is constantly slowing down and speeding up. Wears thin pretty quick.

  • braschlosan

    Everything I wanted to say has been said.
    Vinyl Killer is an appropriate name.
    The sound sucks because of doppler shift.
    These have been around for a long time.

  • KSky

    You can even get one from 20 years ago on EBay. But you have to be over 21 cause it says “Bud Light” on it.

    EBay Item 150218151367

    http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150218151367

  • fantasticpoison

    Vinyl-playing truck is aka Soundwagon: http://soundwagon.jp/top.html

    There are a bunch of YouTube clips of the thing.

    Invisible Skratch Picklz (I think) used to have a promotional one sold through TurntableLab (I think). Turntablists like them ’cause they’re an easy way to preview music found digging through vinyl bins, like at your local flea market or thrift store. Only other truly portable non-vintage option is the Vestax Handy Trax.

  • Uncle Geo

    Dr. Lirpa would be proud.