Imagine if you will a grooved record that actually plays on a turntable but is only the size of a standard CD. Below the vinyl record side is the same optical shinny silver media you put in your cd player and listen to. Fact or Fiction?

Well, a Germany based company called Optimal Media Production has made that a reality to cater to some special interest media buyers. The vinyl/CD hybrid is just like a normal CD except that on the top, it has vinyl grooves etched in. Place a VinylDisc on your turntable, drop the needle at the start of the track, and you’ll hear up to 3.5 minutes of music at 33 RPM. Since CDs have a hole at their center that’s too large to fit on a vinyl spindle, you’ll need to use the little rubber adapter that comes with each disc to center the disc on your record player; otherwise, it’ll go off-center and you’ll hear the music speed up and slow down with each revolution. Now that’s a pretty cool way to add some spice to your marketing campaign!

Now artists and labels can offer something new to their customers: a CD that everyone can play, with a secret bonus track in the grooves on top for those who have record players. For hip-hop heads and DJ’s this is a really cool spin to get people talking. Some other weird stuff they make is multi-colored discs, scented discs, a pretty cool transparent disc technology, a freestyle disc that “due to a partial metallization of the disc, specially chosen images float through the room, appearing three-dimensional and extraordinarily vivid”, etc. It’ll be interesting to see how new media affects the way we buy and sell music physically. As the digital medium continues to grow and evolve, the physical manufacturing, distribution, and sale of albums has been playing catch up to peak peoples interest again. Not a bad idea to spice up the discs themselves. Guess we’ll have to see how the market takes to it.

-Shaun