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# APC-2: Teenage Engineering Built a Record Cutter
- URL: https://www.unknowndivide.com/apc-2-teenage-engineering-built-a-record-cutter/
- Published: 2026-07-10T23:27:01.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-10T23:27:01.000Z
- Author: unknowndivide staff
- Tags: gear

Teenage Engineering makes small things. Pocket synths, credit card samplers, a turntable you can fold up and carry. The APC-2 is not that. It is a 308-pound record lathe built from powder-coated aluminum and granite, and it cuts playback-ready vinyl in real time.

This is the follow-up to the original APC-1, developed with SUPERSENSE, the Vienna-based analog media house that has kept direct-to-disc recording alive for years. The partnership continues here, and so does the exclusivity. The APC-2 is not sitting in the TE store next to the OP-1\. Only a limited number of machines have been built, and getting one means emailing Teenage Engineering directly.

## What it does

The APC-2 is a professional audio disc recording system. You feed it audio, it cuts a groove. What separates it from vintage lathes and hobbyist cutters is the spec sheet:

- Direct drive motor on a precision polished tungsten shaft, with wow and flutter under 0.01% WRMS and a reference clock accurate to 1.5 ppm
- Variable pitch control that can be automated directly from your DAW, which opens up locked grooves and other specialty cuts
- Stereo feedback cutting head with an automated lift mechanism
- Integrated vacuum system for hold down and swarf removal
- Temperature controlled heating, built-in power amp with feedback and RIAA encoder, and an RIAA monitoring amp with headphone and line out
- Remote control over ethernet or wifi, all running off a single IEC power connector

The DAW automation is the detail worth sitting with. Cutting records has always been a specialist craft, part engineering and part feel. Putting pitch automation in the producer's session moves some of that craft into the same environment where the music was made.

## Why it matters

Vinyl demand has outpaced pressing plant capacity for a decade. Small runs get quoted months out, and one-off cuts have been limited to a small circle of lathe operators working on machines that are often older than the people running them. A modern, networked, precision-built cutter is aimed straight at that gap. TE and SUPERSENSE say the shared goal is access, getting anyone's music or sound onto a physical record.

At 1300 x 600 x 400 mm and 140 kg, this is studio furniture, not desk gear. No price is listed, which tells you what you need to know. But as a signal of where TE is willing to go, and what a modern lathe can look like, the APC-2 is one of the most interesting machines they have shipped.

**Details:** [teenage.engineering/products/apc-2](https://teenage.engineering/products/apc-2?ref=unknowndivide.com)