A nice-to-look-at walkthrough of the making of a Neumann U87 microphone. It is kind of remarkable, though, how much jargon the narrator uses. Just watch!

(via twenty thousand hertz)

How gut strings are made. A fascinating and (warning) kind of gory factory tour. It’s kind of amazing the variety of technology they use to produce these things.

From a concerto to a kebab, many people owe thanks to the versatile young lamb.

(via immanent discursivity)

This nice-looking little documentary shows the vinyl record manufacturing process at Gotta Groove Records. I love factory tours, and it’s interesting to see a company that was founded only recently getting into the LP business (after all, vinyl is coming back, you know?).

I wish they could make one of these for MP3s.

(via acriacao)

So this is just straight-up advertising for the Zildjian company, but I’m a sucker for factory tours.

Especially awesome: at about 5:35, the guys whose job is to test the cymbals. This can’t be the case, but I imagine them standing in that room all day long, crashing all the cymbals before anyone else does. That’s a job I’d want for just one day.

If you want to see part 1 (it’s less factory tour, more long-form ad, but hey, I won’t tell you what you want), check out the via link below.

(via A Continuous Lean)

How piano rolls were made at the QRS factory.

This video may be a little on the long side if you find player pianos boring (and the narration is…quirky), but it is really great in that Mr. Rogers factory tour kind of way.