Record Cleaning Systems (including one DIY!)

[Steve A.]

I started to do some high end 24 bit/96khz vinyl rips- one of them was a copy of the first album from Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac- a copy that I only played a few times. The grunge between the songs was very discouraging- yes, I could clean them up with software but that would detract from the ambience of these rips.

So I was investigating the various wet record cleaning machines from Nitty Gritty and VPI (the entry level machines run from about $350 to $550). And I ran across a DIY system that might set you back only about $50 and most of that is for a high quality brush from VPI to scrub your records. The game plan is to salvage the platter and bearing from an old turntable and then use a regular canister vacuum to suck up the dirty fluid (there are instructions on how to convert a regular crevice tool for this purpose- cut a slit in it lengthwise and cover it with a fabric like velvet). Here's a link to the instructions:

http://www.grynx.com/projects/record-cleaning-machine

BTW for the FM album I tried rinsing it off under the kitchen faucet and that seemed to make the first few songs much cleaner, but much of the grunge came back at the end of the album. I dunno why- perhaps the crud was in solution and by the time the album reached the last few songs it had redeposited itself in the grooves?

One disadvantage to washing your records under the kitchen faucet is that the record label will get wet as well- the record cleaning machines usually have a "puck" that goes over the record and protects the record label (I need to make up one of those!)

After hitting a few goodwills I decided what the heck- I might as well go to a vacuum shop and pay $2 for a used crevice tool. I cut the slit with my Dremel, using a cheap metal ruler as a template. For the velvet I had bought a small piece of Royal Velvet at a fabric store- 1/8 a yard at $25 a yard which worked out to $2.02 with my 40% off coupon (yes, I 'm a cheap bastard!) But it kept unraveling when I cut it to size so I decided to dissect one of my 4 Discwashers instead, and glued that on with contact cement (which is drying right now!)

One tip- after cutting off the tip of the crevice tool square I thought long and hard about sealing the opening. The webpage mentions using MDF, but I was looking for a solution that requires no woodworking skills. So I cut off a piece of a Cingular/AT&T 64MB SIM card- this is thicker than a credit card- and glued it to the end of the tool with 5 minute epoxy.

Well, I hope to be taking this for a test run tommorrow so I'll post my results here!

Steve Ahola

[Enzo]

In the jukebox trade, in some boxes records could build up a ton of dust and nicotine. We washed records under warm soapy water. An old T shirt is about the softest cloth I can find and seemed to make less lint than baby diapers. A tub fill of warm water and some dish detergent. Dip rag into water and wipe record wiping around like the groove. Pretty much kept the label dry by paying attention more than anything else. Rinse under warm flowing water, again just keeping flow off the label. Shake them off and drip dry.

I suspect the reason the inner grooves didn't clean as well was because you were a bit more timid cleaning near the label. The stylus wouldn't herd dirt along the groove for any distance.

It doesn't have to be intense, but a little soap will help remove film buildup and also helps loosen crud that might want to stick. SHould work better than plain warm water. Though plain water does work reasonably well.

ANd on the spot quick wipes - we used a squirt of windex.

[Steve A.]

In the jukebox trade, in some boxes records could build up a ton of dust and nicotine. We washed records under warm soapy water. An old T shirt is about the softest cloth I can find and seemed to make less lint than baby diapers. A tub fill of warm water and some dish detergent. Dip rag into water and wipe record wiping around like the groove. Pretty much kept the label dry by paying attention more than anything else. Rinse under warm flowing water, again just keeping flow off the label. Shake them off and drip dry.

I suspect the reason the inner grooves didn't clean as well was because you were a bit more timid cleaning near the label. The stylus wouldn't herd dirt along the groove for any distance.

It doesn't have to be intense, but a little soap will help remove film buildup and also helps loosen crud that might want to stick. SHould work better than plain warm water. Though plain water does work reasonably well.

And on the spot quick wipes - we used a squirt of windex.

Thanks for your comments and suggestions!

The webpage specified a recipe for making your own cleaner, basically 4 parts distilled water to 1 part anyhydrous alcohol with a touch of a magic surfacant (that I've been unable to locate on-line). Here's the exact text:

"Drugstore isopropyl contains too many impurities to qualify it for record cleaning. Use technical or lab-grade isopropyl, which is extremely pure. Reagent grade is unnecessary and far more expensive. Water should be steam distilled, triple de-ionized. Both of these are readily available at a chemical supply house, which should sell them to you in pint and gallon sizes.
You also need to add a drop of surfacant, or wetting agent, to reduce the surface tension of the water so the formula can penetrate down into the grooves. Very high frequency grooves, in the range of 15 kHz, can be as small as four millionths of an inch, according to Wald Davies of LAST. Though alcohol itself helps somewhat, you still need a wetting agent. Two excellent and safe choices are Triton X-114 from Rohm-Haas and Monolan 2000 from Diamond Shamrock."

What the heck, I use 99% isopropyl alcohol for my purposes, and plain distilled water from the supermarket. As for the magic surfacant, I figured I'd use a few drops of Dawn dishwashing liquid in each batch. And I was thinking of mixing up two different solutions- one of which had more detergent in it for pre-cleaning of particularly dirty records.

Steve Ahola

P.S. In my first experiment, washing the record under the kitchen faucet, I used only my Discwasher brushes for scrubbing and cleaned the inner grooves exactly as I did the outer grooves. My thoughts were that the water had pretty much evaporated after the LP had played for 10+ minutes, which would have redeposited the remaining crud back into the tracks. Or it might have something to do with the differences in linear velocity going from the outer grooves to the inner grooves...

EDIT: Here are two more links I just found. The first is another DIY project and the second is a discussion of homebrew recipes on the Steve Hoffman forum:

http://www.soundstage.com/synergize/synergize041998.htm

http://stevehoffman.tv/forums/archiv...p/t-39597.html


(From the discussion it sounds like Glass Plus is recommended highly, although some folks do prefer the ammonia based solutions.)


And here is what the Library of Congress recommends:

http://www.loc.gov/preserv/care/record.html

And one more thread from the Steve Hoffman forums...

http://stevehoffman.tv/forums/archiv...p/t-31192.html

[Dave N.]

Hey Steve,

Does recording at 24 bit/96Hz make the album to big to put to CD? seems you are trying to go into a territory of sorts similar to SACD but without the track seperation.

I did want to ask do these recordings sound any better than the 16 bit/44.1HZ?

Dave N.

[Steve A.]

Hey Steve,

Does recording at 24 bit/96Hz make the album to big to put to CD? seems you are trying to go into a territory of sorts similar to SACD but without the track seperation.

I did want to ask do these recordings sound any better than the 16 bit/44.1HZ?

Dave N.

I've been getting some 24bit/96khz rips from a friend and yes they sound a lot better than 16bit/44.1khz. There is a certain ambience missing on the lower resolution rips (or the CD reissues) that is very present on the 24bit/96khz rips. (I had wondered at first why this should be, since the analog equipment used in the 60's and 70's probably had very little high frequency contact over maybe 24khz. However I think it has something to do with how a good turntable and stereo will translate the grooves in the vinyl into sound waves.)

You can downsample these rips to 24bit/48khz and burn them as the audio track for a normal DVD, which you can play on a DVD player in your A/V rack. (This is not the same as DVD-Audio, which is a format that hasn't really caught on.)

For burning to CD I would recommend using the Native Waves IDR module for dithering to 16 bit- with their technology they can make 16 bits sound like 18 or 19 bits.

I think it goes without saying that a new CD format will be coming out "one of these days", a format that offers the consumer 24 or 32 bits (and offers the record industry DRM- digital rights management... ) I don't think that I would ever buy a CD that did not allow me to make backup copies, but when the drives and players are here we will be able to burn our own 24bit/96khz recordings.

Here's a preliminary rip of "The World Keeps Turning" from the first Fleetwood Mac album. This is with my older turntable (I just got a Music Hall 2.2 yesterday that I haven't set up set) and after cleaning it under the kitchen faucet. I used Click Repair 2.1 to clean it up a bit and also ran a De-Esser on some of the S's, and then dithered it to 16 bit with Native Waves IDR. (I will be re-ripping this later today, testing out my DIY cleaning rig and Music Hall 2.2 turntable):

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CW7H3X32

There are some flaws in this sample, but it is head and shoulders above the 1999 remasters and compares favorably with the 1993 Rewind remasters, which is a little bit cleaner, but with less ambience.

Steve Ahola

[Satamax]

Steve, i do software cleaning with adobe audition. That's about it. But there's a solution to old dusty records, in the industry they use a rounded off stylus, instead of more of a V shaped one. Reading the top of the groove instead of the dusty bottom.

[Steve A.]

Steve, i do software cleaning with adobe audition. That's about it. But there's a solution to old dusty records, in the industry they use a rounded off stylus, instead of more of a V shaped one. Reading the top of the groove instead of the dusty bottom.

The manual click repair tool in Adobe Audition (the artisians formerly known as Cool Edit Pro) is the best I've found. I will even use it for manual touchup of audio- like if a bass note grinds a little bit too much. I think of it as being like the smudge tool in Photoshop... LOL

However, for automated click repair I've tried about a dozen different programs and the only one that removes 95% of the clicks without screwing up the sound seems to be Click Repair 2.1. Some of the programs seemed to work fairly well, but would get confused by instruments like saxophone (the sound of which might technically be considered to be noise ). So I will do one or two passes of Click Repair at a setting of 20 (and then 30 if needed) and then finish it up manually in Adobe Audition (which isn't quite as buggy as CEP 2.0).

I'll look into the rounded needles- thanks for the tip!

Steve Ahola

[Dave N.]

I think it goes without saying that a new CD format will be coming out "one of these days", a format that offers the consumer 24 or 32 bits (and offers the record industry DRM- digital rights management... ) I don't think that I would ever buy a CD that did not allow me to make backup copies, but when the drives and players are here we will be able to burn our own 24bit/96khz recordings. Steve Ahola

Yes, its called SACD, the industry seems to have tried to push this but we will see how long it takes to catch on. maybe another format will pop up?

Right now the MP3 is gonna change to MP4 from what I've read. So who knows where this all will go. I'm starting to wonder if I should ever copy my albums to CD when the industry is changing the way we hear music. Money making is pushing new technology but is it really that much better???

Dave N.

[Steve Conner]

You bought a used crevice tool?! That could have been anywhere

[Steve A.]

Update

Once again TAP Plastics came through for me! They have 4" round blanks in 1/8" and 1/4" thickness for like $1.25 and $2.00 each. Add 75 cents to drill a hole and you are set.

For my DIY record cleaning system, I used a 1/4" clear blank with a 1/4" hole that I reamed out to fit my turntable spindle snugly. I then put closed cell foam insulation around the perimeter- 1/4" thick and 3/8" wide. You pop this piece on top of the record to protect the label during the cleaning process.

I was ready to roll and plugged in the turntable I had given to my mother about 15 years ago- only absolutely nothing happened! I had picked this up at a flea market and I guess it died in my mother's AV rack. R.I.P.

craigslist had someone selling a Denon Turntable DP-30L. One channel was lower than the other, but I wanted it just for cleaning records so that didn't matter. This turntable is built like a tank- exactly what I was looking for.

I had mixed up two different cleaning solutions based on the recipe from the SoundStage link above- one regular strength and one heavy duty. I could not find any Lysol Direct but they did have Lysol AntiBacterial with the same two ingredients- plus a very fresh lemony smell! I'm still waiting on the Kodak Photo Flo (a wetting agent) which will hopefully be delivered on Friday. I also have the special VPI cleaning brush coming in which is highly recommended for cleaning, but in the meantime I'm using a 1" paint brush with synthetic bristles for the first step of the cleaning process. I follow that with one of my Discwashers and then finish everything off with the vacuum. I tried it first with a small Shop Vac but that had *way* too much suction. So I'm using a smaller vacuum which has the air flow adjustment on the handle- which I leave wide open and it'll still pull the record off the platter.

So for my first test I redid the first Fleetwood Mac album. This was with my brand new Music Hall 2.2 turntable so that made a difference too, but there was a very definite decrease in the level of background noise- something you could see in Adobe Audition when you select the Spectral View. I redid "World Kept Turning" and it hardly needed any automated declicking, but I ran it anyway for comparison. I was pleased with the S's- but I think that had to more to do with the new turntable and cartridge than the record cleaning. Here is a link to a FLAC (lossless) version of the new rip- dithered to 16 bit using Native Waves IDR technology:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=MS5NN53F

Steve Ahola

P.S. I had two more 4" blanks drilled out for a different application. With the weatherstripping around the perimeter, two of them can be secured to an LP for manual cleaning in the sink, etc., without having to worry about the label getting wet. You can then put it on a clean towel and go to town scrubbing away if need be... They are selling something like that on ebay for a buy-it-now price of$49! The Groovmaster Label Saver:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...E:B:SS:US:1123

[Dave N.]

Probably using one of those old time record players from the sixties would work well as they had real strong motor and will not bog down like the newer turntables will when applying the crevis tool to the album to vacuum the crud off of.

Man, so much time into ripping an album, I wonder if its really worth it time wise? Some one once told me that an album was like the perfect copy of the original mixed song but is that really true?

I've heard some CD's that sound better than the album originally did but sometimes not always the case. One Led Zep CD that sounded harsh compared to the album.

Any one here have any real experience with the recording process of albums or CD?

Thanks

Dave N.

[Steve A.]

Probably using one of those old time record players from the sixties would work well as they had real strong motor and will not bog down like the newer turntables will when applying the crevis tool to the album to vacuum the crud off of.

Man, so much time into ripping an album, I wonder if its really worth it time wise? Some one once told me that an album was like the perfect copy of the original mixed song but is that really true?

I've heard some CD's that sound better than the album originally did but sometimes not always the case. One Led Zep CD that sounded harsh compared to the album.

Any one here have any real experience with the recording process of albums or CD?

Thanks

Dave N.

Dave:

I do know some people in the recording industry but the opinions expressed here are my own. If you want to see what goes on behind the scenes look into what Steve Hoffman has written (most people consider his remasters to be the best in the field). You might want to start with the interview regarding his remastering of Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited":

http://www.edlis.org/twice/threads/hwy61_DCC.html

As for your other questions, Led Zeppelin is a really good example. The original CD reissues weren't very good so Jimmy Page himself did an extensive remastering of them around 1992- but a lot of people have complained that he changed the sound of the Led Zep albums we all grew up listening to. I have a friend who picks up 180 and 200 gram vinyl reissues of these albums and then does a fantastic high-end 24 bit/96khz rip of them, which puts everything that Atlantic has put out to shame. Even the dithered 16 bit versions sound better than anything you can buy in the store.

I started off doing "journeyman" vinyl rips about 7 years ago (not to be confused with "audiophile" vinyl rips). I have around 3500 vinyl albums, many of which have never been reissued on CD. So I did a lot of my favorite albums which I never found on CD. Maybe a year ago I started doing albums which have been issued on CD, but for one reason or another the CD does not compare to the original LP (often in mono).

Like the first album from Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac- all that is currently available on CD is from the 1999 remasters which added a lot of compression to the original recordings. There was an earlier reissue in 1993 that sounds closer to the original vinyl mixes, but I decided to do a high-end audiophile 24 bit/96khz rip of a copy I got in the late 70's that I played only a few times to dub to cassette. Here's a MegaUpload link to "The World Keep On Turning" in 24 bit/96khz FLAC format (which you should be able to play in WinAmp or Foobar):

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=L6SLJPSK

Yes, it does take a lot of time to do these vinyl rips and do them right, but then again it is a hobby. Once properly prepared I may listen to these tracks dozens of times myself and share them with my friends, so they do result in quite a few hours of enjoyment. Bottom line is that they are usually much better than anything you can find in the stores.

BTW I just heard about another record cleaning system that is very reasonably priced- it is the basic Nitty Gritty model but you supply your own canister vacuum (and save about $200!):

http://www.kabusa.com/ev1.htm

Steve Ahola

[Dave N.]

Hey Steve,
Good info on the vinyl rips. I am glad you chimed in on ripping vinyl because I have done about 40 albums and I find that I have to re EQ some in conversion to CD but some albums just do not seem to record well. I just did a KISS alive II and wasn't real happy with the outcome. The sound was muddy and some what distorted. I'm am really now wondering if a good cleaning may be the ticket but also wondering if I need a new needle and cartridge as well.

I started off doing the vinyl rips as I missed the older music that I listened to as a teen. Right now I'm using audicity and click repair 2.2.1 and the audicity has a EQ that I use after the rip and cleaning. Its a bit of a pain to get the EQ on the recordings though as I find I needed a better pair of PC monitors for playback that would be some what close to a good Hi Fi system.

What program are you using to record in 24 bit/ 96 Hz format?

The one thing I can say is some older albums are mixed great but some others are not great at least to my ears. But in saying that it may be the company who put out the records too as I have some albums that are not from the original record company but from odd ball labels.

The worst probelm I have is the PC is sitting where my wife watches TV and it pisses her off while I'm trying to do album coversion

I guess I might try to get some good cleaner and retry the KISS album.

Do you find certain albums that just do not record well?

Dave N.

[Steve A.]

Hey Steve,
Good info on the vinyl rips. I am glad you chimed in on ripping vinyl because I have done about 40 albums and I find that I have to re EQ some in conversion to CD but some albums just do not seem to record well. I just did a KISS alive II and wasn't real happy with the outcome. The sound was muddy and some what distorted. I'm am really now wondering if a good cleaning may be the ticket but also wondering if I need a new needle and cartridge as well.

I started off doing the vinyl rips as I missed the older music that I listened to as a teen. Right now I'm using audicity and click repair 2.2.1 and the audicity has a EQ that I use after the rip and cleaning. Its a bit of a pain to get the EQ on the recordings though as I find I needed a better pair of PC monitors for playback that would be some what close to a good Hi Fi system.

What program are you using to record in 24 bit/ 96 Hz format?

The one thing I can say is some older albums are mixed great but some others are not great at least to my ears. But in saying that it may be the company who put out the records too as I have some albums that are not from the original record company but from odd ball labels.

The worst probelm I have is the PC is sitting where my wife watches TV and it pisses her off while I'm trying to do album coversion

I guess I might try to get some good cleaner and retry the KISS album.

Do you find certain albums that just do not record well?

Dave N.

Dave:

You might try Glass Plus on the KISS album for a quick cheap cleaning; if you don't care about the label getting wet you don't have to go to all of the lengths suggested here. You might want to use a short bristled paint brush to give the grooves a good cleaning and then rinse it off very well under the kitchen faucet. If you have an old fashioned dish rack you might try letting it air dry a bit.

Many albums didn't sound that good when they came out, especially if they were made at the end of a run (they would press the vinyl using a set of plates good for maybe 2,000 copies, and then switch to a fresh set of plates- sometimes they would sell the used plates to the cheap record labels who'd sell the 99 cent records). I usually preferred the imports from UK or Germany to the US pressings.

Unless there was something wrong with the record or mix, I usually don't do any EQ-ing, so you might want to look into a better cartridge or a new needle.


Steve Ahola

[Steve A.]

Awhile back I had been asking for a homemade solution for the Discwasher fluid and I just found this over at the Diamond Cut forum:

http://www.diamondcut.com/vforum/showthread.php?t=1775

Steve Ahola