Tips for when your vinyl record skips

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marky
Mile High Club
Posts: 3542
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2002 9:01 am
Location: Timbuk 4

Tips for when your vinyl record skips

Post by marky »

Hold your vinyl record under warm-to-hot water. Not the label made of paper in the inner rim, obviously, but the groove portion. Then get a piece of kleenex or toilet paper or a towel or whatever and rub it gently so that you're following the grooves around, do not rub it against the grooves outward like you do CD's. Inspect the surface. In most cases you can tell whether an imperfection is something that is engraved in the surface, or whether it is a piece of something stuck TO the surface. Obviously there is a critical difference. Often, tiny objects stuck to the surface can be removed by rubbing over them with the kleenex/whatever you are using, and even using your fingernail on top of the kleenex if necessary. This is after you put the water on, of course. Tonight though I had a real hard time telling whether this one spot was IN the surface or on TOP of the surface. But it turned out that when I played this poor quality vinyl Armande Altai record again after following the above instructions, it no longer skipped much at all! What a difference! It's like an act of God. "And Moses said, let there be no skips on the vinyl" hahahahahaha

Tune in next time on "doctorin' the vinyl".
marky
Mile High Club
Posts: 3542
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2002 9:01 am
Location: Timbuk 4

Post by marky »

Seriously though this is supernatural. I'm playing that song again right now just to prove it to myself that I'm not crazy and I keep waiting for it to skip and I can't believe it isn't happening. Maybe it's because I slightly adjusted the anti-skate dial, too, though. But I didn't think that would help because I can't even tell how to set that dial at all, where is the tick mark on the side to tell what number on the dial it's being set to? See, I don't really understand that thing and I thought I broke it a long time ago anyway.

But I can't believe that this thing is not skipping on this song anymore. I can't believe it. It is such a mindfuck. I tried holding the needle still when it reached the skipping parts but I saw really quickly that the problem was too complicated for that to work. I really didn't think I was going to have much luck at all, I thought I was doomed. It's a miracle.
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