Post #105955 by spy-tiki on Tue, Aug 3, 2004 11:33 AM

Just another two cents...Washing records makes a HUGE difference. There is a certain stigma about it after treating your treasured recordings with loving care all these years, but you will be amaazed. There are all sorts of theories about what works best, etc, but a little warm water and mild dishwashing liquid does wonders. Try not to get the label wet. (Some guy on ebay makes a thing that clamps over the label and makes a good handle. Can't remember what it's called) Water doesn't hurt vinyl at all, but can leave deposits if you don't rinse well that can make new pops and clicks. Overall though your record will sound a thousand times better. Honestly, you can sometimes get CD type sound out of a trashed record by washing. Alchohol is the best at cleaning, but will attack the vinyl. There are record vacuums (search "Nitty Gritty" on the web.here's a review:

http://www.audiophilia.com/hardware/ngrecord.htm

They are expensive, but there is another company that makes a nitty gritty style vacuum you hook up to your home vacuum that's a lot cheaper ( I just got one of these, but haven't used it yet):

http://www.kabusa.com/index_rc.htm The RONCO or K-TEL vacuums are junk.)

I usually put the soapy water in a bowl just deep enough for the grooved part of the lp to submerge. Then turn the lp while I lightly go over it with a washcloth. A good rinse under the faucet and air dry and voila!

Two more cents. I'm not a computer whiz, but most of even the freeware music editing programs let you zoom in on, highlight, and delete the pops in your recordings. They show up as big straight vertical lines on the wave form. With a little patience things clean up pretty well. Hope this helps (you still awake?)