MonadLUG Notes, 12-July-2007

[Bill McGonigle]

On Jul 19, 2007, at 14:18, Tom Buskey wrote:

>  It would detect
> (mostly) track breaks and filter the pops, etc.

That got me to wondering what causes the pops, and some Googling  
found that it's mostly dust, and some more Googling found this DIY  
cleaning procedure:

   http://www.djforums.com/content/2007/01/02/mr-smashys-guide-to- 
record-cleaning/

My record collection is still pending digitizing (and at my folks'  
house in NJ...) so I haven't tried this yet (but I did pick up a nice  
used turntable to do it).  I think I'll also do my passed- 
grandparents' 78's too (but skip the intervening generation's AM Gold  
- gack).  If this turntable can only do 45 I'll probably have to  
fiddle with sox or Audacity to compensate.

Note: the above solution contains isopropynol - I'm pretty sure that  
will dissolve the old shellac-based 78's, since that's what you do  
when you want to make shellac finish for furniture.  I also saw that  
crackling can be caused by bad or loose needles, so watch out for  
that.  I was about to ask if I needed a special needle for the 78's  
but then I JFG'ed it, and found this page:

   http://www.ambor.com/public/78rpm/78rpm.html

which also talks about some open source packages for processing.  The  
link to the tempo estimator sounds cool for filling in the MP3 ID3 tag.

-Bill

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