Cleaning Records

finally tried the wood glue trick on a junked copy of Nilsson Schmilsson that I bought for cheap. I'm kind of astounded, this really does work. it was downright unplayable, but now it actually sounds pretty good. not perfect...I'd grade it as "VG" or so (though a lot of discogs sellers I've bought from would slap a "VG+" on this no problem)...but much, much better than it was. if you have any records you were going to throw out because they sounded like garbage I recommend you give it a try. just make sure to spread the glue as evenly as possible, first time I did it I left a ton of residue because I missed some spots...you have to use a good amount of glue. but man, what a difference.

if you're curious, the glue I used was Titebond II Premium, which I got at Meijer for a few bucks. I've heard Elmer's works good too.

like, just to drive home how well this worked, there was a small spot I missed with the glue, and on playback I can hear *exactly* where that spot was

damn. man. maybe i SHOULD try this.

I guess it depends what's going on with the record in question. I tried this one with a pretty noisy D-side and it didn't do much - it *did* seem to sound a little better but the surface noise was all still there. Looking at the surface of the LP though it appears there are a lot of scratches which obviously this ain't gonna fix. If anyone knows what you can do about those I'm all ears. Gonna try it on a few more dirty old records and I'll see what I get.

also got some Tergikleen the other day, not to shill but this stuff really does work. I was pretty skeptical it would do much given how little you have to use - you mix like 15 drops into a gallon of water - but I used it in the spin clean and some pretty junked up records came out sounding great. nearly all the surface noise is gone. there's still some but it's fairly minimal.

just curious, are these records that already look dirty? i got a spin clean recently and haven’t noticed a difference... but I got rid of most of my “junked” vinyl years ago so I don’t really have much to test it with.

I don't examine them too closely but think the noise on records can definitely be something you can't see

the Tergikleen is what I think made the difference. one of the albums I ran through is one I already had spin cleaned at the shop and there was a pretty marked improvement with this

Anyone try an ultrasonic cleaner? They are getting down to somewhat-affordable.

A friend of mine is an engineer and he rigged up his own. (Many of the ultrasonic record cleaners use a generic ultrasonic cleaner as the base and then tack on $300-500 for the record-specific attachment). He says it works incredibly well, but he still uses a second cleaning with a vacuum-based record cleaner to remove the cleaning solution and now-suspended dirt.

I wonder if I could just pass my handheld Dyson over them :)

If you picked up a record from a thrift store and the inner sleeve had obviously been cummed on, but it was probably like 40 years ago, would you keep the sleeve or trash it? The artist is Ashford and Simpson. The record itself is VG+. Thank you.

https://i.imgur.com/5cxiTZP.jpeg

I bought an ultrasonic record cleaner. Rarely do you buy a product and it instantly exceeds your expectations.

A number of years ago I was given a batch of records by someone that had been stored in a damp basement for 25 years with possible water exposure and definite mold. Some of them played ok, but others played terribly - continuous crackling/scratchiness such that I wouldn't play a record in that condition.

15 minutes in the cleaner, wiped clean, then air dried and the difference is astonishing. Record plays as good as any VG+ record I've bought in a shop and better than most. Plus, the music just sounds a lot clearer, like a bit of a haze has been lifted. I've got a project ahead of me because everything I own is going in this thing.

oh, that's awesome! and yeah, i went thru the same all-collection mania when i got my SpinClean and experienced the results. i like the ritual i have with the SpinClean, a big cleaning batch doubling as a chill evening listening session.... but i could imagine someday when i have the space and budget, going up to the ultrasonic thing and doing the collection all over again.

Which one did you get, PBKR?

It's the iSonic with the 10 record capacity.

Seconded about the ultrasonic cleaner. Records with smudgy fingerprints still need a Spin Clean bath before going into the US machine, but otherwise it so roundly exceeds the Spin Clean (which is itself an incalculable improvement on just a brushing for dust, or using a damp cloth, or whatever) that I now have to put the whole collection through.

PKBR, what are you using for a wetting agent? I’m using Ilfotol & am super pleased with the results.

FWIW, this is the one I got. Paid for itself within a few weeks. 7-record capacity = a-ok by me!

https://www.vevor.com/products/6l-ultrasonic-vinyl-record-cleaner-cleaning-machine-complete-w-drying-rack

hows it do with scratches? I'm guessing there's nothing that can be done about that but I have a number of records I'd love to try out in one of those, if only someone else I knew would buy one

PKBR, what are you using for a wetting agent? I’m using Ilfotol & am super pleased with the results.

I'm using the cleaning solution that came with the unit, though I've read that people often prefer other ones or homebrew concoction. I will check out Ilfotol.

hows it do with scratches?

Not an expert, but my sense is you have to separate what is scratches from what is dirt. Nothing on the planet, including an ultrasonic cleaner, can fix a scratch. Visible scratches sometimes don't actually produce a crackle/pop and records that look visually excellent sometimes play like a pan full of frying bacon.

This absolutely cleans up the frying bacon/dirt issues.

Also, after trying the 10 record capacity today, I think I prefer just using it on 5 records at a time. I'm not too quick with the drying and I found that by the time I get to the 5th record it is almost dried (meaning the solution is drying on the record instead of being wiped off).

I guess I'm just curious if this is going to get anything off that Tergikleen through a spin clean wouldn't. a lot of the noise on my records is from scratches but I have a few which click and pop and scrape for no visible reason

The records I referred to in my original post yesterday were all previously put through a spinclean, which did not really change how they played. I would never deter someone from using something they like, but the spinclean gave me marginal if any results. The ultrasonic cleaner was night and day.

If the record is otherwise quiet and you have isolated pops and can see a scratch, the ultrasonic cleaner might not help. Otoh, if the record looks clean but plays with near continuous crackle, that is likely dirt and the ultrasonic cleaner is going to do wonders.

Update: two records that I had noted skipped no longer skip after being cleaned with the ultrasonic cleaner.

Damn, that's a pretty strong sales pitch right there.

Yeah, both records were visually pretty nice (no large scratches or anything that would cause the skip), so it must have just been a large piece of dirt caught in there.

Which model did you get? The one hardcore dilettante posted looks nice - but the reviews worry me a bit. It looks like the thing is often not sent with the right parts. It's certainly within my budget, though.

Ultimately, I'm at sort of a dead end with the cleaning system I have - it works for stuff that's obviously scuffed up and has improved a number of records but there are a lot for which it just has no effect at all, including stuff that's brand new. These look fine, visually - no scratches or obvious defects I can see - so I wonder if there's just something in there that the spin clean can't get out. It seems like this may be what I'm looking for??

I got that Vevor thing a couple days ago and it came with the correct parts. So, far, I've cleaned the playa dust off a couple of breakbeat records and also cleaned up this old recording of my mom DJing at WCOP in Boston when she was 10 (1950). I had to use a bunch of processing (Acon Denoise, declick) to further clean it up, but here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMGkuWWIZtw

The "drying rack" thing that came with it is confusing. I just use my wooden dish rack.

DJI, that's fantastic.

That's adorable.

whoa, thats super cool

those who have the Vevor cleaner: is there something to protect the labels from getting wet? are there clear instructions on how to assemble the thing? do you still have to run them through a spin clean to wash the solution off?

They come with these label-sized circles of plastic that fit between each record. I just used distilled water with a couple of drops of soap in, and then dried the records in my dish rack. No spinning or rinsing. I'm sure you can find audiophiles who require special cleaning fluids and other steps, but just the basic cleaning worked fine for me.

Also, so cute that she took requests... By mail!

DJI, your mom sounds great. She doesn't sound self-conscious at all.

Her dad was an old-time radio guy for VoA and other things (maybe he was a spook - we don't know). This was his way of "helping" her get over her crushing anxiety.

I have the iSonic with the ten record capacity. It's admittedly pretty pricey still, so if the Vevor gets good marks from DJI and others I would go with that.

There's not a lot to these things and the base units are not that expensive. More of the cost and engineering seems to go into how it deals with the records (motor, spinning, keeping labels dry, etc.) and how much they want to fleece audiophiles ;)

I wouldn’t use straight soap on a record, especially without rinsing it. That’s going to leave some sort of residue. Spin Clean fluid has something in it that does not leave a residue, and it has a deflocculant in it which reduces the viscosity of the water so the funky stuff sinks to the bottom instead of mixing with the water and making a soup that goes back onto the record.

I don’t know anything about Vevor cleaners or what you are supposed to use with them, but soap and water doesn’t sound right.

Totally agreed. I use the cleaner that came with it but there are tons of recommended concoctions to be found on the internet.

One recommendation I've read is to follow the ultrasonic cleaning with a rinse in the spin clean with distilled water only before drying to get rid of any cleaning residue. I haven't tried this yet because I'm too lazy and it seems to be working great without it. Makes sense though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agSC-dLNXXg

omg

Vevor machine arrived today. first of all, LMAO at these instructions. you get one beat up sheet of grainy out of order photos. I think I have it assembled though, but what are all these leftover plastic parts for? I have these two plastic sheets with holes in them and a bunch of rods & wingnuts.

also, what temp do y'all set this to? I assume you wanna keep this low?

oh wait. that's the record drying rack. LOL

I don't have the Vevor, but mine has a stop that it only gets to 95 degrees. Heat helps the cleaning action, but you don't want it to actually be hot as that could damage the records.

I set it as cold as possible. Anything warmer than room temperature I assume is gonna start softening your vinyl & run the risk of warping.

(A warning about the Vevor unit: when you turn it off or unplug it, the temperature frustratingly resets itself to warm - mine defaults to 45°C - warm enough to warp the crap out of what I was cleaning cuz I didn’t notice… good thing I bought a Vinyl Flat!)

alright so I cycled through about 15 records on this thing. on some records (which I'd already used the spin clean on) there wasn't really much improvement. granted, these are the ones that were pretty scratched up and probably unsalvageable. a few did sound notably better, despite already having gone through the spin. but it didn't fix the ones that skipped.

the real test was Green by Hiroshi Yoshimura's Green and the Kankyo Ongaku comp - bought both these new and I thought I'd taken good care of them, but over a dozen or so plays they've accumulated some surface noise. obviously both of these are fairly quiet ambient records so I figured they'd be a good test. definitely a reduction of surface noise on both, but it didn't entirely go away. it's at a level where I'd probably not notice if it were, say, a rock or technopop record.

one thing I did notice is that the music itself sounds better - I put through Trilogy by ELP and Seventh Sojourn by the Moody Blues and though some of the clicks and pops are still there (again, these are mostly scratches) the music itself sounded fuller and more dynamic than the last time I played them. so it definitely did something.

another thing is that some of the modern pressings I put through which had clicks and scrapes weren't really improved at all. I think a lot of stuff that gets released these days is just a bad pressing. like 25-30% of the new vinyl I buy has some kind of noise on it which you can't see and you can't get off. for example my copy of Tri Repetae has a scraping noise through a bunch of "Overand". was this a big problem in the 70s?

Hope you like the purchase. I agree records sound a lot better even if I've encountered plenty of records that weren't dead quiet post-cleaning.

so far my impression is that it doesn't work miracles but there's enough of a noticeable difference between this and the spin clean that it's been worth the purchase.

it doesn't get rid of the clicking that you can hear on every rotation...I was hoping that maybe it could because sometimes those clicks are invisible on the surface. it does seem to make them a little quieter though. mostly what it's good for is getting rid of all those random little pops and clicks that become irritating on quieter records. for example my copy of NTS 4 by Autechre was unfortunately riddled with a bunch of surface noise, which is odd because the other 3 are excellent. the spin clean helped a little but not much. ultrasonic got it pretty much dead quiet though, outside of a few sections that click here and there (if only for a few seconds). I'm guessing it just had a bunch of shit getting into the grooves when it was pressed. either way I was mulled buying a new copy so it saved me $30 there at least :)

one thing I am curious about though is how many records you should be stacking on this thing. for me I find you can get 8 records on the spindle and it all fits pretty tightly with the dividers. I've heard though that you actually should only be running 2-3 at a time though for the best effect. But I'm not sure how exactly the extra space is gonna help, as even with 8 the ultrasonic pulses are clearly getting to the full surface of each album. Plus I'm afraid that doing less might cause the dividers to not fit so tightly, which could get the labels wet.

outside of a few sections that click here and there (if only for a few seconds)

I apologize in advance for making a "how do you know that isn't just Autechre" joke

(in reality I am following this discussion with interest but I'm not convinced I need anything aside from my spinclean because I can just pay 5 bucks for a VPI cleaning at my local store in the rare case I need it)

I've heard new vinyl sometimes has a residue but never experienced it before myself.

yeah I'm wondering if it's good practice to just run everything through the cleaner before I even play it. I feel like half of the new vinyl I get has some defect on it...a pop here, a scrape there, etc. a lot of times it goes away after a cleaning, but sometimes it doesn't. I think when records are pressed it's pretty common for stuff to just get lodged in the grooves and a lot of times it's hard to get out.

Yeah, I prioritize my oldest, dirtiest records, but any thing that shows a problem goes through now. I cleaned 60 this week so far. Hoping to get through everything this winter so that I can just clean new purchases going forward.

how often do you change the water out? I ran like 20 through, decided to just leave the tank full and do another batch the next day, but I'm not sure if that's a great idea

It probably depends on how big your tank is, but I do up to 60 (in batches of 5) in one tank. I usually top up the tank during the cleaning as some of the water comes off on the records.

The instructions for my tank says not to leave the the water in the tank for an extended period of time. No explanation of what that means, but I figure 24 hours probably won't hurt so I will do a run of 30 and then a run of 30 the next day. The water looks kind of rough after that many.

Not as rough as the spin clean I saw in use at a record store one time where the water was pitch black.

Ok, so I miscounted. The most I would do is a run of 15 and another run of 15 the next day, so a total of 30 in one tank.

i dunno who needs to know this, but several of the isonic models have a prime day discount on amazon...