Eureka!!!

[porcy62]

A long time vinyl fiend friend of mine says not to use any kind of soap because it leaves a film, no matter how much it's rinsed.

Well, I use dish soap, so if I can eat that film two times a day, my records will have to bear it!! And I bet they will beat me on the long distance

[DrJ]

I use a cleaning mix (not my idea, recommended by many) as follows:

1 part (pint) 91% Isopropyl Alcohol (WARNING! Do NOT use IPA on 78s - and possibly really early LPs)

4 parts (pints) distilled water

4-8 drops of a detergent (doesn't matter as long as it's mild; I used my son's J&J Baby Wash last time, or Ivory soap works, or if you want to get expensive and fancy, Triton X photo wetting agent)

To clean:

1) First I spray this solution on to several spots on one side of the LP

2) I use a very soft cotton polishing cloth to distribute it evenly, using the circular with the grooves approach mentioned above

3) Rinse in tap water

4) Final rinse with distilled water that has a couple drops of white vinegar added

5) Then you can either air dry or wipe with a dry cloth (I do both, wipe then let the stuff you can't wipe off air dry)

I was a biochemist in a former life, and I feel this solution is not only cheap and simple but it makes perfect chemical sense at every step of the way.

For example, I know many parrot the idea that "you shouldn't use soap because it leaves a residue" but think harder about that - the only way you can loosen and remove oils/grunge/dust is to get them into aqueous solution and then rinse them away (a vacuuming approach like the VPI helps but you still need to get some liquid cleaner in there). Oil for sure don't mix with water, and dust that is really ground in won't get removed without a little soaping action either. IPA helps but alone would not really do it - it's really in the mix primarily so that the cleaning solution will be easier to rinse away and maybe to help a little with getting the oils into solution.

So you use just enough detergent in to loosen things and get them to be miscible with water, then rinse. It only takes a few drops of soap for a whole gallon or so of cleaner, and with this little to no soap residue should be left behind. You know you've added too much detergent if you see a lot of sudsing, should just be a little.

The vinegar in the rinse makes sense too since it helps cut calcium and other deposits (which you DON'T want on your LP!!!).

This approach works fabulously. I tried it first on what I thought was a pretty whipped copy of Santana's INNER SECRETS (which I think is a pretty lousy album but it does have a couple strong tracks) that I'd had since teenager days and the difference was incredible. The dynamic range improved, pops mostly went away, etc. All by gettin' the grunge out the grooves!

I do plan to get a VPI 16.5 eventually but at $400+ it will have to wait a bit and my gut tells me this cheap and simple method probably takes out about 90% of what the VPI does. And it's probably the same basic composition as the fancier cleaning fluids that one uses with the VPI, anyway!

Edited March 5, 2005 by DrJ

[AllenLowe]

actually, I think Kenny G made a few Soundies - he's older (but not any dumber) than he looks -

[couw]

I use a cleaning mix (not my idea, recommended by many) as follows:

1 part (pint) 91% Isopropyl Alcohol (WARNING! Do NOT use IPA on 78s - and possibly really early LPs)

why the alcohol? doesn't the detergent lower the surface tension of the water enough?

[wolff]

Then play the record on both side, the stylus will remove the residue in the grove.

Hmmmm...don't know about this. Seems hard on the stylus/cantilever assembly.

I like the idea of having grooves clean before they get to the (sometimes) expensive stylus.

[JSngry]

Of course - just about anything between 1955 and 1985 or thereabouts was available on vinyl. The G-ster's first five albums definitely were. I think the first CD-only album by the dreaded one was "Live" (more accurately "undead" perhaps) from 1989.

Mike

Dammit, Mike, you made me do something I never thought I'd have to do: look up Kenny G on AMG.

I didn't realize that his career went back so far (his first album in 1982). For some reason I thought him a 90's phenomenon, which is why I wasn't sure if he hit the tail end of the "LP age."

Dude, he was recording as a sideman w/Jeff Lorber before that, 1980's WIZARD ISLAND on Arista.

How does he sound? Not bad, not great, "in the style", etc. No inkling whatsoever of what was to come.

If we had known then what we knew now...

[Peter Johnson]

I use a cleaning mix (not my idea, recommended by many) as follows:

1 part (pint) 91% Isopropyl Alcohol (WARNING! Do NOT use IPA on 78s - and possibly really early LPs)

why the alcohol? doesn't the detergent lower the surface tension of the water enough?

Jesus!!! Questions like this are why I took "Physics of Music" (no joke) to satisfy my science credits.

Wow!

[Peter Johnson]

Of course - just about anything between 1955 and 1985 or thereabouts was available on vinyl. The G-ster's first five albums definitely were. I think the first CD-only album by the dreaded one was "Live" (more accurately "undead" perhaps) from 1989.

Mike

Dammit, Mike, you made me do something I never thought I'd have to do: look up Kenny G on AMG.

I didn't realize that his career went back so far (his first album in 1982). For some reason I thought him a 90's phenomenon, which is why I wasn't sure if he hit the tail end of the "LP age."

Dude, he was recording as a sideman w/Jeff Lorber before that, 1980's WIZARD ISLAND on Arista.

How does he sound? Not bad, not great, "in the style", etc. No inkling whatsoever of what was to come.

If we had known then what we knew now...

It may be the fact that I grew up in Portland, Oregon when all these "sounds" were coming to the fore, but I've always dug "Wizard Island" and the other Lorber Fusion records from back in the day. But you're right, Jim...had we known...dayummmmm....

[JSngry]

Lorber seemed kind of unnecessary to me back then, although better than a lot of his peers mining similar territory (harder grooves, mostly, that's what I noticed). In retrospect, it's because I was then listening to it as "jazz", rather than as something else. Today, a little still goes a long way, but a little I can genuinely enjoy.