[ARSCLIST] woops, wrong 78 transfer engineer

[Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Frank Abbey is who I meant with regard to the Time-Life Giants of Jazz LP
series 78 transfers. However, I'm pretty sure Malcolm Addey has done a bunch
of transfers for recent Mosaic box sets, even maybe Edison cylinders.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Fine" <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, November 10, 2005 6:22 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] SERIOUS cleaning cheap...possoble?


> I concur. The VPI is one of the most valuable pieces of gear in my studio.
> Every record that comes through here gets cleaned before being played. For
> good vinyl like a well-made later-era LP, the result is near-noiseless
> playback. For bad vinyl, it helps as much as is possible.
>
> Now, that said, for 78's, one of the few people I know who is truly expert
> at getting whatever gems lurk in those grooves has a truly cheap and
> old-school method. He cleans his 78's with a soft sponge and dilluted
ivory
> soap in his slop sink with good old fashioned NYC tap water. I think he
> rarely if ever plays wet, preferring to find the ideal needle and preamp
> noise-cancelling settings. I've also seen him do half-speed playback to
very
> good effect. I am not positive of the exact details of his cleaning method
> but here's what I observed: record is rinsed under a slow stream of warm
tap
> water (not hot, not cold enough to make fingers cramp; sponge then applied
> in gentle circular motion, both directions, making sure not to soak inner
> label; after 30-60 seconds of sponge work, a thorough but slow rinse.
Then,
> here's the trick. He vacuums the record (I forgot this detail in a
previous
> post) with a special end-piece on his shop vac. I think he made it out of
a
> straight plastic pipe with a groove cut in it, covered with a thin layer
of
> velvet or chamois cloth -- something gentle enough to apply directly to a
> record surface. This cloth gets rotated around the pipe so a fresh surface
> is touching each new record and gets replaced regularly. All of this is
the
> same theory as the VPI. He's using a higher percentage of soap to use
> soaping action to lift dirt as opposed to VPI's using wetting and
> evaporation with a groove-depth brushing. Both methods vacuum off the
water
> and remaining crud, lifting it out of the groove bottoms when the systems
> work properly.
>
> Another source you might pursue is to track down Malcolm Addey in NYC. I
> don't think he's elusive and he still seems quite active doing work for
> Mosaic and others. I mention him because he did very fine work for
Time-Life
> in their Giants of Jazz series. This was pre-CEDAR and other digi-tricks.
He
> must have had mostly good metal parts and a good cleaning method. It would
> be interesting to know what he did in the cases where he didn't have good
> metal parts. To my ears, those records represent some of the finest
examples
> of re-mastering from 78's. The early digi-filtered CD's sound horrible to
> me, although there are exceptions where engineers went against the grain
and
> were very conservative about applying so-called "improvements". Some
recent
> reissue CD's from 78's are much better because we seem to be getting back
to
> the idea that eliminating _all_ surface noise is a fool's errand, and one
> man's "re-equalization for clarity" is another man's tin-eared disaster.
> Anyway, if you do track down Mr. Addey, I'd be very interested to hear any
> wisdom he passes along. There were also some aces of 78 transfer in the
UK,
> particularly whomever did the big Noel Coward box set from the mid-90's.
>
> None of this is meant to discourage buying a VPI, by the way. I think it
> will have a long, busy life in the hands of any serious shellac or vinyl
> collector.
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "phillip holmes" <insuranceman@xxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Thursday, November 10, 2005 12:01 AM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] SERIOUS cleaning cheap...possoble?
>
>
> > Try this:
> > http://www.vpiindustries.com/17.htm
> > Different length tubes are available for the different formats.  They
last
> > forever.  Very high build quality.
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: "Steven C. Barr" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2005 10:03 PM
> > Subject: [ARSCLIST] SERIOUS cleaning cheap...possoble?
> >
> >
> > > Okeh...noted a thread about cleaning records (78?) on ARSCLIST, so
I'll
> > > try
> > > asking this...
> > >
> > > I'm currently going through my collection to see what the heck I own,
> and
> > > what has and hasn't survived. These records have, for the most part,
> > > stayed
> > > in their milk boxes, usually in my basement, untouched for about 10-15
> > > years...and then been stored again here in Oshawa. However, they have
> > > accumulated dust (in sone cases plaster dust from a renovation) and
> > > in some cases targeted by spraying cats. As well, they never have
> > > been thoroughly cleaned since I owned them (and probably before?)
> > >
> > > So, given that I have about 40,000 78's in various stages of
> > > dirtiness, and don't have access to anything resembling a
> > > fortune (as well as sinks and racks for mass-production
> > > cleaning and drying of 78's!)...what is the best way to
> > > clean them (they don't have to be surgical-quality clean)
> > > that is compatible with my limited budget and facilities?
> > >
> > > ...stevenc
> > > http://users.interlinks.net/stevenc/
> > >
> > >