Good slipmats can help reduce friction on the side of the record not being played when cueing and back spinning some DJs cut a plastic inner sleeve to the shape of the slipmat and place it between the mat and platter for extra slip. You can always handle records at the edges, even when cueing them up. But if you keep them in mind you can at least reduce the harm you cause. AdvertisementsĭJing inevitably involves breaking some of these rules for instance, when you’re beat matching it just isn’t feasible to place the stylus with the tone arm lever, to say nothing of the damage done by back spinning. Got a bad vinyl habit bugbear you’d like to add? Pop it in the comments below. I make a habit of changing my stylus once every year as a matter of caution. For the average listener, this equates to around 1500 album plays.įailing to replace the stylus regularly will result in poor sound quality, but worst of all, the mis-shaped stylus will cause groove wear and predominately damage your records. On average, a turntable stylus/needle will last up to 1000 playing hours. If you keep your records and stylus clean, they can last quite a long time. They do wear out and need replacing periodically. Despite most styli being made from diamond (the hardest surface known to man). Nothing will destroy records faster than a worn or damaged stylus. Good things come to those who wait, as Guinness once proclaimed. You might be eager to flip your favorite album and continue enjoying the music, but a little patience goes a long way. Picking up your records from the turntable platter before it stops spinning is a sure way to scratch the other side of your wax. Not waiting for the record platter to STOP Check out our guide on playing a record to learn more about safe turntable operation.ħ. When the track ends, it’s important to wait until the track completely stops before gently raising the stylus with your cueing lever. However, using the cueing lever will help minimize risk by allowing you to lower the stylus in the silence between each track gently. In an ideal world, you should play the entire record from start to finish to avoid potential damage when cueing up individual tracks. If you skip this step and go straight in with your hand, it’s only a matter of time before you slip and damage your records or stylus shank. You should always use the cueing lever to lower and raise the tone arm – particularly when lining up tracks mid-way through a side. The area I live in is particularly bad for lime-scale - if I were to use tap water to clean my records, it wouldn’t take long before they were about as useful as my lime-scale-ridden kettle!Ĭheck out our guide on how to clean vinyl records for further advice on this topic. Tap water contains impurities that will quickly build up in the record grooves. (Better still, use a tried and tested record cleaning solution). If you really must make your own cleaning solution, be sure to use only clean, distilled water as your primary ingredient. Any change to the material’s surface (either chemically or through physical abuse) will have a huge impact on those tiny microscopic grooves. Vinyl records are delicate products made from polyvinyl chloride (essentially posh plastic). Search “how to clean vinyl records” on YouTube, and you’ll quickly encounter some questionable methods.įrom using household cleaning products (such as Windex) to advocating highly abrasive home-made concoctions (the infamous wood glue method comes to mind), there are plenty of recommendations that will quickly render your precious records useless. Always open the sleeve wide enough to reduce contact with the record and gently feed the disc in without touching the grooves. When putting your records away, it’s often tempting to let records drop as they enter the sleeve, but this can lead to damaging both the record and the sleeve.Īt best, you’ll quickly punch a hole in the bottom of the sleeve – rendering it useless.Īt worst, you’ll scratch and scuff the surface. Carelessly returning the record to its sleeve
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