Be careful how you drop that needle!

I am going through and cleaning up 96/24 WAV needledrops, using Audacity. About half of these are from used LPs. It's apparent, looking at the "silence" between cuts, when someone dropped the needle to pick a specific cut on a record. There is that ~|~ in there. Easy to pick out and repair or snip, fortunately. Sometimes these happen at the beginning of a side as well.

Just a reminder to use a cuing lever, if you have one, and be careful out there!

 

Seen em also Bob on my drops, especially on my old Gordon lp's

 

What about picking up the needle at the end of a track. Can doing that leave an audible tick where the needle was lifted?

 

Cueing lever always. Been doing that for decades now.

 

Life's to short.
Cut straight to the chase.
Bliss.

 

I suspect that it could leave a tick if you really made a grab for it...especially if there was any force applied prior to the lift. So, I have looked for that, especially on my records with a bit of "history" to them. I have an Empire 598 II in the stable and used it daily from 1973 until last year. In case you aren't familiar with that deck, it picks up the tonearm magnetically at the end of a side, a very quick snap--up and off. I haven't seen any damage on needledrops where I know an LP was heavily played on the Empire even though there are lifts where I look at the stylus to be sure it isn't fubar. I know some folks with Empires do manual lifts or use other mechanisms to lift at the end because the magnetic lifter is really abrupt.

I also looked at end groove damage on some of my oldest sides which were played on a 1968-ish Garrard with a Shure M44E. I used to pick up the tonearm by hand with that setup because it didn't always pickup by itself. Haven't noticed anything on those, either. Realistically, the part you want to record is over before any area that might show lifting damage. I have recorded all the way to the lock groove and looked for damage, never saw anything special.

It's been an education listening and looking at these waveforms. Comparing results and using my ears, I have gone back to using my Denon DL-110 for needledrops of used/worn records or LPs with poor quality vinyl compounds. My AT440MLa is a wonderful cart, but the DL-110 is so much quieter on LPs that weren't well cared for or noisy PVC blends. After a good wash, the DL-110 still has less surface noise than the AT40MLa, but on my LPs--the ones bought new and well taken care of over the years--the 440MLa shines.

 

I'd always been paranoid about dropping the needle to play a specific track, and also with lifting the needle after a track (before the album side is done). Worried I'd cause an audible tick left on the record. So I have rarely ever dropped the needle in the middle of a record or lifted the needle in the middle of the record. Always playing full sides from beginning to end. Perhaps I've been overly paranoid. On the plus side, that paranoia got me in the practice of listening to full albums. A practice I still follow today, even with CDs and digital files.

 

Yes. In fact my needledrops are full sides, cleaned up and trimmed start and finish. If I happen to burn a CD for the car, it has two tracks, Side 1 and Side 2!

They are all saved as 96/24 FLAC so I can split them when/if I have time. I know there are automated ways to divvy up tracks and enter the track info (tag), but since I listen to a full side at a time anyway it saves a ton of time and it's only 18-20 minutes for each track. If I want to FF ahead or REW to a specific song or part of a song, I can easily do that.

I keep the raw WAV files also, safe copies that are untrimmed and uncorrected, on Blu Ray discs (stored as files/data) and an external 3TB drive. I have a few at 192/24, but I really can't hear the difference on LP needledrops, so I settled on 96/24 for now.

 

I think a friend of mine used to have a T-shirt that said "Real Men Cue By Hand."

I never had any problem doing cueing a tonearm manually from my teens on, provided I had my wits about me and had ingested no (ahem) substances.

 

have never used a lever in 20 years!

 

I've been wondering a long time why digitalizing a vinyl record is called "needle dropping".

 

now you know! ...it's actually misleading of course since we don't drop the needle like we drop a bag of groceries. we gently set it down but that's not as catchy a phrase....I don't know who came up with it but I still hang onto 'rip' even though that's not accurate either since that really is for digital to digital....and dub is not right since that is meant for tape transfer. so dropping was introduced, I guess

 

yeah, but why not just say "I was digitalizing my LPs"... "I was doing needle drops" sounds just weird. But I'm a Finn so...

 

'digitize'd vinyl' is the most accurate phrase I agree

 

There you have it. Most professional tonearms but few lack cueing levers. "Real Men Cue By Hand", indeed.

 

I think I've used a cueing lever three or four times since 1983. I've never liked that 'skip' over three or four revolutions of the lead-in groove that can happen when you use a cueing lever.

 

I have hand-cued and occasionally used a lever for over 50 years and never damaged a single record.
How freaking high are you dropping the tonearm from?

 

the key is resting the meaty flesh part of your hand, on the table near the platter as a 'fulcrum'....without this doing it by hand is risky. I can't freely out in the air do it by hand. too shakey......but with side of hand on the table, i'm unstoppable

 

Beryllium cantilever = me always using a cueing lever.

 

Same here - that's how I keep my thumb dead steady when lowering the tonearm.

 

you use your thumb? I use the feather edge of the index. oh what style we have. propper but relaxed.