Wednesday, March 11, 2015 12:05 p.m. CDT So, you dig your parents' old vinyl LPs out of the attic, and you're ready to give them a spin on the new turntable you got for Christmas. You put the record on and notice a lot of pops and skips. Some argue that those imperfections are part of the charm of old records, and that's fine. The rest of us want to give them a good, deep cleaning. I was skeptical of this method, but I gave it a try—and a few of my prized records went from unlistenable to playable. It involves using wood glue. Now, before you go pouring wood glue all over that valuable The Doors record, try it out on some lesser LPs that don't have any special meaning. It's best to take a couple of trial runs to work out the kinks. • Titebond II Premium Wood Glue. This is really important. This particular brand bonds with the vinyl in a way other brands don't. People have tried other brands with less effective results. Titebond II is available at most hardware and home improvement stores.

I use the 16-ounce size. • An old plastic card. Now, you have a use for that 1997 punch card from Camelot Music. You'll need a card to spread the glue on the vinyl evenly. Some people use a cake icing spatula. • An old turntable or lazy Susan. You don't have to have this, but it helps in evenly distributing the wood glue. Place the dirty LP on the old turntable or lazy Susan. Play the LP and notice the difference. This method does not fix scratches or groove damage. If your LP has lots of scratches, nothing will replace the missing vinyl. If it's dust and dirt, though, the glue seeps deep into the grooves and attaches to whatever is hiding there. Theoretically, when you pull up the glue, the dirt comes with it. Some LPs are so filthy that multiple cleanings are necessary. You'll find lots of cleaning products on the market for vinyl maintenance (I use Groovy Cleaner) to simply spray and gently wipe the record. But for those thrift store LPs that have been collecting dirt for years, the wood-glue method is excellent.

Cleaning old 45 RPM records is necessary to maintain the quality of the record and the sound. When kept free of dirt, dust and oils from your fingers the sound will not only be clearer, the record will last longer. Purchasing a record cleaning machine is the quickest method but unless you have a large collection the cost factor may be prohibitive. carpet steam cleaning south melbourneYou can clean them at little or no cost by creating your own cleaning solution. carpet cleaning in utah countyMix up a solution of one part 90 percent isopropyl alcohol, four parts distilled water and five drops of nonmoisturizing dishwashing soap.carpet steam cleaning utahApply the solution to a clean paper towel.carpet cleaner amazon uk

Sweep the paper towel around the record following the grooves. Rinse off the record with plain distilled water being careful not to get the label wet. If you do get the label wet, blot, do not rub, to remove the moisture from the label.Dry the record with a clean, soft bath towel by rubbing gently, following the grooves.best carpet cleaner cat peeSet the records on a clean towel, propped up against something and allow to dry for a couple hours. best carpet cleaning adelaideThe time will vary depending on the humidity in the air.Place in a clean paper sleeve once completely dry. How To Clean and Care For Your Vinyl Are you new to collecting vinyl records? Whether you are just starting your collection or you are already well into record collecting, watch our Vinyl Care 101 video below for some basics and some tips from the experts.

Want to buy a turntable but not sure which one is right for you? Check out our Turntable Guide! Our recommendations for Essential Records You Need on Vinyl will help jumpstart your record collection. Use these essential supplies from Amoeba to care for your records: * Carbon fiber brush * Tiny carbon fibers dig deep into the grooves of your records and pull out dust. RCA Discwasher D4+ Vinyl Record Care Refill *Cleaning solution removes dust, dirt and fingerprints from your vinyl records RCA RD-1006 Discwasher Vinyl Record Care System * Unique Microfiber Pad * D4+ Fluid safely removes dust and dirt from record surface without scratching * Includes 1.25oz Cleaning Fluid (refill bottles available as well) *Quick healing for stains * Easy and safe to use WAXX XL Microfiber Vinyl Wipe * Easy to clean, highest quality microfiber * Great "between plays" cleaner * Specifically formulated for vinyl Amoeba Record Cleaning Cloth - Wet or Dry

* Wet: lint-free cloth pre-moistened with anti-static cleaning solution. * Dry: lint-free cloth washable and reusable Protective Outer Record Sleeves * Package of 50 for $12.98 * Available in-store at the registers individually 5 for $1 * Paper inner sleeves also available * Protect your vinyl in style with the red and black Amoeba slipmat.Some of the best music I've ever heard has come from old, bootleg recordings — obscure vinyls found in the depths of record store bargain bins, and ancient VHS tapes filmed from concert hall balconies. This stuff is raw, unpredictable and often completely unpolished, and captures the sort of energy you don't always get from an official release. After all, there's no commercial viability in a 10-minute blues jam by the members of Pink Floyd — that's something you'll only ever hear live.   Audacity, and a couple of filters, that's exactly what we're going to do. The powerful, open-source editor is going to help us take those old recordings, clean them up, and make them fit for digital consumption.   

Recording Audacity 1.3 Beta, which includes some new tricks and features that are perfect for this project. Before we begin, you'll want to make sure all your hardware checks out. A decent sound card is a must here, as cheaper or integrated models can pick up interference from CD-ROM and hard drives. You don't need an expensive card, but it's worth doing a quick check for interference to make sure you won't run into problems.  As for connections and cabling, we'll leave all that up to you. Connecting that old VCR or cassette deck to your sound card is a pretty simple process, and usually involves RCA or 1/4" jacks you already have lying around the house. Just remember, record players need to be wired through a receiver, which handles the important task of amplifying and equalizing the vinyl record into a usable signal. Once all that's done, you'll be good to go.ensure "Software playthrough" is checked; this is what will allow us to hear the audio as it's recorded. Now, with everything set up, record a short test.

You want to record the signal as cleanly as possible, so play through both a quiet and loud portion of the source material and adjust your levels within Audacity to ensure there's no clipping. If all goes well, you should end up with something like this: Download Audio Sample 1. For our example, we've ripped a vinyl recording of Paul McCartney and Wings' "Live and Let Die" from the 1976 live album ' Wings Over America'. Immediately, you'll notice there's a few things wrong here. There's a very audible hum at the beginning of the track, that continues on throughout the recording, while the age and condition of the vinyl are responsible for many of the pops and clicks you hear. Also, the levels here are way off — there's far too much bass — and it's hard to hear the mid and high frequency sections very clearly. As bad as these issues sound, this is the perfect candidate for our clean-up process.High Pass Filter High Pass filter is going to help us tackle two problems at once — both the audible hum throughout our recording, and the heavy bass that distorts the majority of the song.

The filter works by weakening or reducing frequencies below a certain cut-off point, allowing us to hear more of the mid-to-high levels instead. To start, select the filter from Audacity's effects menu, and try running it over your recording with the default settings. If there's a lot of bass, as with our recording, you'll find the defaults do a decent job. However, you may want to further increase the cutoff frequency, as well as the rolloff value too. This will filter the audio a little more aggressively — though push too much, and you could end up distorting the audio a bit more than you'd like. Move the sliders back in the opposite direction and you can filter out less, which can keep the end result from sounding too tinny. The key here is playing with the cutoff frequency, rolloff value and filter quality until you find something that works.Noise removal Noise Removal filter was designed for, and should remove most of the noise that's left behind. To work its magic,  Audacity needs to sample a few seconds of this noise in order to build a profile for removal;

if possible, try to select a few seconds of "silent" audio before or after your recording, and tell the filter to "Get noise profile."   Download Audio Sample 2 (before) Download Audio Sample 3 (after, less noticeable in full mix) Once completed, you can then adjust and apply the effect to the entire track. The noise reduction setting determines how much of the frequency should be reduced, whereas frequency smoothing determines how aggressive the removal should be. Be warned, however, that too much removal doesn't sound pretty, and could actually make your recording sound more like a poorly compressed MP3 than a noise-free classic. Once again, be smart with how much effect you apply, and don't be afraid to experiment until you get it right.Pops and Clicks   Download Audio Sample 4 (before)  Download Audio Sample 5 (after) Click removal tool is dead simple to operate. The higher the spike width, the more aggressively the filter will look for anomalous pops and clicks. But go too high, and the filter can begin to remove other features from the audio as well, reducing the overall quality — something we don't wont.

Luckily, we have a visual guide as well, in the form of our recording's waveform. If our settings are too aggressive, then we can see the entire waveform begins to shrink, ever so slightly. But if our settings are just right, than only the small blips in the waveform will vanish instead. While the tool works well for pops and clicks, other imperfections may not be so lucky. Warped vinyls or dirty cassette heads can produce irregular, inconsistent noises that are difficult for Audacity's algorithms to remove. In these cases, there's nothing to do but accept the limitations of the old analog copy, and try to improve other areas where possible.  This is a concept many music lovers are probably familiar with, but it's worth covering briefly here too. It's possible that, after all of our editing, certain sections of the audio can still sound wrong. Trumpets may appear too muffled, or the bass may not be as clear as you remember it. If this is the case, we can run our audio through Audacity's graphic equalizer.