Date:         Sat, 28 Jul 2007 10:48:40 -0400
Reply-To:     Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
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Sender:       Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
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From:         Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:      Re: De-clicking
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I bought off ebay a promotional 33 1/3 7" mini-LP for radio stations of John Hammond talking about 
Billie Holiday with Dan Morganstern. It was put out around the time of the Diana Ross movie, I think 
partly as a reaction to the fact that Hammond hadn't been consulted or used in movie publicity, 
judging from the tone of the comments. It also seemed to be timed to promote one of the Columbia 
reissues of Holiday material. Anyway, the boneheaded seller packed it too tight so it arrived 
cracked. I put it on a flat surface (slab of polished stone) and carefully pressed on the top of the 
cracked edge, with a piece of clear packing tape under the record. The tape held the edge together 
and the crack was thus playable, although clearly audible. I did the same thing flipped over for 
side B. After transfer, I excised as many pops as were between words and reduced the amplitude of 
those that came during words. The crack was actually a microsecond gap in the word but I found that 
excising them screwed up the pacing of Hammond's sometimes stacatto (sp?) speech patterns. Very high 
PITA factor. The seller refunded all money so I considered it a fair deal.

In another case, I was doing a job transferring a large collection of 12" dance-mix singles for a DJ 
(he was going all-digital, actually using his iPods as the players). A couple of the records were 
cracked  or chipped on the edges. In one case, we found the pie-shaped slice that broke out of the 
edge. I still can't believe this worked, but we were able to very carefully glue it back into place 
with Crazy-Glue, using a sewing needle to apply the glue in the needle-thin part of the vinyl under 
the grooves. I really couldn't believe it when it played very well with just one big tick at the 
"tip" of the pie-slice. I do not expect to get that lucky ever again. The client was a really nice 
guy or I would have charged extra for the awful music content of the job! ;).

-- Tom Fne


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Karl Miller" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, July 28, 2007 10:04 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] De-clicking


>I recall a story told to me some years ago...I think
> it had to do with a Paul Robeson recording that
> contained some politically oriented songs...perhaps
> recorded outside the US? When the reissue was being
> done, one of the discs has a significant crack.
> Supposedly the engineer used vaseline to smooth over
> the crack. After making the transfer the groove walls
> started to disintegrate...or so the story goes...
>
> Karl
>