I really hate the bit where you put the needle on the record. Obviously I don’t, I love it, but it sort of stresses me because I often get wrong, like the song has started playing or the needle does that noisy thing before it finds its groove or in really extreme circs actually falls off the side of the rekkid.
So, the question is: am I the only one who suffers from drop anxiety? Do you have a trick for your needle drops that I’m not aware of?
I tend to assume that the run-in doesn’t matter too much, but I definitely get drop anxiety (TMFTL) when trying to play a song from the middle of the side. Tips welcome.
Practice, practice, practice.
Early days is all “shaky hand, loud thump on contact”.
As confidence increases, the shakes recede and it becomes a sort of auto-action.
Finding a track mid side is all about perspective and parallax angle error compensation (or maybe it’s just luck?)
Either way, I advocate using the tone arm lifter thing* for a smoother drop
* there must be an actual name for this
Oh yes, it’s a good feeling when you find the gap mid-side first time. A skill I mastered as a kid.
I actually played a vinyl single for the first time in about 10 years today. Straight in the groove like I’d never been away. Like riding a bike! (I did that for the first time in about 25 years last year!)
No. Perhaps a player with autostart might suit you better? One of my record players has it (my dad’s old Dual), and it’s a beautiful thing to watch.
Yeah, no, I’ve been doing it all my life, still no better.
You need to know your arm. My Project drops dead straight so I can line the notch out of the front of the cartridge up and hit the trigger. My old Duel drifts to one side slightly so you have to compensate. But I agree, it’s stressful and deeply satisfying when you get a clean mid-side drop.
some duals have a adjustment screw located under the DUAL nameplate located just above the start/stop switch.
I have a old 1257 which can be operated full auto or manual……auto used to drop the stylus after the start……a small turn of the adjuster bought it back in line
Mmm mine is a 505-2 which doesn’t seem to have an adjustment, but the disucssion has moved me to give it a little look over setup wise anyway. I’ve never checked the pitch adjustment….
I’d hazard a guess that I may be the only one here who has never owned a Record Player, or indeed any Vinyl. Perhaps it’s an age thing, but I’ve never felt the need to.
If you’re of certain age, you had no choice – it was records or nothing!
Come on, we had Dial-a-Disc!
You had a PHONE?!!
Posho.
Baked bean tins, string, all mod cons in our house.
I’m far too young to remember when Vinyl was the only choice. I was born with a silver discman in my mouth.
a simple technique taught to me by my hifi loving granddad……
always have your amplifier located to the left of your turntable, this then enables you to mute volume with your left hand as you lower your stylus onto your chosen track with your right hand.
once the record is being tracked, advance the volume with the left…….
this raises an interesting point. The tricky bit is the needle drop so your preferred hand is preferred. But, of course, the armies on the right so it is awkward to use left hand as you are no longer front and centre.
If a left handed was in charge perhaps the arm would have been on the other side and rotation would have been anti clockwise.
Anti clockwise? Burn the witch!
“Have you quite finished?” I sometimes say this to my record player.
This is when you try a mid-side drop but you raise the arm too high. The record player decides to take over, deciding that the best thing for everyone is to, at length, go clunk clunk clunk reset itself to the beginning, so that you can take your time and start again. Many a time I have considered the Fawlty-style damn good thrashing.
Just concentrate for the few seconds and be very gentle with your arm lift, if you’re running a manual turntable. No secret.
My Linn Basik has a hardish action, being unsprung, whereas my Linn Sondek is seriously bouncy and so demands a particularly steady hand. If you’re wobbly or drunk, play a CD.
“If you’re wobbly or drunk, play a CD.”
Listen to Declan on this point. Very good advice.
My turntable is one of those ones that doesn’t return the arm to its cradle when a side is finished. The record just keeps on bloody going round and round, with the needle stuck forever in the run-out groove. Of course, If I’m drunk and I put on a vinyl LP, what happens is that I go and have a lie-down on the sofa. Then I start snoring like a huge great buffalo, and wake up three hours later, and of course the turntable is still going round and round, with the poor old stylus ground to dust by three hours’ trundling arund in the sodding run-out groove. Disaster!
Never could be any other way 😉
I’m surprised the needle sticking in the run off groove doesn’t wake you duco as it’s more lively than some of the stuff you listen to.. 😉
(Alternatively: duco’s review of his fave band’s latest release – not a great album but saved by an epic final track!)
Non-audiophile Technics 1200 owner here – mine is a 1988 silver model, and basically built like a tank and ready for warfare, natural disasters and warehouse raves. Unless you collect sealed, mint 60s-90s originals or something I believe records are meant for playing – not museum pieces. Put the record on, press start (or hold the platter while it’s spinning) and put the needle in the same postcode as the record and it’ll be fine – if you miss, lift the arm and put it it in the right place and all will be well.
Aha! Mine is an Audio Technica, which is based on the Technics 1200. It’s brilliant — so heavy!
I read somewhere that the technics was coming back into production.
I think there’s an absurdly expensive reissue out already, isn’t there?
Yes over 2000 quid. Technics no longer have all the original tools and molds used for the manufacturing so had to reengineer from scratch hence the price
I thought my 1200s were built like tanks until I had a two year old who developed an interest in scratching. The arm got wrecked and the platter (bizarrely) started going anti clockwise.
Are you sure it wasn’t merely time running backwards?
That often seems to happen when I’m waiting for the washing machine to finish.
What I hated was cueing tracks for my radio show. Dragging the stylus back against the Ron of the groove. Eek
Some records always seemed to ‘catch’ perfectly every time, but there were others that tended to skip into the first track if you hit the grooves at slightly the wrong point. I guess it was down to the person that cut the master, but I always appreciated a nice wide area to aim at with plenty of shallow angle on the grooves as they approached ed the first track…record company specific perhaps….I’m starting to think I’m talking bollocks now….
Compilation albums with 10 songs each side. It’s not easy getting just track six on your TDK C90 without a clunk or two. I’m sweating just thinking about it,
The title of this thread keeps relying me of “Dutchie pan”. I wonder if anybody knows what I’m talking about.
I mean, generally.
Apparently not.
Are you talking about passing the dutchie ‘pon the left hand side?
A picture you say? Why, of course!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v662/strontiumdawg/IMG_0184_zpswat6ao8o.jpg
I never knew operating a record player was so stressful.
It isn’t. These people are fusspots. But we love ’em for it.
Remember the immortal. ..
https://imgur.com/gallery/5xGFt