Clean ‘Er Up

I recently digitized a few LPs for a friend. He was duly impressed by the lovely sound that his presumably obsolete vinyl discs were still capable of producing, so he asked me to show him how I remastered an LP to digital. I replied that I would be only too glad to demonstrate, and we made the date.

He was gobsmacked when I told him that the single most important step in the process takes place, not in my home office with its gleaming turntables, audio gear, and computer equipment, but in my kitchen. Yes, the kitchen.

Because it’s in the kitchen that I clean the records. And cleaning is the single most important step in the process of making a fine dub, whether you’re working with an LP, a 78 RPM disc, or a 45. You’ve simply got to get that disc clean as a whistle.

Some folks might pipe up with objections at this point. Software can remove any extra clicks or pops that result from dust on the record, they might say. Well, yes, I reply: software can remove stuff. That’s just the problem: remove is the operant word here. Analog audio is utterly bound to the structure of its medium. An LP is a piece of vinyl with grooves etched into its surface. The audio is contained in those grooves — i.e., in the vinyl itself. There’s no separating the audio from the vinyl, unlike digital data, which is distinct from the medium that holds it. So a piece of dust left sitting in that groove is blocking the stylus from reading whatever audio data is in the grooves at that point. Yes, you can remove the resultant click—but you can’t put back the audio that was sitting underneath that dust mote. All software can do is make an educated guess as to what might have been there, by creating an amalgam of the audio immediately before and after the removed noise. Do enough of that sort of thing, and the end result will be the audio equivalent of a blurry photograph.

So clean that sucker up good. There are lots of products on the market, from cheap to eye-poppingly expensive. My choice is the simple combination of a Spin-Clean and a dish drainer. I prefer to clean my records by hand instead of using a machine. There’s something satisfying about it, something soothing.

A Spin-Clean is a narrow rectangular tub that holds water with a soupçon of a detergent derivative that encourages dirt particles to precipitate down to the bottom rather remaining suspended. Two microbrushes press against the two record sides; adjustable rollers ensure the record is immersed to the correct depth and that the label stays dry. You spin the record gently so as to run it through those immersed microbrushes. Spin-Clean recommends three revolutions counter-clockwise and three clockwise. That’s generally what I do, unless it’s a really dirty record, in which case I’ll probably go one revolution very slowly, then five or so a little faster.

A Spin-Clean: handy, simple, effective

The Spin-Clean comes with gauze-like cloths for drying. I find that just a light application of the cloth is sufficient, just enough to thin out the water and ensure that no water has spattered onto the label. I air-dry the record in the dish drainer.

I let the record dry for only about ten minutes. That’s because I’m going to run it through the Spin-Clean again for a second wash. I’ve found that the second go-round makes a big difference. I’m assuming that the first time through dislodges deep-down gunk but doesn’t always remove all of it. So the second cleaning gets whatever was missed the first time around. The short drying time is to allow the dirt to settle back a bit, but not enough to harden in place. Then after the second cleaning I give the record a good 20 minutes or more drying time.

Once I put the record on the turntable, I give it a brief brushing with a standard DiscWasher record brush. That’s because those cotton gauze cloths leave a little bit of themselves on the record. And of course there has been dust in the air while the record has been drying in the dish drainer. So the DiscWasher gets the last little bit.

Vinyl being vinyl, some pops and clicks and the like will remain. Software takes care of those—but since there aren’t as many, audio loss has been kept to a bare minimum. It probably goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: I just don’t use "noise reduction" on a digital copy of an analog disc. I may run a 60 Hz filter over the finished dub in case the vinyl was pestered with a hum, but that’s as far as it goes. I much prefer a bit of groove noise to audio run through a digital collander.

Incidentally, my Spin-Clean process is just as effective with 78s as with LPs and 45s. It’s a lot more of a bother than just plopping the record on the turntable and giving it a quick wipe with a DiscWasher brush—but the results are definitely worth it. Usually I’ll do a batch of records in a session, rather than one at a time.

And while we’re talking clean here: before making the digital copy, I always clean my turntable’s stylus as well, using an alcohol-based stylus cleaning fluid. It only takes a light wipe with a soft brush dipped in the fluid, and then waiting a minute or so to ensure that the stylus is completely dry.