I used to have hundreds of hours of it!

do you have a link?

@@ecc84 This was around 2018 or so that I remember seeing the video. I've done some basic searching and haven't come up with anything. I don't remember the channel name either.

@sourand jaded Laser is not good for this. There is a super expensive Japanese laser record player, and it clicks from the smallest dust particle. It needs the records to be cleaned before each playback very thoroughly, and requires basically clean room conditions. Software/AI analysis of the image of the groove although most likely works better.

Damn, I really wanna see this...

For this look up Project Irene. Analyzing audio from scanned images. It started from scanning French Phonautograms - a sound wave scratched into candle soot covered paper. Then it developed into scanning the 3D grooves of unplayable (broken) discs and wax cylinders.

depends which Kevin Monk you talking about, those are the original ones. its about 3500 for the modern version. that is usd. I considered getting one, but decided on ultrasonic which also cleans 78s.

This is the 78 archival room at George Blood LP. The equipment they use is among the best in the industry.

Does it really matter? The technology is a means, a tool. Not the product. An single ASLM machine to make computer chips with a five nano meter resolution costs up to 250 billion dollars and still it pays itself back.

@@FrankHeuvelman 250 'billion'?

@@varsityathlete9927 or 25 James Webb Space Telescopes. Sounds about right...

That's what I hear..

I think they're saying "walk, walk, walk and talk with my lord". However, you will find some spicy stuff in old recordings. I once saw a wax cylinder of a song called "All them coons look alike to me"!

🤣 btw Search for Jelly Roll Mrton’s Dirty Dozen

Can't unhear that now lmao!

It's four Jelco SA-750L tonearms and a Technics SP-15. Not difficult. The expensive part is the four TimeStep T-03EQ phono preamps :)

Me and my old collector buddy digitized with WD-40 as lubricant. After one 'dummy run' playthrough the needle would drag the dust out of the groove, then clean the needle and the second playthrough was the digitizing money run. With WD-40, we got like 90 to 95% or so of the clicks and pops gone, it came out so damn close to perfect that there was no reason to even run it through software.

@@southernflatland Do you do anything specific to then clean the WD40 off of the needle afterwards? Or do you only need to worry about cleaning the dust off of it?

@@jasontsh Nah just clean the dust off of it, we didn't worry about the WD-40 itself. Now I really should mention that it's almost pointless to try getting the WD-40 off the album after all this, unless you wanna try something like an ultrasonic cleaner full of rubbing alcohol or something like that. Our goal wasn't focused on preserving the album perfectly dry or whatnot, our goal was to get the most perfect digital recording that we could possibly manage. As far as that first playthrough to drag the dust out of the grooves, keep an eye on it as it plays, you may need to clean the needle two or three times as you see the dust build up on it. I'd imagine it should be easy enough to fully clean the needle when it's all done with a Q-Tip and rubbing alcohol. It really is worth trying out, I'd suggest trying with some bullshit album you're not too worried about first and go from there.

@@southernflatland Thanks Brian, I will give it a go. I was familiar with people using distilled water on records while digitizing them, as the water softened and dislodged the dust and dirt, so using WD40 makes sense to me. I'll give it a go, and see if it adversely affects a record over time. :)

@@jasontsh As far as we could tell, it didn't affect the vinyl at all, but the label and it's glue are a totally different story... Definitely try to be careful with that, take photos of the label before doing anything with WD-40 and maybe even tape some plastic from a bag or something like that over the label area if you're really worried about it. But it shouldn't affect the vinyl itself. Still I don't blame ya, proceed with caution.

I still have some cassette tapes. One or two of Frank Sinatra, one of Bessie Smith, and a few of Billie Holiday. Some of the liner notes described a process of restoration called "CEDAR", but which noted that _"...With audio transfers from shellac parts some surface noise is still noticeable..."_

Hey James, I have a similar setup to you. A Mk 1 Technics SL-1700 which I use with a Shure v15 iii as well. I recently tried changing the headshell to the lightest I have (a plastic 6.9g silver hitachi headshell), and it helped make the Pop noises less prominent compared to the stock 9.5g technics headshell. What headshell do you use for your sl1200? Thanks!

I have a poney. It does not play 78s though

That's what I thought too. Or at least all four would somehow produce a richer sound than just one on its own...

Not on a 78!

Only if the heads were separated by 1/4 of the disc radius. Clearly not how they are set up here

That was my guess

The way I digitize 78s is to give them a cleaning, using distilled water mixed with a drop of dish soap, then gently scrub it with a stenciling brush- the bristles are shorter than a regular brush and are a bit stiffer. Then I play them on my regular turntable at 33 1/3 then fix the speed in editing software, at 234%, making it equal ti 78rpm.

That technique does not work with shellac records.

I wouldn't try that with shellac records, but it works great on regular LPs. I actually use Titebond wood glue, let it dry and it peels right off!

@@jetglo355 that's it, the Long-play discs were right the object, I cured the Modern Talking disc twice when at my teenage

I've found with Internet Archive transfers, most archivers don't apply an RIAA curve, so they end up sounding super thin. If you apply an RIAA curve to one of the flat files, it might restore the sound a bit, if a bit quiet.

@@Zawmbbeh I'm unfamiliar with RIAA, what are they?

@@CPorter the RIAA curve, to my best knowledge, is a curve applied to vinyl records that reduces bass and increases treble. It reduces the size of the grooves and allows more audio to fit on a record. This was only standard after 78 rpm records i think.

@@Zawmbbeh the RIAA curve doesn't cover recordings made before the 1950s. Before that, each company had its own cutting EQ curve. This information is widely available and there are several pre-amps on the market that can replay these curves correctly.

I still have my SAE 5000 from the late 70s, an outboard unit that went in the tape monitor loop of analog receivers, that removed (most) clicks and pops in real time. It was a miracle device.

Old gramophones had a very heavy tonearm. Those old shellac records were a lot tougher than modern vinyl, and can easily take the modern 3-gram tonearms with no problems.

@@ordinaryk I've seen some old record players for 78rpms put down over 20 grams of pressure, I think it'll be fine

so stylus 1 records after 736 playbacks, stylus 2 after 737, stylus 3 after 738, stylus 4 after 739. These are not brand new records. These are well used records 70+ years old.

Also, once they're digitized, there's no need to play them again, so if they're worn slightly, it's not a big deal. After all, they were designed to be played multiple times.

Sadly, the 78 rpm disks were recorded with styluses which hadn't a standard cut angle. This is why they uses the four most common types of stylus; when the angle of the stylus matches the one used to record the disk, the S/N ratio is much improved (less background hiss)...

Absolutely, but I think a lot of those masters have been lost. Many of those recordings were probably 100 years old. There wasn't even recording tape back then. A lot of those were recorded directly to a disc that was physically cut as the recording was made. And in many cases they didn't even have microphones. They sang into a horn, like on a Gramophone. Orchestras and big bands had to arrange themselves with the quieter instruments closer to the horn.

@@scottplumer3668 what I heard they would do is after cutting the initial record they would make like 6 or 7 duplicates and then use the duplicates to make the records that people would buy from the store. Doing it this way would save the master (first one) from wearing out.

I imagine for those they flatten them out in part of their cleaning. Either the oven method, or hair drier or some sort of home-brew machine they made for it like here.

If the warp isn’t too bad, I’ll digitize the disc at 33rpm then speed up after. Gives the stylus a break and keeps the cart from bumping into the disc.

There would be a slight time difference between each one, so they'd have to correct for that. At some point, they're exceeding the fidelity of the original.

Records were not standardised and as such there were different needles with different angles and general behaviour. Mixing their sound together would just bring you further away from how they were intended to sound (and with digital you can always just mix it your self later on).

Be warned, she re-recorded this song for an RCA album later in the 1950s and it has nowhere near the same energy as the Cap original, imo.

That could be adjusted once it's digital.

I wonder if something similar to the Plangent process could be used. Using the 50/60 cycle background hum to determine at what speed it was cut.

What would be the cause of the crosstalk ?

@@iamsometimes6712 Energy transferred through the disc. Try it.

@@martinda7446 Energy from the inertia of one stylus moving, and therefore minutely pushing sideways on the groove, transfered through the disc to another stylus ?

@@iamsometimes6712Doh. Try it. There canl be significant crosstalk especially on a 78. No ''minute'' about it- there is significant energy.I have been designing analogue playback systems for over 50 years. You'll be telling me there is no print through on analogue tape next.

@@iamsometimes6712 There is enough acoustic energy to hear a 78 stylus across a large room.

Software exists that removes the wow from off center pressings (which applies to almost all discs).

@@markschildberg1667 Celemony's Capstan is the best known pitch correcting program.

It looks like they're played at 78, but that's a good point. Playing them at a lower speed improves the low-end response. So maybe play it at 78, capture that, then play it at 33 and capture that, and combine them for the best response. Although, this assume that the equipment they were recorded on was capable of that much range. There's only so much quality you can get out of them.

@@scottplumer3668 The other thing is that 78rpm was always just an average. From what I remember, records were recorded from 5 up to 5 below that, so some may sound better at a slightly different speed