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Cleaning acetates, physically and digitally?

oxnardcoreoxnardcore 141 Posts
edited August 2010 in Strut Central
I have an old acetate of this band that I really want to make a digital copy of. Problem is, I don't know if it might be a bad pressing, as everything sounds like its covered in white noise, or if the grooves are just dirty and needs a good cleaning.

I'm sure this has been asked before, but is there a specific method that should be used in cleaning dirty acetates? I know that the grooves are more fragile than that of vinyl records, so I don't want to wipe it with a rag only to have it covered with the gritty remains of songs I'll never hear. And if its a bad pressing, do any of you recommend any software programs that are good at cleaning up noise so that the music will be semi-listenable?

  Comments

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    Unknown
    Groove cleaner and a lent-free cotton swab. Let dry for 10 minutes, give it a spin with the needle weight at 1 gram. Then, take it and clean it again with deionized water and a cotton swab, dry it with a piece of lent-free eyeglasses cloth. Give it another spin at 1 gram. Digitize it at 0.5 grams of needle weight. Use a pretty new needle. Don't touch the acetate with your skin...it will leave a print. Keep it in a brown paper sleeve and put the sleeve into a plastic cover. Make sure the record is always standing straight up and down, when you are not playing it.
  • oxnardcoreoxnardcore 141 Posts
    wow, thanks for the detailed advice. i'll give it a shot this weekend and see what happens.
  • CBearCBear 902 Posts
    Let us know if you get a listenable MP3. I'd like to hear it.
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    Unknown
    Funny thing is I don't digitize.
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    Unknown
    Funny thing is I don't digitize, except the radio where I volunteer digitizes my broadcasts...and I can hear the compression when I listen to it as I am walking my dog around the garden.
  • HorseleechHorseleech 3,830 Posts
    ONLY MODERATORS MAY DELETE POSTS
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    Unknown
    Word, my bad on the double post, no worries though.

    Enjoy!
  • HorseleechHorseleech 3,830 Posts
    lilmonstu said:
    Word, my bad on the double post, no worries though.

    Enjoy!

    No, I wrote an erroneous post and was unable to delete.

    Double posting seems to happen a lot now - I'm not sure what causes it.
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