boba

Today I got an edwin starr 45 I hadn't seen before. It's this record listed on soulfulkindamusic: A.S.K. Sh-29116 - Hit Me With Your Love (2-4-6-8-10) (5:23) / Over And Over (5:11) - 1982 (12" Release) Except it's a 45, not a 12". Does anyone care about this sort of thing? A-side is okay disco, B-side is a ballad. thanks, Bob

you should hand-correct all the labels. that always makes it cooler anyways, like more DIY.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/King-Records-Company-Sleeve-/300667622990?pt=Music_on_Vinyl&hash=item46012fd64e#ht_500wt_898

the weirdest one was that king sleeve going for money. that is easily one of the least rare sleeves.

popsike only records records over $20 and still misses titles. This has probably sold many times for under $20.

I'm sure some or all of the cleaning techniques (including using non-distilled water) can do some damage. But so can running a needle with downward force over all the grooves. Especially when there's dirt to push around and scratch the record. I've experimented with different solvents over the years. I melted the grooves off a styrene record with paint thinner once.

I have (many times) gotten registered mail from italy to the US where I had to sign for it. UK must have some special system for some reason.

Isn't "isopropenol" Isopropyl alcohol? Aka rubbing alcohol? Aka alcohol you're supposed to rub on your skin to disinfect it? Although the fumes can make you sick, I've never heard of it used as an inhalant that people get high from.

This is generally true, artists are given an advance initially that needs to be recouped in order to get paid master royalties. It almost never happens and is very difficult to prove if you're the artist. Some countries actually have different performing rights society rules where they will actually pay mechanicals not just to the writers but also to the artist and even musicians who performed on the record.

you let it dry for like 24 hours and peel it off and it takes off a lot of the deeply embedded dirt. I have gotten post-glue treatment records cleaner. I think part of it is that the glue has high surface tension so it won't automatically go deep into the grooves. The most effective glue treatments is if you brush or somehow force the glue into the grooves.

Actually I know someone who swears by the ultrasonic cleaner. I bought one (the specific one he told me to buy), it was cheap, like $30 shipped. It did NOTHING. Absolutely NOTHING. I keep meaning to go to this guy's house to see what he might be doing differently but I tried a lot of ways of using it with no results. He says that he can see the dirt coming off into the water, I don't see or hear any difference (except the difference you might get from wetting a dirty record and wiping it off).

One other note. If you have a styrene record that plays with hiss, the styrene is usually damaged and cleaning won't help. There are some other types of hiss (even from wet played records) that can be cleaned. For a styrene burnt record if you just need to make a recording of it, you can often get it to sound better with a different cartridge / stylus which will ride in a different part of the groove that is less damaged.

you're talking about the four larks recordings I guess

This is almost impossible to do from the UK since it's already very difficult to track down the artists from within the US, but the numero group will almost only work with music where they have tracked down most of the artists, and they make deals with the publisher to pay the writers share directly to the artist (or whoever wrote the songs). Recently there was an awesome 80s detroit record I was trying to get them to reissue (not anyone's northern track btw). They could do it totally legally via the producer and publisher. But they wouldn't do it because the artist was some sort of recluse that didn't return phone calls or respond to letters.

I will stress that it is EXTREMELY important to use lint free cloth. You can get those microfiber cloths at auto parts stores that people use to clean / shine their cars. If you don't use lint free cloth parts of your cloth will embed into the grooves. The absolute worst is using cotton balls on styrene, they actually bond to the grooves somehow.

just my secret magic ingredients and process. Everyone has their own... PM me and I'll take your records, clean them, and send them back. This is not a general invitation to anybody (I'm not running a cleaning business), just willing to show what good a cleaning can do. Make a recording of them before you send them to me, so you can rerecord after and compare. There are some things that cleaning won't fix, like heat damage (usually causes a "swoosh" sound), scratches, etc. I also don't polish records (totally dishonest practice) or shine them up with armor all or anything like that so you don't have to worry about that.

You should definitely get the vinyl as clean as possible before trying to clean it up on the computer. You need as much of the correct original sonic information as possible. Lots of people have different cleaning techniques (some sort of crazy, like the glue thing), use different machines (e.g VPIs), etc. The last bit of cleaning makes all the difference. I won a 45 from craig moerer recently, without actually listening to the soundclips which was pretty stupid of me. I listened to his clip after i won it and you could barely hear the music over the noise and crackle. I got it in the mail and it was super shiny, like it had been thoroughly cleaned already. I cleaned it and pretty much all the noise went away and you can only hear a little crackle at the start. It looked the same, but played totally differently.

like coloring in the labels to make them look less worn and more original, or coloring in tears, etc. I've seen pretty amateurish jobs sometimes but they still look better than the original messed up labels, and in the art / comic restoration world there are pros who could do it and make it look almost like new.

send them to me, I'll clean them as clean as they can be and they will sound incredibly better. I can process it further on the computer if you want.

which Larks tracks are you talking about? Because the Larks "I want her to love me" on Guyden is actually licensed in from local Ohio label Violet, it's the ohio group. Irma and the Larks / Four Larks were from Philly, what's confusing is that they also have a record as the Larks on Guyden from close to the same time.

I actually enjoy "restoring" records, it's like I'm saving a cultural artifact. I can get unbelievably messed up records to play with almost no noise. I've seen some of the doowop guys actually doing comic-book style restoration on the labels, that's next level, I'd love to do that on a few things.

the mark fi group was a vocal group (not musicians), they're the "total destruction" in the name...

This was also my experience. The price hasn't gone up that much either, I've never seen a gold copy sell for $150 much less 150 pounds. Of course, I have no idea what stuff actually sells for in a face-to-face transaction in the UK.

people complain about the italy postal system a lot in my experience...

I'm impressed. I still think it had to have been obscure major label singles where they pushed for prosecution. Do you have more details? Thanks.