A few ways to not really clean a record

A few people asked if the record cleaner spray and micro fibre cloth I used at the end of the video on the normal record removed the noise. Unfortunately not. This spray/cloth was also how I’d attempted to clean the Trimicron record in the past before giving the other ideas you saw demonstrated a try. There are some links to the products in the video description text box.

The problem is plain to see. That record is covered with microscopic grooves and bumps. Give it a good polish with a Dremel and some polishing compound and it will be much quieter.

Your neighbours must wonder what the hell you are doing sometimes. Is he playing with the puppets again? No he's pressure washing a record.

This man woke up one day and decided he needed to power wash a Beethoven record. What an absolute delight and legend this man is.

only Techmoan would have a sink that is perfectly shaped to clean a record lol

> Somebody suggested pressure washing > It's the 8-bit guy I'm not even surprised. Maybe the feature is region-locked to Dallas, TX.

Just limit your record playing to the morning at breakfast time, when you are eating your Rice Krispies, and you won't notice!

1:58 didnt trust that first product when i saw they spelled "Cleaning" as "Cleanig"

When I started buying vinyl in my teen years the guy who's store I would shop at used to clean my purchases for no extra cost with an amazing machine that was like a cross between a record player & a vacuum cleaner. He'd pop some liquid on the side that needed cleaning and then switch the device on. It was about a minute per side and was pretty loud, but you could instantly tell the difference.

Attempting to Powerwash a record is such an 8 Bit Guy thing to do. Next time he might tell you to Retrobright it or to try Baking Soda.

I've heard that pops and crackles also result from the decay of the record itself: some records were made using low quality vinyl mixtures that contained abrasives which broke down and created microscopic cracks in the grooves.

An acetone bath for 24 hours will reduce crackles and scratches to zero... However this is because you will have nothing to play :D

I recently got a job lot of really filthy 45's, using warm soapy water in a bowl with a dowel passed through the record's hole to allow it to spin in the water without the label getting wet. It worked pretty well, and in fact worked even better when the grooves were agitated with a soft brush. A lot less hassle than using glue!

Nice update to the original video. Seeing a record power washed and scrubbed in the sink was fun and amusing.

I love how the box says, "Cleanig Pack". Quite a professional product 😂

28 years as a DJ ... mostly used an ultra fine brush, whilst the record spun on the deck. Gotta say the best results were from a sink full of warm water, and a squirt of fairy liquid :) sad but true. There is a difference of course between the wide groove 12 inch vs the album. I got better results cleaning the 12" disc. All the best.....J

I have been into vinyl records for about a year and a half now; and I have not yet bought a record cleaning machine - not even one of those Spin Clean things. I could probably afford one now; but my manual technique, which I am refining all the time, has given me salutary results: A. DRY BRUSHING, which should precede wet cleaning, to remove as much of the loose "highland" dust as possible and prevent it descending to the grooves: 1. Prepare cleaning fluid: 80 parts distilled water to 20 parts 100% isopropyl alcohol. 2. Put a rubber mat on turntable. Turn turntable up to 45 rpm (or 78 rpm if available). Take record out of old inner sleeve. (Always handle record with a microfibre cloth. It saves on wrist gymnastics). Use an arc lighter or similar to de-static surface of the record. Place record on platter. Turn on turntable. 3. Spray carbon fibre brush with distilled water. (This addresses a common paranoia about carbon fibre brushes - that they simply move dust around without lifting it. Trust me, the damp brush will lift it). Brush the surface of the record in the following manner - place at this angle: \ to the radius of the record. 4. Passively gather up dust for a couple of rotations; then brush the record in a series of back-and-forth movements PARALLEL to the grooves; then gather dust passively again, before pushing the brush quite firmly PERPENDICULAR to the grooves, towards the label. Lift brush off surface and examine brush for dust. Flick dust off the brush using the dust-flicker in the handle. Repeat until no further dust is lifted from surface. (Note that the parallel brushing should be confined to brushes that are not worn, since hairs will tend to shed if brush is worn). 5. Lift record off platter. While record is raised, use carbon brush to brush platter mat. Check brush for platter-dust and flick dust off hairs.Turn record to side B and place on platter. (Note that platter brushing requires using a rubber mat or similar, not felt. If you do not brush the platter mat, you will potentially transfer dust between sides, as you can see from the surprising amount of dust lifted from the mat between sides). Repeat cleaning of Side B as per step 4. B. WET CLEANING, whose purpose is to soak groove dust in an isopropanol solution, remove (an admittedly small amount of) this wet dust from the grooves on to a cloth, and to loosen up any remaining groove dust into a slurry for later removal. 6. Set up a work surface - namely, an LP box set with a terry-towel microfibre cloth on top. Place drybrushed record on the cloth. Place a plastic disc on the label to protect it. Spray Side A with the cleaning fluid. Let the fluid soak in; then run finger, covered in microfibre glasses cloth, along the grooves in a concentric spiral outwards to inwards. Bear down quite hard on the grooves at this point. Concentric spirals should be both clockwise and anticlockwise, and reverse directions frequently to encourage dust to come out. Check cloth periodically for residue and shift cloth around to make sure clean spots of cloth are used. Repeat on Side B. 7. You now have a record with damp loose slurry of dirt in grooves, of which a certain amount has been taken away on to the cloth, and the remainder is still in the grooves. Go to the shower. Grasping the disc with a microfibre cloth, flush the grooves quite thoroughly with high pressure cold tapwater. Repeat on Side B. Try to avoid wetting label. This is a substitute for vacuuming the surface of the record, and is intended to flush as much dirt out of the grooves as possible. 8. Your record is now cleaner than before, but a slurry of dirt remains in the grooves. It is also covered with tap water, which will leave a residue. Cover the label again with the plastic disc. Spray distilled water all over the surface very thoroughly, until it saturates and the water starts trickling off the lower edge into a convenient rubbish bin. Repeat on Side B. Your record is now wet with distilled water, which will leave no residue. 9. Air dry until surface is dry. For this use an all-plastic dish drainer, easily obtained from a large hardware shop. 10. When dry, your record now has a certain amount of loose, damp dirt still residing within the grooves. Place record on platter again. Increase weight on tonearm up to 4.15 grams (in my case, the maximum weight possible). Play the record with the weighted stylus three times. Use carbon fibre brush as per step 4. Inspect the brush for dirt and repeat until no visible dirt is lifted. Repeat for Side B. Your record is now clean.

Some of the crackles were exactly the same in the before and after. That suggests record damage, or the product doing nothing. I think it's damage.

After growing up with parents that never put their records back in sleeves (every record they collected from the 1950s to the 1980s, so not many left to scavenge from them) and thirty years of my own collecting...my methods: 1. If you get a new or like new vinyl record, or any clean old record, do everything you can to never have to wash it in the first place. Handle it carefully and never allow the record to end up anywhere other than back in the sleeve, temporarily placed on top of its own inner sleeve or on the turntable. Close the turntable lid if you don't want to immediately put the record back into its sleeve. 2. If you get a vinyl record that's only mildly dirty, a little dust or fingerprints, leave it if there's no real audio problems. If there are a few spots that are a problem, wipe gently with a microfiber cloth (used to be just a soft cotton cloth back in the old days) and STRAIGHT alcohol. 3. If you get a filthy vinyl record full of dirt and fingerprints or the main culprit, decades of cigarette gunk, go at it with a roll of paper towels and straight alcohol, folding the paper towels into small alcohol saturated squares and follow the groove with just the right amount of pressure from your fingertips, replacing with a new square as needed until the record is cleaned. If there are big chunks of dirt or makeup or dried milk or...bodily fluids, it's probably best to just start with a sink of soapy water to rinse it away. 4. Shellac or styrene records: Forget the alcohol. Use a cloth dampened with water, avoiding the label for mildly dirty records (or a quick, not too damp wipe of the label if its dirty too). A sink of warm, soapy water for the extra dirty stuff, doing the best you can to avoid getting the label wet. Wipe as dry as possible and then allow to dry completely before playing or returning to their sleeves. 5. Store your collection as far away from a kitchen as possible, and, from a former smoker, DON'T SMOKE AROUND YOUR RECORDS! After that, repeat step one. Keeping them clean in the first place is the only way to keep a record sounding as best as possible. But no matter what you do, the faint clicks and pops are inevitable. Not even if you live in a sterile museum where the only ones handling the records wear white gloves. The clicks and pops are still unavoidable if you want to enjoy your records. Embrace the surface noise...but not gouged/worn grooves. That's another thing entirely.

What I've learned from this video: Don't expect miraculous results after cleaning a record, whatever method you choose.