I have a recording on an LP by John Bowe, probably recorded in the 1970s. It's self titled and the guitar accompaniment is provided by Mary Conroy. Sleeve notes were written by Brendan Mulkere.Now .........
Side 2 plays fine, and the playing is absolutley magnificent. But Side 1 seems to have been pressed "off centre" and so the whole of side one sounds like one of those ancient hand wound gramophones turning at a variable speed. I'm planning on transferring side two to a CD but what do I do with side one? If it has been pressed off centre on side one then it seems to me a matter of re-drilling the hole,or perhaps even just widening it. Just looking at it it would seem that it might only be a matter of no more than 2millimetres out of alignment. The perimeter ot the record,that is the "blank part",preceding the first track varies from about 6mm at its narrowest to about 10mm at its widest.As it plays you can see the needle "wavering" from side to side.Has anyone else experienced this problem with this LP? And does anyone have a solution? Of course if this recording has been re-released on CD then I'll buy the CD, but I've never seen it in my travells.
Yeah, been there, suffered that. I'm not aware of any "post processor" that can fix such things, so you are probably limited to enlarging the hole (after copying the good side!) to give you room to move, and fiddling it until you get good enough results. The inner track is going to be worst (as the same deviation will make a bigger difference on the smaller radius, and the time between speed peaks is shorter), so use that to test if it's good enough. I think in my case, friction between mat and disc was enough to keep it in place, but this was a long time ago and your mat might be different!
I'd imagine putting some markers around the hole (N, NE, E, etc) would be helpful in not getting lost. And measuring from spindle to the run-out groove (which should be circular, not spiral) should get you pretty close.
Can you carefully whiddle the side of the hole where you need the spindle to move, rather than drilling, using a sharp knife & a small round file? Some well placed gaffer tape on the opposite might help keep the new centre.
I've had this problem occasionally on old lps.
As Terry said, carefully identify the area where it is most severe, and adjust the hole accordingly.
And, of course, as the stylus approaches the centre the percentage difference increases, so that what is a little wow at the beginning of the first track becomes a glaring swerve off-pitch by the last one.
I remember once phoning up the BBC when they put on a record for the last 10 minutes of a programme and it was infuriatingly eccentric. The guy on the desk didn't seem to think that musical afficionados would be bothered !
I had the problem a few years ago with a 45rpm EP (slightly larger than a CD). The central hole was visibly out of true so with a few minutes experiment I managed to find a position where the wow vanished. Then I dumped the audio onto my hard drive, and repeated the process for the other side. Like Terry, I did make a couple of marks by the hole to guide me.
I suppose it would be possible with some clever programming to correct the wow on a digital copy.
Can you take the centre spindle off your turntable? Some (autochangers - remember those anyone?) had removable spindles. If that's the case you just remove it and can experiment with where the record goes - then you just play around till you get a position which doesn't wow.
By the way there is a way to remove wow and flutter but it's designed for use with tape and film, not discs. it does an amazing job and makes old analogue recordings sound very "clean" - a lot of what we hear as distortion on old recordings was just fast "flutter" caused by the rotating parts of the machine used to record it. The process detects the HF bias signal (which is why it can't work with LPs), and looks for pitch variations in that and uses it to cancel out the speed variations in the audio. Can't remember where I found the site but you have to send your recordings in to have them processed, and it's probably very very expensive!
Mark, I've browsed the Plangent Processes website, and it certainly is very impressive technology judging by the audio examples. Also, judging by the role-call of their prestigious clients, I agree it's got to be very very expensive. Somehow, I don't think we're going to see a "lite" version in PC World any time soon
A Non Symetrical LP
A Non Symetrical LP
I have a recording on an LP by John Bowe, probably recorded in the 1970s. It's self titled and the guitar accompaniment is provided by Mary Conroy. Sleeve notes were written by Brendan Mulkere.Now .........
Side 2 plays fine, and the playing is absolutley magnificent. But Side 1 seems to have been pressed "off centre" and so the whole of side one sounds like one of those ancient hand wound gramophones turning at a variable speed. I'm planning on transferring side two to a CD but what do I do with side one? If it has been pressed off centre on side one then it seems to me a matter of re-drilling the hole,or perhaps even just widening it. Just looking at it it would seem that it might only be a matter of no more than 2millimetres out of alignment. The perimeter ot the record,that is the "blank part",preceding the first track varies from about 6mm at its narrowest to about 10mm at its widest.As it plays you can see the needle "wavering" from side to side.Has anyone else experienced this problem with this LP? And does anyone have a solution? Of course if this recording has been re-released on CD then I'll buy the CD, but I've never seen it in my travells.
# Posted on March 22nd 2009 by Tony O'Rourke
Re: A Non Symetrical LP
Hi Tony
Yeah, been there, suffered that. I'm not aware of any "post processor" that can fix such things, so you are probably limited to enlarging the hole (after copying the good side!) to give you room to move, and fiddling it until you get good enough results. The inner track is going to be worst (as the same deviation will make a bigger difference on the smaller radius, and the time between speed peaks is shorter), so use that to test if it's good enough. I think in my case, friction between mat and disc was enough to keep it in place, but this was a long time ago and your mat might be different!
I'd imagine putting some markers around the hole (N, NE, E, etc) would be helpful in not getting lost. And measuring from spindle to the run-out groove (which should be circular, not spiral) should get you pretty close.
Best of luck!
Terry
# Posted on March 22nd 2009 by Terry McGee
Re: A Non Symetrical LP
Can you carefully whiddle the side of the hole where you need the spindle to move, rather than drilling, using a sharp knife & a small round file? Some well placed gaffer tape on the opposite might help keep the new centre.
# Posted on March 22nd 2009 by Ben Steen
Re: A Non Symetrical LP
I've had this problem occasionally on old lps.
As Terry said, carefully identify the area where it is most severe, and adjust the hole accordingly.
And, of course, as the stylus approaches the centre the percentage difference increases, so that what is a little wow at the beginning of the first track becomes a glaring swerve off-pitch by the last one.
I remember once phoning up the BBC when they put on a record for the last 10 minutes of a programme and it was infuriatingly eccentric. The guy on the desk didn't seem to think that musical afficionados would be bothered !
# Posted on March 22nd 2009 by Guernsey Pete
Re: A Non Symetrical LP
my fav thing about that LP is the last line of the sleeve notes.
# Posted on March 22nd 2009 by flying fists of poo poo
Re: Finding the center of a circle
Rather than guess at the center, you might look at this link.
http://www.mathopenref.com/constcirclecenter2.html
You could put a piece of tape over the hole and mark dead center on it, then at least you would know how much material to remove.
# Posted on March 22nd 2009 by rogfox
Re: A Non Symetrical LP
I had the problem a few years ago with a 45rpm EP (slightly larger than a CD). The central hole was visibly out of true so with a few minutes experiment I managed to find a position where the wow vanished. Then I dumped the audio onto my hard drive, and repeated the process for the other side. Like Terry, I did make a couple of marks by the hole to guide me.
I suppose it would be possible with some clever programming to correct the wow on a digital copy.
# Posted on March 22nd 2009 by Trevor Jennings
Re: A Non Symetrical LP
Can you take the centre spindle off your turntable? Some (autochangers - remember those anyone?) had removable spindles. If that's the case you just remove it and can experiment with where the record goes - then you just play around till you get a position which doesn't wow.
By the way there is a way to remove wow and flutter but it's designed for use with tape and film, not discs. it does an amazing job and makes old analogue recordings sound very "clean" - a lot of what we hear as distortion on old recordings was just fast "flutter" caused by the rotating parts of the machine used to record it. The process detects the HF bias signal (which is why it can't work with LPs), and looks for pitch variations in that and uses it to cancel out the speed variations in the audio. Can't remember where I found the site but you have to send your recordings in to have them processed, and it's probably very very expensive!
# Posted on March 22nd 2009 by Mark Harmer
Re: A Non Symetrical LP
Here you go, for those interested in the above stuff about de-fluttering audio recordings:
http://www.plangentprocesses.com/
Some of the audio samples are amazingly improved but it's a very complicated process.
# Posted on March 22nd 2009 by Mark Harmer
Re: A Non Symetrical LP
Back in the dark ages I used to solve his problem by removing the spindle.
# Posted on March 22nd 2009 by dafydd
Re: A Non Symetrical LP
For some reason this problem used to happen to me occasionally with "Transatlantic" label LPs.
And my set of "The Trojan Story" reggae LPs was also afflicted by this off-centre fluttering
Dafydd's solution sounds like a practical quick fix!
# Posted on March 22nd 2009 by Bren
Re: A Non Symetrical LP
Mark, I've browsed the Plangent Processes website, and it certainly is very impressive technology judging by the audio examples. Also, judging by the role-call of their prestigious clients, I agree it's got to be very very expensive. Somehow, I don't think we're going to see a "lite" version in PC World any time soon
# Posted on March 23rd 2009 by Trevor Jennings
Re: A Non Symetrical LP
I think you're right - shame though! Specially for people like me, who fall into the "cheap but demanding" demographic.
# Posted on March 23rd 2009 by Mark Harmer