[78-L] Removal of hiss - a different approach

[Michael Biel]

neechevoneeznayou at gmail.com wrote:
> OK, in stead of attempting to remove noise/hiss by scanning a record, is 
> there a way to chemically treat the surface to smooth out small 
> imperfections that would cause noise?
>   

Careful, Joe, you are treading on very dangerous ground here,  It is 
called "wet playing" and is very controversial.  The distilled water (or 
maybe some other fluid) would fill in gaps and give a smooth surface for 
the needle to skate over.  But it really is like hydroplaning on a wet 
road.  Your tires lose actual contact with the road and are floating on 
a cushion of water.  Something you do not want to do.

> Obviously one might not wish to do this with a unique artifact. Assume 
> you are transferring a common 78 for a reissue project. If the record 
> could be treated to fill the microscopic pits without distorting the 
> shape of the groove that the stylus needs to follow, would this make a 
> significant difference in noise? Would making the determination be any 
> easier than determining the difference in music and noise electronically?
>   

Now you are really skating on thin ice since you specifically mentioned 
78s.  It has been said that if you wet-play a shellac records you will 
never again be able to play it except wet.  Water tends to dissolve 
shellac, and the needle scrapes away a film of the surface,  I sometimes 
have cause to wonder if the same thing happens if you play a poor record 
in high humidity, such as a wartime Decca.  The gunk on you needle is 
record, not dirt.

There once was an advice columnist in either High Fidelity or Hi-Fi 
Stereo Review, or maybe Audio, I think it was Ian Somethingorother, who 
about 3 or 4 issues befoe the demise of the magazine did a column on how 
much trouble it is to play 78s.  He found that the only way he gets good 
sound from his 78s was to play them wet, and he has to keep cleaning his 
stylus because of all of the dirt.  I remember discussing this long, 
long ago on the ancient history of this list back in the Cornell days, 
and a few weeks later the magazine announced its demise.  It did not 
announce the demise of that guy's 78 collection, nor that of any of its 
readers who may have taken that jackass'es advice. 
> Is the noise caused by little bits of wax torn from the surface by the 
> recording process? Is that why a heated stylus makes a quieter groove? 
> It is my understanding that this is so.
>
> =======
>
>   

Some is.

> Back on the subject of what a musician hears during a session, yes, 
> someone recording a cylinder would hear the noise of that process, but 
> it is not a part of the musical performance.
>
> joe salerno
>
>   

True, which is why horn resonances should be flattened out.  I brought 
it up because it is part of the experience of making an acoustical 
record, and someone had mentioned incorrectly that the record surface 
noise is not heard in the recording studio and someone else beat me to 
making the correction -- and I added an explanation.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com  .