Record question for the experts

so i was messing around with some records last night when i reached for pauls boutique.

i threw it on but strangely it played at half the volume of my other records.

the strange thing is , is that it never did this before,, or i never noticed

my question is,

can records lose their volume?,, from shitty keeping,, dust etc?

it might be mastered a lot lower. is it a 2xlp? if not, they may have cut it more quietly to fit the whole album on one 12".

also, make sure the weight is set right on your stylus, needle, etc. if it's not heavy enough or whatever you might only be getting one channel or something funky like that.

  drdk said:

so i was messing around with some records last night when i reached for pauls boutique.

i threw it on but strangely it played at half the volume of my other records.

 

the strange thing is , is that it never did this before,, or i never noticed

 

my question is,

can records lose their volume?,, from shitty keeping,, dust etc?

yeah, they can degrade if they're not kept well. also some records are recorded more quietly than others as you can squeeze on more "information" or sound if it's recorded more quietly. This is why LPs and vinyl albums are always quieter than 45s and EPs.

  drdk said:

can records lose their volume?,, from shitty keeping,, dust etc?

Not really, they just get more noisy and distorted, especially if you use DJ carts with spherical styluses and absurdly high tracking force.

Some useless trivia - Recently I've been calibrating my homebrew digital RIAA EQ, and went through my collection to find the loudest pressing, so I could set the correct headroom for the gain stage. Autechre's Envane is a good 2dB louder than any other record I own, though I hear some jungle records out there are cut at very extreme levels.

The quietest/most crap pressing I have is the 2LP "Classic Fingers" compilation, which has 30-35 minutes per side, and sounds like a turd.

that paul's boutique album has always been more quiet than others. i noticed it when i was listening to records at your house, dk... plus its the repress and it's 2xLP and i think they did it with quite heavy vinyl, so maybe they did that on purpose for whatever reason?? i definitely dont think it's from bad keeping though. your record shelves are pretty in pretty tip top shape yo. uh yeha

cool,, yeah i never noticed

but my room tends to get pritty fuckin messy,, and i had them all up at the lake all summer in the muggy ass guest house,,

and sometime i kind of chuck the record any old place when im in the heat of the tunes

i once had a dj turntable and left it under my bed for some years, then decided to scratch the beegees and the vocals seemed very dim, and almost no lows, but i reckon it was the needle

nearly all of my hip hop records are quieter and crappier quality than everything else

may Lps sacrifice some of their dynamic range for minutes

I don't think my heavyweight PB is especially quiet.

I do have one record that behaves oddly though:

Audio Werner - Still Jackin (great housey techno track btw). Anyways, it's like the needle doesn't grab the record right. When I stop it by hand, it's really slow to start up again, and if I give it just a slight back scratch it fucking flies backwards...lol weird.

Any thoughts vinyl gurus?

The sound monads have migrated deeper into the record. I suggest a good rubdown with some 10 grit.