Vinyl's Worst Enemy
All is fair in love and war
In case you haven’t noticed, I love vinyl. But we all have our secrets, right?
Well, here’s mine: I absolutely hate static.
As far as vinyl goes, I can live with many things. A little bit of surface noise? Part of the charm. Clicks and pops? I’ll get on to them. The odd skipping occurrence? Find me a toothpick.
Static, though, puts me on edge. It makes me want to smash the record and throw my turntable (and speakers, and amplifier, and everything in between) out of the window.
Unlike other vinyl ailments, static is never an isolated problem. It comes with an arsenal of small (and not so small) issues which, when combined, are extremely annoying and can take hours, if not days, to fix.
Fortunately for you (and for the sake of my mental health), I have developed a method to keep static at bay.
But first: they say you have to know your enemy…
What is static?
Static electricity, loosely defined, is the result of an imbalance between negative and positive charges in objects or surfaces. When they come into contact with each other, electrons flow from the positively charged to the negatively charged surface.
Some materials tend to hold on to these electrons, resulting in a buildup of electric charge. This charge is stationary (i.e. it doesn’t move), hence why it’s called static.
And it’s so stubborn, on top of that, but I don’t think that’s part of the definition.
Paper inner sleeves tend to attract static electricity and pass it onto the record. This is particularly common with new vinyl.
How to spot it
You will notice static when you can’t easily remove your record from its sleeve, or when the record gets “glued” to the slipmat of your turntable.
If you are savage enough to tempt the demons and decide to spin the record anyway, you will notice a muffled type of sound. It’s a unique type of distortion, like a scratchy aura to the music, that will make your ears bleed.
Crackling and increased surface noise are also common occurrences.
Some say these sound issues are caused by the dust that the static has attracted, not by the static itself. I have not been able to corroborate this one way or the other.
In any case, the sound is so bad that you will want to burn your entire vinyl collection. A friend told me it makes him swear in two languages, but I wouldn’t be able to corroborate that either…
A pain in the proverbial
The reason why static is such a pain is because it brings an army of demons with it, namely:
Dust and debris. The kind of dirt that won’t go away with a simple, superficial clean.
Paper residue. Bits of paper can get stuck onto the vinyl surface and cause clicks, pops and, potentially, skips.
In-process complications. Static is known for fighting back. As you are trying to get rid of it, the record will attract every single dust particle floating around in your house. Good luck with that microfibre cloth! It will eat it alive, right in front of your face.
Stylus attack. Just when you thought the worst was over, your stylus starts playing up. Guess what? Yes, it’s full of gunk now as well. Courtesy of our new friend, of course.
This list is by no means exhaustive.
How to fight it
Carefully remove the record from its inner sleeve.
Keep the record as far away as possible from your turntable.
Dry-clean the record with an anti-static brush.
Wet-clean the record thoroughly and let it dry.
Keep the printed sleeve for the artwork, but don’t let it touch the record directly ever again. Either replace it with an anti-static inner sleeve, or cover the record inside an anti-static sleeve before putting it back into its paper sleeve.
(If you need a hand with cleaning, check this out).
The voice of reason would tell you now you should let the record rest inside its anti-static inner sleeve and wait 24 hours before spinning it.
If you can’t wait (come on… we’ve all been there!), try this:
Place the record on your turntable.
With the turntable spinning, take a long (preferably metal) anti-static brush and dry clean the record (yes, again).
Hold one end of the brush against the spindle, with the bristles touching the record surface, and wait a few seconds.
This method is far from perfect, and will not always get rid of all the static in one go, but it works for me.
There are anti-static guns and other static-related products out there but, due to mixed reviews, I have not yet tried them. Some say cork slipmats are particularly good at fighting static.
Have you tried any of these? Thoughts, ideas, rants? Comments down below.
Thanks for reading/listening. Happy (and static-free) spinning!
I pretty much just do your last suggestion. And I'm not especially a stickler about it. But then again I don't mind static. I hear it in my head even when I'm not playing records!
It occurs to me that you should have called this piece, "No Static at All" and included the great Steely Dan song by the same name! Well, "FM (No Static at All)."
I have written about my cleaning routine in an earlier post of yours, I just cleaned eight records yesterday. But, I always use a carbon fiber brush on my record before I move the tone arm and lower the needle. It not only does well with picking up surface dust, but it also removes static. My Thorens has a rubber mat, which are generally good and certainly better than felt. I thought about a cork mat, but the Thorens also has a built-in 45 adaptor, which wouldn't work with an aftermarket mat.
To the person below who mentioned compressed air, I would be wary about using it on my stylus. The cantilever is thin and relatively fragile, I would be worried the force of the air could damage it or even remove the diamond from its glue. 'Last' makes a good, reputable liquid stylus cleaner that I have used for many years. I have never had any issues with it weakening the glue of the diamond (there are horror stories out there with some less-reputable stylus cleaning products). I use it and then (serious geek alert) shine my phone's flashlight on the stylus and look through a magnifying glass to ensure all dust is off. If I see dust clinging to the cantilever, I gently use the stylus brush to clean it. I do the geeky magnifying glass thing once a week when I also wipe my stereo down.