Cleaning up 78 recordings

[Wolfe]

There's a good bit of info on recording 78s and cleaning up the sound on the internet. I've been reading it. One thing that is emphasized in most of this is never to play a shellac 78 wet. This has to do with the fiber core that is the substrate under the shellac. It will soak up the water and swell. They also say that most record cleaning solutions made for 33s (i.e. modern record cleaning solutions) should never be used on a shellac 78. I didn't see anything that said not to play a vinyl 78 record wet, however.

The part of your post that I bolded was what I had been referring to about laminated records. I don't think wet washing laminated records harms them as long as the record is't exposed to water for too long, as long as there aren't any cracks in the surface for the water to seep under. The lam records I've washed never appear to have been harmed.

As far as cleaning solutions, the big no-no with shellac 78's is using an alcohol based cleanser which is what many cleaners made for vinyl records have.

Also, one must remember that not all 45 rpm records are vinyl, many are styrene, and I have no idea what the 'perceived wisdom' is about playing those wet.

[operabass78s]

I use a combination of Magix Audio lab, ClickRepair, Audacity and my ears. ClickRepair is available in a free trial form and Audacity is open source. I've found ClickRepair generally more effective to remove "crackle" however if you have a needle dig or a heavy scratch it tends to just clip the frequencies.