Congratulations on your purchase of lathe-cut vinyl dubplates from us. This page has some basic information about your new records and how to best store and clean them.
General Care:
Lathe-cut dubplates need no special treatment and can be played and used in exactly the same way as normal pressed records. Obviously, you should take the same care of them as any other vinyl record. If they are treated well, you will not experience any kind of deterioration of sound or issues with the sound quality from repeated plays. Please bear in mind that, like pressed records, they can get scratched and dirty if not looked after properly. So, please care for them the same as any other record in your collection.
Unless otherwise requested when ordering our dubs will arrive packaged inside a clear PVC outer sleeve. These are resealable, and we recommend that you keep your lathe-cut vinyl inside this for its life to increase protection against dust. Of course, you don’t need to keep this outer sleeve, but it is an added extra layer of protection.
Cleaning:
Should you need to clean your lathe-cut vinyl, we recommend using a mix of isopropyl alcohol and water, which you would find in most normal off-the-shelf record cleaners. Apply one to three sprays (depending on how dirty it is) on each side of the records, then clean with a microfiber cloth, running in a spiral motion from the outside to the middle of the record until the solution has evaporated. Make sure to follow the direction of the grooves of the record and do not scrub across the grooves. Please make sure that records are completely dry before playing after cleaning.
Storage:
Keep your records stored upright (vertical) on a shelf or in a crate away from heat sources such as radiators or direct sunlight. Lathe-cut dubplates are as easy to warp as standard pressed records, and care should be taken to avoid direct heat sources to prevent warping. Do not store them flat, laying on their sides.
Playback:
Lathe-cut records can be played on any record player using any standard stylus format, just like pressed records. Please note that your vinyl is optimized for a ‘spherical’ stylus and has been tested with such. An ‘elliptical’ stylus can be used; however, please note that we have not tested playback with one. The manufacturer of our cutting machine does not recommend using these types of stylus, as they can dig deeper into the cut grooves. If not correctly set up, they can cause jumping; however, they should be fine to use and should not damage your record.
DJing with Your Lathe-cut Vinyl:
You should have no issue using your records in a normal DJ set, and they can be treated the same as any normal pressed records. Please note that excessive back-cueing and scratching can damage your dubs in the same way it would damage a normal pressed record, so please take the same care.
Troubleshooting:
When your records were cut, they were played back in real-time as part of the cutting process from start to finish using a Technics 1200 with an Ortofon Concorde stylus and headshell (stylus changed every 300 hours) with a weight setting of 1.75 and anti-skate setting of 0. These are our recommended settings for playback of your records. If you are experiencing any playback issues, these will be due to your player setup, and we would recommend that you check the weight and settings are not excessive. As every record is test-played here before being shipped, any problems with jumping records will be down to playback setup. So, please ensure you calibrate and check your turntable system correctly. The above settings are not the ONLY settings you can play your records on, and they will be fine at other settings, but that is our benchmark for playback during cutting, and we know the records play perfectly at that weight setting.
Enjoy your records:
Thanks for choosing us to cut your records, and we hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed working on them. If you experience any problems, please do contact us, and we will always be happy to help.