I found a VG+ copy of "Get Yer Ya's Ya's Out", although clean, it was warped. Watching your videos, I am able now to discern the different types of warping. This one had 3 "waves", and I knew right off the bat the V.F. was up for the job. After watching this video, I threw caution to the wind and gave it 3 hours (within your "sweetspot") right out of the gate. I let it cool for an hour and the record is as FLAT as a pancake. The droning that went on in the middle of the record is gone!
Hi Blake. I have about 20 or so records that have that little "blip" kind of warp and have been considering the V. Flat. I remember you mentioning before those are the hardest ones to get rid of so I have not gotten the V. Flat yet. That Lester B. looks great. Good to see you Blake.
Outstanding result on that second LP. Very nice result! Seems like very wise advice with the Blue Note LP--those pinch warps do seem to be the toughest ones to fix.
Blake, thank you very much for the instructions. Never thought of lining the warp with the nubs. Tried it on both sides over the last couple of days, it looks like it went down a little bit, but still causing a skip. Gonna keep working on this one! :) Thanks again for the help! - Bret
Very nice, Blake. Just did a tile method on a thrift LP and made it out of round, which made it unplayable - the tile method only works on certain types of warps, which is another reason why anybody in the thousands of records should have a vinyl flat, even if it can't save them all.
gonna need to buy a second copy of Dippin by Hank Mobley. The copy you have looks like a terrible factory defect and the only way to fix that is buying a copy without the defect
Hey Blake, congrats on that Lester Bowie flattening. I have the Vinyl Flat - and have been really successful with most sessions. The ones that I have the hardest time getting flat, are the ones with warping around the outer edge - it's not a thumbed one like you showed in the beginning. Even after several sessions, that outer warping still doesn't flatten - frustrating since after the first track the rest of the LP plays fine. Have you had any luck with such a warp?
Hello Blake-ster, You are saying that even the real expensive vinyl flat's would not fix this Blue Note record for example? I am really confused at what you meant by the orange peals? Are you saying that the ripple in the record is the size of an orange? Call me stupid but I am definitely green when it comes to flattening machines. Hey, that rhymes. Thanks for the update Blake. I look forward to the Lester Bowie example. ~ Rob/Boston
Update to post below. There's no way to fix these quick edge warps, they throw your your tone arm up in the air. My improved flattening addition to the Vinyl FLast worked extremely well, but NOT with the edge warp. What happens with these if you flatten them, is they do get flatter but the grooves turn into a quick turning tight curves. So your needle hits it and it throws the tone arm back and forth real fast and you just get a repeating loop. If there was some way to slow down the turntable to half speed you could digitize the album and then speed back up to normal speed. Anyway, I was hoping to save this Zeppelin album and in a way I did, because I can play all but the two outer tracks front and back. And so it goes......
Ah, right! With a pinch like that those grooves are surely kinked out of shape... so even if you do get it "flat," the grooves are likely still trashed. Very good point. Oh well, we can't save them all I suppose. :-)
Vinyl Flat taught me one important thing- Don't buy warped records! 99% of them can't be saved. I think with 45's it might be a different story, but I don't collect singles. $100 to learn this hard lesson, was tough.
I have a nice copy of Weather Report's "Heavy Weather" that was giving my cartridge a nice little ride. I gave this Columbia release 3 hours and saw an 85% improvement. I guess it could have handled 3:15, but I left well enough alone. I have not destroyed any records....yet! Haha. Having fun with my vinyl flattener. Still trying to understand this google + thing, is it the death of comments? I miss getting notified if someone leaves a comment on my channel as I like to reply as you do to comments from subscribers.
Hello Jimmy, good to hear you are still having lots of successes with your vinyl flat. For your education, though, you should take a junker of an LP and fry the fool out of it to see what happens. This will give you a sense of what "orange peel" looks like, and sounds like! As for the comments, yes, I agree the "new" commenting system blows chunks. Doesn't seem consistent either--sometimes I get notifications and sometimes I don't, even after setting the "proper" settings in my google+ account. I can tell you that since the change, comments have gone down DRASTICALLY in my videos.
Not to spam your channel with comments, but with all the inconsistency, I wanted you to know that I was alerted to your reply on my You Tube page. However, I was never notified by my gmail account that you responded. (I was always notified by gmail in the past, and I could respond with my cell phone, not anymore.) I am disheartened by this change because for me I always considered the comments on my videos to be the heart and soul of the entire You Tube experience. YES! I cooked a severely warped "All the Young Dudes" that someone just gave me for 5 hours! It had more pits than a Florida orange grove! hahaha
Ah, so you have "burned some vinyl" then... very good. This pitted look is also something to look for when crate digging cause you could potentially come across some pieces that have been stored in some extreme heat. I agree with the comments.... I don't always get notification via email either so something is busted.
I still have the vinyl flat for sure. I haven't used it in a couple of years now, I think? I just haven't had a real need to do so as my record buying has slowed down to a mere trickle compared to what it used to be. :-)
Vinyl Flat is only really useable to fix dished records. Those edge warps that flip you needle into the air it WON'T FIX THOSE. There is a good reason for this. First of all the metal plates they give you aren't flat. Take the pads out and put both plates together and you'll see they aren't perfectly flat. I have written to Vinyl Flat about these problems and never got an answer. Secondly the padded material and the plates don't touch the area just inside the outer THICK edge of all LP's. So it will force the edge rim down somewhat, but if you have an edge warp like in this video there is really no pressure being applied to it. I came up with a solution that I am experiment with now, and thats to take some thick paper board and cut 2 of them out to a diameter that is INSIDE the outer rim of the LP, so that when you put the plates together, with the fabric pads against the record, and then the 2 paper circle pads, they put pressure on the area inside where there awful edge warps happen. I just checked my first attempt and left the VF in the pizza warmer pouch for about 24 hours. I really flattened the whole album much better than their method did and the edge warp is greatly diminished. More than the VF could ever do with their materials. There has to be a way to get these damn edge warps out, so I'm thinking of using a hot air blower like a hair dryer, concentrate on that one area alone and try to manually flatten that spot. I had high hopes for the VF but never use it after trying many times to fix records. With dished records you can just use a turtable weight and that makes them playable, but edge warps are an agonizing problem. The other thing is their estimates of how long to use the pouch is ridiculously way too short. I put a digital thermometer probe in there and it doesn't even get hot enough to do any thing until like 6 hours or more. Its a good idea but the engineering and quality needs vast improvement.
Very interesting idea! I'd like to hear if this works out. Yes, those very tight rim warps are a beast to try to fix for sure but I think you're onto something good there. As for your pouch taking a long time to warm up, it is possible that your pouch might not be in the best shape. I know that I had to get mine replaced because is started taking longer and longer to heat up to a good warm temp. I was told that the tiny wires that run through the pouch are pretty fragile and can break. Please do contact the Vinyl Pouch folks again and talk with them about it. Let me know how this project works out.
I have a couple of records that need to be flattened. One is a dish warp and the other one is a double LP that has both discs with wavy warps. Can these be fixed?
Generally dish warps are easy to take care of. The "wavy warps" can be a problem if the waves are really "tight" like more of a wobble instead of a gentle wave -- if that makes any sense. ;-)
lots of variables. the key is to be patient and do what you are doing... (though I'd recommend 15 minute increments... unless you are testing on a junk record.)
Yeah, that was one hell of a piece of vinyl. You gotta remember, there are practically as many different vinyl compositions as you can dream up. And sometimes the mix is such that the "melting point" is pretty high, just depends on what they've mixed in with the vinyl, etc. I've only had one take that long... and it was the only 180 gram LP that I've done.
Right, some of the warping is so slight that playing is still very possible and not at all a problem. And in this case I don't mess with trying to flatten the vinyl. Other cases, though, the warps are so exaggerated that the stylus can bounce clean out of the groove.
I found a VG+ copy of "Get Yer Ya's Ya's Out", although clean, it was warped. Watching your videos, I am able now to discern the different types of warping. This one had 3 "waves", and I knew right off the bat the V.F. was up for the job. After watching this video, I threw caution to the wind and gave it 3 hours (within your "sweetspot") right out of the gate. I let it cool for an hour and the record is as FLAT as a pancake. The droning that went on in the middle of the record is gone!
Hi Blake.
I have about 20 or so records that have that little "blip" kind of warp and have been considering the V. Flat.
I remember you mentioning before those are the hardest ones to get rid of so I have not gotten the V. Flat yet.
That Lester B. looks great.
Good to see you Blake.
Outstanding result on that second LP. Very nice result! Seems like very wise advice with the Blue Note LP--those pinch warps do seem to be the toughest ones to fix.
Blake, thank you very much for the instructions. Never thought of lining the warp with the nubs. Tried it on both sides over the last couple of days, it looks like it went down a little bit, but still causing a skip. Gonna keep working on this one! :) Thanks again for the help! - Bret
Very nice, Blake. Just did a tile method on a thrift LP and made it out of round, which made it unplayable - the tile method only works on certain types of warps, which is another reason why anybody in the thousands of records should have a vinyl flat, even if it can't save them all.
gonna need to buy a second copy of Dippin by Hank Mobley. The copy you have looks like a terrible factory defect and the only way to fix that is buying a copy without the defect
You're the man Blake!
Hey Blake, congrats on that Lester Bowie flattening. I have the Vinyl Flat - and have been really successful with most sessions. The ones that I have the hardest time getting flat, are the ones with warping around the outer edge - it's not a thumbed one like you showed in the beginning. Even after several sessions, that outer warping still doesn't flatten - frustrating since after the first track the rest of the LP plays fine. Have you had any luck with such a warp?
The Bowie record came out nice!
Hello Blake-ster,
You are saying that even the real expensive vinyl flat's would not fix this Blue Note record for example? I am really confused at what you meant by the orange peals? Are you saying that the ripple in the record is the size of an orange?
Call me stupid but I am definitely green when it comes to flattening machines. Hey, that rhymes.
Thanks for the update Blake. I look forward to the Lester Bowie example. ~
Rob/Boston
Update to post below. There's no way to fix these quick edge warps, they throw your your tone arm up in the air. My improved flattening addition to the Vinyl FLast worked extremely well, but NOT with the edge warp. What happens with these if you flatten them, is they do get flatter but the grooves turn into a quick turning tight curves. So your needle hits it and it throws the tone arm back and forth real fast and you just get a repeating loop. If there was some way to slow down the turntable to half speed you could digitize the album and then speed back up to normal speed. Anyway, I was hoping to save this Zeppelin album and in a way I did, because I can play all but the two outer tracks front and back. And so it goes......
Ah, right! With a pinch like that those grooves are surely kinked out of shape... so even if you do get it "flat," the grooves are likely still trashed. Very good point. Oh well, we can't save them all I suppose. :-)
Vinyl Flat taught me one important thing- Don't buy warped records! 99% of them can't be saved. I think with 45's it might be a different story, but I don't collect singles. $100 to learn this hard lesson, was tough.
great video blake! thanx!
I have a nice copy of Weather Report's "Heavy Weather" that was giving my cartridge a nice little ride. I gave this Columbia release 3 hours and saw an 85% improvement. I guess it could have handled 3:15, but I left well enough alone. I have not destroyed any records....yet! Haha. Having fun with my vinyl flattener. Still trying to understand this google + thing, is it the death of comments? I miss getting notified if someone leaves a comment on my channel as I like to reply as you do to comments from subscribers.
Hello Jimmy, good to hear you are still having lots of successes with your vinyl flat. For your education, though, you should take a junker of an LP and fry the fool out of it to see what happens. This will give you a sense of what "orange peel" looks like, and sounds like!
As for the comments, yes, I agree the "new" commenting system blows chunks. Doesn't seem consistent either--sometimes I get notifications and sometimes I don't, even after setting the "proper" settings in my google+ account. I can tell you that since the change, comments have gone down DRASTICALLY in my videos.
Not to spam your channel with comments, but with all the inconsistency, I wanted you to know that I was alerted to your reply on my You Tube page. However, I was never notified by my gmail account that you responded. (I was always notified by gmail in the past, and I could respond with my cell phone, not anymore.) I am disheartened by this change because for me I always considered the comments on my videos to be the heart and soul of the entire You Tube experience.
YES! I cooked a severely warped "All the Young Dudes" that someone just gave me for 5 hours! It had more pits than a Florida orange grove! hahaha
Ah, so you have "burned some vinyl" then... very good. This pitted look is also something to look for when crate digging cause you could potentially come across some pieces that have been stored in some extreme heat.
I agree with the comments.... I don't always get notification via email either so something is busted.
What is the vinyl flat and where can i get one?
Thank you
exellent video
Rob Hernandez gooogle
Are you still using the vinyl flat? Thought about doing another update video?
I still have the vinyl flat for sure. I haven't used it in a couple of years now, I think? I just haven't had a real need to do so as my record buying has slowed down to a mere trickle compared to what it used to be. :-)
@@wertsdb71 come back to the vinyl-verse! Love these videos you made. Watched each of them a couple times
@@slistone1940 thanks for the kind words. unlikely I'll be making any vinyl-related videos any time soon. :-)
Vinyl Flat is only really useable to fix dished records. Those edge warps that flip you needle into the air it WON'T FIX THOSE. There is a good reason for this. First of all the metal plates they give you aren't flat. Take the pads out and put both plates together and you'll see they aren't perfectly flat. I have written to Vinyl Flat about these problems and never got an answer. Secondly the padded material and the plates don't touch the area just inside the outer THICK edge of all LP's. So it will force the edge rim down somewhat, but if you have an edge warp like in this video there is really no pressure being applied to it. I came up with a solution that I am experiment with now, and thats to take some thick paper board and cut 2 of them out to a diameter that is INSIDE the outer rim of the LP, so that when you put the plates together, with the fabric pads against the record, and then the 2 paper circle pads, they put pressure on the area inside where there awful edge warps happen. I just checked my first attempt and left the VF in the pizza warmer pouch for about 24 hours. I really flattened the whole album much better than their method did and the edge warp is greatly diminished. More than the VF could ever do with their materials. There has to be a way to get these damn edge warps out, so I'm thinking of using a hot air blower like a hair dryer, concentrate on that one area alone and try to manually flatten that spot. I had high hopes for the VF but never use it after trying many times to fix records. With dished records you can just use a turtable weight and that makes them playable, but edge warps are an agonizing problem. The other thing is their estimates of how long to use the pouch is ridiculously way too short. I put a digital thermometer probe in there and it doesn't even get hot enough to do any thing until like 6 hours or more. Its a good idea but the engineering and quality needs vast improvement.
Very interesting idea! I'd like to hear if this works out. Yes, those very tight rim warps are a beast to try to fix for sure but I think you're onto something good there. As for your pouch taking a long time to warm up, it is possible that your pouch might not be in the best shape. I know that I had to get mine replaced because is started taking longer and longer to heat up to a good warm temp. I was told that the tiny wires that run through the pouch are pretty fragile and can break. Please do contact the Vinyl Pouch folks again and talk with them about it.
Let me know how this project works out.
I have a couple of records that need to be flattened. One is a dish warp and the other one is a double LP that has both discs with wavy warps. Can these be fixed?
Generally dish warps are easy to take care of. The "wavy warps" can be a problem if the waves are really "tight" like more of a wobble instead of a gentle wave -- if that makes any sense. ;-)
Just got mine with the Groovy pouch. First try at 2 hours did nothing. Doing second go now at 2:30
lots of variables. the key is to be patient and do what you are doing... (though I'd recommend 15 minute increments... unless you are testing on a junk record.)
It just finished the 2.30 cycle and is cooling. It's a 180G reissue so if it needs more I'll go for 2.45 next as you suggested.
right, be prepared to do this quite a few times on a 180gram piece. I've gone as long as 6 hours on something like that!
So multiple times, increasing until you had a single 6 hours heating time? That's a LOT of hours in the pouch!
Yeah, that was one hell of a piece of vinyl. You gotta remember, there are practically as many different vinyl compositions as you can dream up. And sometimes the mix is such that the "melting point" is pretty high, just depends on what they've mixed in with the vinyl, etc. I've only had one take that long... and it was the only 180 gram LP that I've done.
Test comment, Blake. 4:20pm 11/8/13
u look like Mark-Paul Gosselaar
I don't trust it. If the record is still playable when it is warped, I don't think I will bother about it.
Right, some of the warping is so slight that playing is still very possible and not at all a problem. And in this case I don't mess with trying to flatten the vinyl. Other cases, though, the warps are so exaggerated that the stylus can bounce clean out of the groove.