Needle Skip?!?!

[Matty]

My needles are skipping. Weight is at 3 grams, and the needles are new. Anything else I can adjust??

Thanks!
-Matty

[Matty]

oh yea, hit me up on Captain DJ Matty on AIM, or here.

[djowns]

What needles? How old? What record?

[Katapult]

Depends on the deks you got. On good deks you can also adjust the height of the arm and the anti-skate. That much aside, your choice of needles can make a huge difference.

Kat

[tr0llaccount]

make sure your tables are level.

[Sophistik]

You can play with your tone arm height, and your antiskate. :)

[adamjenkins80]

so many people forget these parts, so i'll just scream it out and maybe you forgot it to. but at least it'll be a review for all ...

anti-skating only works for inward skipping and worses outware skipping due to the outward bias force it puts on the tonearm.

putting more weight on is just about the worst thing you could do.

jacking the turntable height is just about the 2nd worse thing you can do.

none of these will have a positive effect, even though they may seem like they improve your tracking, other things go to shit: like channel balance and record wear for example.

Make sure you have a true 3g weight by balancing the tonarm wth cart/stylus installed ... zeroing the weight gauge and rotating it to 3g/

If you're using a headshell/cart combo (not integrated like ortofon, white labels or disc-schredders) did you use your stylus gauge that came with your turntable? that little white plastic thing everyone throws away ... it's used to get the proper distance between the end of the tonearm and the stylus -- very precise system.

also you could just have shitty carts. :)

BOL

Jenkins

[adamjenkins80]

your tonearms should always be parallel to the platter when the needle is in the groove.

parallel .. paralell ... parallell ... i don't care, i say it wierd anyways :)

Jenkins

[Andy J]

Okay so he's got STR8's and that makes things a little weird. Does the straight arm call for angling the cart in the headshell?

And my real question... Does this make it impossible to use integrated carts (Ortofons, Trackmasters, etc) on straight arm tables?

Andy J

[babbij]

I haven't pricisly adjusted all of these suggestions, but I have pretty much tried them. My brand new stylus still skip like crazy, one of which is so bad I can't even use it. Now, I am a hip hop dj so I am a lot more rough on equipment/records anyway. So, hip hip djs, how the hell can I make it stop? I've got the ortofon blue dj cartrige & stylus. Its really starting to piss me off.

Paradox

[Andy J]

Did you really zero out the weight? To start you roll the weight back on the arm until the arm sits perfectly balanced and neutral. Then you rotate just the number ring until zero is lined up on the mark. Now you roll the weight in until you get to three grams.

Scratching might be fast but it still requires a very contraoled finesse. Most of the forward and backward motion comes from your fingers, not from moving your forearm which is too bulky to quickly pull the record. You should lightly set your fingers on the record and think of moving you fingers in a thin elliptical motion.

A good practice is to not use the fader at all and move the record forward and back and forward and back on the 1/2 beat, then move it up to 1/4's, then to 1/8's, etc. etc.

When you get this motion down pretty well, you can cut the fader in only on the forwards. Then you can practice cuting the forward and the back in for a quick second.

Good luck.

[Recess]

Are you talking about one turntable or both? What kind of table? Needles will sometimes skip regardless of the adjustments if the tone arm bearings are fucked up. Just a thought.

[brainCandy909]

Originally posted by Andy J
Okay so he's got STR8's and that makes things a little weird. Does the straight arm call for angling the cart in the headshell?

And my real question... Does this make it impossible to use integrated carts (Ortofons, Trackmasters, etc) on straight arm tables?

Andy J

no and no. if you tilt your needels with a str8 tone arm you will fuck up uour records. try and get them as strate as posible.. and you can still use "intagrated" carts with the strate tone arm, i wouldnt recamend it though...

[corbettfields]

Originally posted by brainCandy909


no and no. if you tilt your needels with a str8 tone arm you will fuck up uour records. try and get them as strate as posible.. and you can still use "intagrated" carts with the strate tone arm, i wouldnt recamend it though...

turn the booth KNOB down ;)

[caucasianwaste]

I hav tables with straight arms and I've been using integrated carts. for a long while with no problems at all. no record burn...notta skip.

[Weazus]

You don't have your speakers on the same platform as your tables, do you...?

Please say no... please....

;)

[djowns]

He hasn't answered oh well.

If it's stanton than tht expalins it. I've used stantons on occasion voer the past month and I now remember why stanton completely sucks at making gear.

[Weazus]

I just know this about my str8's... Big speakers on your tables platform is bad JuJu...

peace

[Bots]

be careful about the anti-skate though... it'll wear your records out more than without having it on.

[Sophistik]

If they're brand new don't forget to let em sit mounted on the tone arm, resting on a record overnight.

Don't worry about angling them in or out. I don't think it would make a diff with an eliptical stylus.

You could fuck with your antiskate like I said. There's two of em. I posted something on turntable calibration and true-antiskate here somewhere.

[thomasedison]

Sell your turntables..If it skips, it means your wack.. Give up NOW!