long shank or short shank?

[socialroots]

Greetings to all, couple of mnths ago I finally ordered my first new styli and blanks from MYSHANK, and I gotta tell others that havent tried Stevens diamond styli or soft pvc blanks that you owe it to yourself to try out that combo , after one year of experimenting with embossing on poly with inconsistent results, I reached a much higher quality recording when I switched to cutting with MYSHANK diamond and pvc blanks, now that my first diamond is not sounding so good anymore im getting ready to order another one, just couldnt find the will to go back to embossing even tho it was alot cheaper to make records with, and I was quite happy with embossing till I tried cutting.
So my question is for anyone in the forum who has got an AUDAX H4 or H5. My audax came with a short shank sapphire, so I was using that at first, but when I ordered a Ruby styli from Apollo they recomended me to use a long shank styli, so when I ordered my diamond styli , I also got a long shank. But I want to know if the Audax heads where designed for long shank or short, I have no idea and would hate to be ordering another long shank when I really should be using a short shank, even tho I was quite happy with the results of my long shank stylis.
Any Audax head owners care to shed some light ?

Thanks to all who are constantly sharing the science and practicing the art!

Respect,
Patrick

[mischmerz]

Most shank-style cutter heads can use both. The long shank produces louder results at the expense of some losses in the upper frequency range. I have a Grampian and use long shanks because I can't get the suction under the head with a short shank stylus. Losses are not bad and one can compensate with an equalizer.

m.

[Gridlock]

Yeah short shank can suck it. So can embossing

[socialroots]

Just want to make clear that I did not intend to make it sound like embossing sounds bad vs cutting.some people emoboss with excellent results, In fact I will also continue to emboss on poly and use the excellent tungsten cones that Farmer John makes, ive also had good results with these GOODTURN stylis, and can get about 20 hrs of clean embossing before the tip starts to get a bit blunted. But not all of my music translates
As well with embossing , some music just sound way better when its cut. Both ways have their own advantage and disadvantages.
Thanks Mischemerz for the input on the long shank vs short, much appreciated!
Gridlock, sorry didnt quite get your meaning? Could you pls explain more?

[piaptk]

I've found that I HAVE to use long shank when cutting, just because my swarf tube hangs below the carriage at the rear of the lathe, and I need the extra room a long shank provides... the longer shank may kill some of the high end, though I haven't really considered it to be a serious problem.

[Gridlock]

Long shank makes louder records due to the physics of the mechanism. And if you really care about super high frequencies that much either you are the beatles (a la the end of day in the life) or some techno junky. Let the analog musicians record on analog. My basic theory for my lathe work is the music never touches a computer (says the guy on his smartphone) and i operate as close to a zero-budget as possible. Of course these two stipulations cause it to progress more slowly but the results are 10x more real and personal.

As for cutting v. Embossing... I mean for real do you gotta ask? Flip that shank homie see what happens!

[socialroots]

Gridlock, ok got it, thanks for elaborating a bit more, sorry but english isnt my native language. I feel the same about using computers to record, not that I havent used them before for music production, or occasionaly still do it just for editing audio.
Went back to 1/4inch tape 12years ago,but the last 3 yrs, due to constant maintainence headaches with my old Teac reel to reel , I pretty much record with a good mic, and good preamp to a tascam cassette recorder,no overdubs or editing, just well rehearsed takes , and I have a rule when I record that I will only do 3 takes, usually ends up that the first take will he the keeper, and in mono, then to my lathe, pretty lo fi still, but im enjoying the results both with cutting and embossing.
Maximum respect ,
Patrick

[socialroots]

Gridlock, oh as far flipping the shank, I do it with my sapphire and its capable of doing a excellent embossing....when I get the styli position sitting just right, but its quite a hassle sometimes, so I prefer the goodturn tungsten cones , but I have never tried turning my diamond styli backwards before to emboss. Should I even try it? Backwards diamond, I wonder if it would be anygood cuz it seems to be quite a different qeometry than a sapphire.

[Gridlock]

Rule of thumb with diamond or any other precious...be careful and test with metal first even if you got tons of dough to blow we dont want a styli shortage. I am not sure but i feel like they would be more prone to chipping and breaking during embossing but i am not an expert. Just a gut feeling and i mean just let that stone do its job. Those things take like 75 years to form in the earth and then some poor south affie slave gotta dig them out by hand so be respectful. And also hippies revere precious stones for their jerry garcia powers or something etc...

[tragwag]

pretty sure most stones used for styli are synthetic