Help with T560 vinyl recorder calibration

[asqus]

Hi all,

I just received my T560 from Souri, set it all up and begun to experiment with cutting. However, I've run into some newbie problems which I'm hoping someone can advise me on.

1) First, I'm not 100% sure how the weighting calibration is supposed to work. I know there's a cylindrical weight at the back that you adjust until the cutting head (in down position on a record) begins to lift up at around 45g. Then you adjust the little fluid filled cylinder at the front until the lifting weight is around 15g (new needle) to 20g (old needle). Is this it? Do I need to move the cutting head up or down at all?

2) Based on an assumption that this is the correct approach to calibration, I've used the 0db record supplied by Souri to adjust the PFL on my mixer until I'm getting 0db in my level meter. As far as I can recall, this is the correct way to set levels, right? If so, then so far, so good...

3) However, when I try to cut a record, there are issues. The volume is very low, even thought the levels look fine when I check the source signal (line 1 on the mixer). If I try increase the source volume, the playback needle starts jumping or getting stuck, and even when it doesn't jump it makes a very harsh, loud scraping sound that's much much louder than the rest of the recorded signal. This is especially with bass.

Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? Is there too little weight? Too much? The grooves look almost completely straight under the microscope, as though I'm recording silence. Have I damaged my needle? It's looking okay under the microscope...

Sorry for all the noob questions. Hope someone can help!

[The Shank]

There is a guy able to answer to all your technical question, he's a specialist

His website is : http://www.vinylrecorder.com

[asqus]

Yeah yeah. Can you blame me for checking elsewhere before emailing Souri and waiting a month to possibly get a three word answer?

[The Shank]

Absolutely no idea... but...

Cut cut cut!

[JP_]

Which value at pitch do you use?

Setup should be very well documented in the papers you received with the lathe.
Souri is right: the more you cut the more things getting clear. So cutcutcut!

The forum really gets down I think. Its mostly about trying to promote the own business... BTW: I offer hi end mastering and dubplate cutting. Book Me Now!

[ennayess]

With the cutter head lifted, can you hear the program audio from the cutter head drivers?



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[asqus]

Thanks guys. To answer your questions:

ennayess: I can hear the source signal through the cutter head drivers when the head is lifted, yes. Volume-wise I'd say it's at a cellphone speaker kind of level?

JP_: Do you mean the turntable pitch adjustment? That's set to 0 and I'm cutting at 45. I am trying to cut cut cut, but I've hit a serious stumbling block and I really don't know how to proceed.

[JP_]

I mean groove distance.

[asqus]

Ah. I'm using decent groove distance - about 80 at the moment and I can see that the grooves are not overlapping.

[JP_]

Then I would assume any kind of mechanical problem or some issues with the levels you are feeding your lathe or the measurement you are doing.
What is different to the setup you have used for training? May you should try to rewire everything?

[asqus]

Thanks JP_. Everything is identical to the training setup. I think the levels are fine because the cutterhead speakers sound the same as they did during training. Any idea of how loud they should sound?

Also, I've noticed that if I adjust the weight to about 25g things get a little louder and clearer. That doesn't seem right though - surely 25g will kill my stylus really quickly, right?

[asqus]

Okay, so I've figured out that I mounted the cutterhead a little low. I moved it up a centimetre or so and the volume is much better. However, the skipping (I can actually see the broken grooves) is still happening and the left channel sounds much softer than the right. Any ideas?

[SueDenim]

Sounds to me as though your cutting stylus is damaged.
What does the groove look and sound like if you just cut an unmodulated groove (i.e. no audio)?

[asqus]

Thanks SueDenim. Fortunately it wasn't a damaged stylus...turns out a fuse was blown leading to the cutterhead and I was only cutting one channel!

[2bitcomputer]

Myshank likes to joke around but he has an excellent setup procedure for the t560 on his website:
http://www.myshank.com/en/content/6-faq
It's pretty important that you get the head set up at the right height and the right position relative to record surface - this might require you to move the support arms so the cutting stylus is lined up directly with the center of the record - when I got mine is was totally wrong, everything had moved during shipping.
You will probably need to go through the whole alignment calibration routine several times before it is really right because everything effects everything else.
Take it slow at first, it will start to make sense as you go along...

Good luck!

[asqus]

Thanks 2bit. I've been doing exactly that over the past few days and it's starting to sound good