Record playing too fast

[Refugee]

Originally Posted by Lloyd 1985

Could it be possible that the record has shrunk slightly?

That would in an extreme case affect the pickup landing on an auto changer but surely it would not change the number of rotations that would be required to play the recording.

[Martin Bush]

re the strobe disc - I will do that at some point. I've used one in the past and know how to use them. However I do listen to a lot of music and have an ear for this sort of thing (I think!) and no other discs seem to suffer from being what Simon Cowell might call "being a pitchy".

Re the setup of the deck I can report that it came from a reputable forum member (aren't we all!) and I did some work setting it up on arrival for the location in which it sits (including with a tracking scale and spirit level).

Of course a strobe disc may prove me wrong... but then I may end up with just one record sounding right and several hundred being off-key

[Richard_FM]

I've heard of 78s being recorded at anything from 65 to over 100 rpm, due to the inaccuracies of old recording equipment.

My Dad has a 1970s LP with Space's Magic Fly one, once I accidentally played it at 45rpm & didn't realise until the next track with vocals on started playing.

[dseymo1]

If it does turn out to be fast, what's the betting that it's a rare, collectable pressing, and worth a fortune?

[barretter]

Originally Posted by Edward Huggins

45's have much coarser grooves than LPs and even very worn ones do not suffer from as much groove wall collapse.

No they don't. The mono microgroove is about twice as wide as the stereo microgroove (which varies with the signal) but in both cases there is no difference between 33 and 45rpm microgrooves.

[barretter]

Thriller was recorded analogue to tape. Could it be that this particular LP is from a batch made from a copy of the master tape produced on a machine that was running slow and then engraved on a recording lathe whose tape deck was running at the correct speed? This did happen to half of Miles Davis' Kind of blue. It was recorded in two sessions and at one of them the tape machine was running slow. The tapes for both sessions were replayed through a machine running at the correct speed for the disc mastering, so half the tracks were a bit sharp. Nobody noticed for about 40 years.

[Richard_FM]

Billy Joel's debut album was messed up at the mastering stage by a tape being played at the wrong speed, leaving the finished disc sounding like he was a chipmunk!

Eventually it was reissued at the right speed.

[barrymagrec]

Some early european tape machines in the late forties / early fifties ran at 77cm/s which is close to but not the same as the later standard speed of 30 ips corresponding to 76.2cm/s. A tape recorded on an older machine but replayed on a standard machine would therefore run just under 1% slow.

This is obviously not the problem in this case but could affect a number of later re-masterings although few people would notice the error.

[Stylo N M]

It's funny that this subject should crop up, it always seemed to me as if, when we got to the late 1980's a lot of the 45's sounded slow when playing at exactly 45rpm. A classic example of this was a song entitled "I just died in your arms" by a group called the "Cutting crew" did anyone else notice this or is it just me?

Paul.

[Herald1360]

Originally Posted by Station X

Shouldn't the first thing to do be to print out a strobe disc and check whether the turntable is running at the correct speed?

That won't help if the speed problem is mains frequency related.

[Station X]

If it's mains frequency related nothing will help short of using a turntable which doesn't rely on the mains for speed control.

https://extranet.nationalgrid.com/Re...requency60Mins

[Julesomega]

Originally Posted by Stylo N M

It's funny that this subject should crop up, it always seemed to me as if, when we got to the late 1980's a lot of the 45's sounded slow when playing at exactly 45rpm. A classic example of this was a song entitled "I just died in your arms" by a group called the "Cutting crew" did anyone else notice this or is it just me?

The US 45 shows a playing time of 4:23 on the label, though I don't know if that matches reality.

[lazythread]

You haven't said what your turntable is. Simply - if it has an induction motor - it's going to be affected more by mains voltage, if it's a synchronous motor then the mains frequency will determine the speed. All my daily turntables have induction motors, and as the mains here often hits 253 volts when it is supposed to be 230, they run faster than they should. Those with synchronous motors are usually spot on. A strobe disc is a must - there are plenty you can download and print off yourself.

There are rogue pressings - and as Station X has said already - check your turntable. Do let us know the result.

[electrogram]

When you get a strobe disc get one you can put on top!of a record while it is playing about the size of the record label, some available are turntable size so you can't do this. With a record playing the turntable will run slower than when the stylus isn't in the groove if your motor isn't synchronous. the higher the playing weight the more the slowing effect

[John10b]

EU regulations for Mains supply in UK is 230vac +10% - 6%.
So with this variation I don’t know how the equates to turntable speed.
Cheers
John

[Nickthedentist]

I think with the type of motor fitted to Martin's Sonab, the speed is locked to the mains' frequency, but I could be wrong.

Electrogram's point about checking the speed under load is a good one. Even if the motor is synchronous, there can be some belt slippage etc.

Nick.

[Stylo N M]

Originally Posted by Julesomega

The US 45 shows a playing time of 4:23 on the label, though I don't know if that matches reality.

Thanks Julian, I'm not sure where the record actually is at the moment, as all my records are still in boxes from when I moved, I'll try and look it out at some point.

Thank you anyway for the information.

Paul.