Dear BISA members
I have had a request to forward the following message from Colin Gately,
chief digitiser with the Tobar an Dualchais project. We would like to
digitise discs of material collected in the late 1940s/ early 50s. We
have not attempted playing these discs as yet and would be grateful for
feedback/ advice on the following proposal.
Thanks, Cathlin
***************
There are around 200 nitrocellulose discs.
They appear to be in very good condition with no sign (to the eye) of
cracking, or leaching plasticiser.
Most look clean but might still benefit from cleaning.
Initially I would only clean the discs with a soft antistatic brush
prior to transfer. Where necessary, if there were still visible
marks/deposits on the discs, I would hand-clean with minimal distilled
water and Kodak Lens cleaning fluid.
Due to budget constraints we are not able to acquire a vacuum disc
cleaner, but may in the worst cases be able to outsource the cleaning.
We have 2 turntables capable of playing 78rpm:
Dual CS5000 with an Ortofon cartridge and 3 styli (2x OMB78 and 1x OMB20)
Stanton STR8-150 with Stanton D6800HP cartridge and stylus. This has
pitch control and might be useful for some of the discs. We would need
to source styli, and perhaps a new cartridge.
Subject to advice, I would propose that the discs are transferred using
a stereo needle/cartridge to produce 2 tracks from which the best mono
file can be derived. As we don’t know the width of the grooves, it
might be best to do a trial-and-error with different styli on one of the
copy discs to determine which stylus is most suitable.
I would be most grateful of any advice or suggestions you could offer to
enable us to do the transfers as painlessly, and properly as possible.
********************
--
Cathlin Macaulay
School of Scottish Studies Archives
University of Edinburgh
27 George Square
Edinburgh
EH8 9LD
Tel 0131 650 4159
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
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