[antimax]

Hey everyone. Got my Fog double LP... amazing! Except one thing, upon the first playing, some of the sides sound surprisingly "scratchy". On side 3, I am getting hissing and some popping sounds, especially noticeable during the quiet parts, and especially during the end of that side. Flip over the record, and the sounds are much less apparent on side 4.

I know it's vinyl, analog, etc, but on a brand-new high quality record like this...? It should sound brand-new. Admittedly, my record player is not the best by far, but many of my other records don't do this. I put on Death Waltz's "Yellow" release right after the fog, and I don't get these sounds.

Has ANYONE ELSE run into this on any death waltz releases? I love what they do, but the sound quality/pressing should be the highest priority here, right? Is my turntable just retarded?

[afriendofken]

Sides C/D of The Fog (haze) were initially quite noisy, but I've listened to them a few times now and it has mostly disappeared. I'm guessing whatever it was has been shifted by the stylus/record brush. I've not run in to it with any of the other DW releases.

[roboter23]

Is it coloured vinyl?
I had similar sounds on the OST of 'Donnie Darko' (blue vinyl) by death waltz.
A friend of mine told me it's usual for coloured vinyl, because it's made of leavings. I don't know if this is true, but I think cloured vinyl generally has worse quality than black vinyl.
For me the sound quality should be the highest priority, too.
It's nice, but who cares that the lp is coloured?

[deathwaltz]

@antimax

Coloured vinyl is made with coloured pellets added to clear.
Sometimes with the Haze effect it can be quite dusty out of the sleeve, a simple clean should help a lot, if you have a cheaper stereo you can run into problems due to weight issues. Can you adjust the weight of your needle arm ?
If not throw a penny on it and play it through. If problems persist after a few plays drop me a note...

[Jeff]

I could hear grainy sounds, like debris, when I took mine out of the sleeve. Cleaned it, dusted, all that, before I played it and it was fine. No more sound sliding it in and out of the sleeve also.

[antimax]

Thanks for the replies everyone, I'll try this stuff out.

[guyremix]

I have the same problem with my copy too (splatter vinyl), also my outer bag was ripped when I received it so am pretty gutted

[dumaisaudio]

I got a copy of both Haze and Splatter. I always put my records through the Spin Clean Record Washer before playing. I did notice that on both records, Side A seems good, but the other three sides have some noticeable surface noise. It's far from being a big issue, I think it's just more apparent because it's such a quiet score. I figured since it was on both pressings that it was possibly from the master plate? It will be interesting to hear the Gold version to see if it's the same.

A note on the color vinyl thing. I know Spencer has chimed in a lot on this, but I will say that of the several pressings of some DW releases I have, on some there are noticeable differences where I can tell. For instance, the Blue pressing of Donnie Darko has more noise than the recent Red repress. The Pale Blue pressing of Prince of Darkness has more noise compared to the Black version. Same with the Blood Splatter vs Black pressing of Zombie Flesh Eaters. But then there's the Orange pressing of Escape From New York that is absolutely quiet, as are the colored versions of DW09-12. I think it just depends sometimes. I'd rather collect the colored versions, but sometimes I opt for the black version if it's a release I really care about. In general though, I think that Death Waltz releases are some of the highest quality records being released today, so I'm certainly not trying to fault Spencer.