The Smiley Smile Message Board

Any notice their box set vinyl being particularly noisy or warped? mine also starts skipping round the middle of side 1. The 7"s are fine.

One thing to add here is that my vinyl player is just a year old but cost me just 60 euro and I have noticed that sometimes it has some trouble playing heavy records but plays older thin vinyl perfectly. Maybe some vinyl experts might know the answer?

Anyone just wanted to check whether I should send this back. How heavy is this vinyl anyway? 200g?

Try the records out on a better turntable that has a good cartridge and stylus, to see if the records track properly.

My copy has a few ticks at the start of side one, and is not warped, but pressed slightly off-center on the first LP.  This can cause pitch warble if it's really bad but it's very slight and not noticeable on my copy.  Also been listening to son-of-albion's vinyl rip of the set on iPod, it still sounds better than the CD.

The skip is probably a piece of crud stuck in the groove.  Look at it closely. If it's a big piece of schnot you can dig it off gently with a fingernail.  Or you should be able to wipe it off with (at worst) a damp paper towel (taking care, the towel can leave residue too).  There are ways to clean LP's that have crud in the grooves, depending on how bad it is, and record cleaning machines can be found in Best Buy-type stores.

If it's a new turntable there should be no problem playing 180g LP's.  Do you hear mistracking?  There are little jewelry brushes you can buy to clean the stylus (sometimes crud sticks to it too), always pull the brush from back to front, the way the needle hits the groove.

Amazon has gotten better at shipping vinyl since they got a black eye sometime ago when one worker tried to "fold" vinyl LPs into the shipping sleeve, resulting in much deserved bitching.  My Smile Sessions vinyl is OK and plays fine.  Not off-center.

Thanks for the replies guys. Gonna take it to a friends house who has a better player and try it there. Will also buy one of those brushes.

One other thing I noticed which I dont with the CD is that sometimes the volume levels gets really high and I have to reach to turn it down. Strange that, maybe im imagining things :smokin. The 2nd part of wind chimes with the wordless vocals comes on real strong! 

Since you said you only have trouble playing heavy records, that makes me think the tracking weight could be off on your table.  Do you know how to adjust it?  My records don't have any warps and play very quietly.

Depending on the turntable, you'll likely be able to go online and pull up the original manual which will give you precise settings for your tracking weights.