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Guy at the Columbus record swap told me my cuts were too quiet, so I stopped cranking the heat on my blanks
I've been cutting records on a little Presto setup in my garage for about a year and a half and I always figured hotter blanks meant deeper grooves. A dude at the Columbus record swap in February listened to one of my test cuts on his headphones, handed them back, and just said 'you're cooking the highs right out of it.' He was right. I was running my blanks at like 140 degrees on a hot plate before cutting, thinking I was doing myself a favor, and it was actually making the chip come off stringy instead of curling nice. I dropped it down to around 100 to 110 degrees, let the blank sit for a minute, and the surface noise fell off a ton. The grooves look shallower to my eye but they play louder and the cymbals don't smear anymore. I also stopped pressing down so hard on the leadscrew because he told me that was part of why my inner grooves were getting crunchy. If you're cutting at home and your stuff sounds dull, try backing off the temp before you blame your stylus. What temp are you all running on your blanks?
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