[bluepilot]

Homeopathic record washing.

Those of you who like to listen to old shellac records will know that they are often noisy and crackly. A good wash before playing them can improve the sound considerably. However solvents which should ideally be used to remove grease, sticky finger marks etc. as with vinyl records don’t work with shellac as they dissolve the records. I wondered whether it would be possible to improve the washing by using the solvents on a homeopathic basis.

As an experiment I took an old shellac record and left it overnight in a bowl of meths. The next morning there was a load of black gunge in the bottom of the bowl. The meths itself had gone brown as a result of the shellac contained in the record and I assumed that the essence of the music was contained in the meths. The next stage was to transform the essence of music into a homeopathic solution which would not harm the records. I took 1cc of the meths and diluted it with a liter of distilled water. Then I took 1cc of the resulting solution and diluted it with another liter of distilled water and so on. I continued until I had a so-called 12C dilution. The next time I wanted to wash some shellac records I added a few drops of the homeopathic fluid to the washing solution. The results were amazing. I have never before heard a record improved so much by washing.

I experimented a bit and found that the best results are achieved by dissolving a record of the same genre as the records to be washed. Dance music is improved best by dissolving something like a Jack Hylton or an Adolf Steimel record. Classical music is improved best by something like Beethoven or Mozart.

It would be useful to have such a fluid for vinyl records as well. However vinyl doesn’t dissolve in alchohol. I wondered whether my homeopathic shellac solution would also work on vinyl records. To a certain extent the results were promising. However the problem is that there are for example no Jethro Tull records on shellac. The homeopathic solution works OK on classical music. However when I tried to wash a Sex Pistols LP all I got was a load of noise. Even so, if you recognise the limits of the fluid it can produce amazing results.

If anyone is interested I can provide 5ml bottles of washing fluid for normal dance or classical music for £50 each. I also have a limited amount of Elvis fluid for £250 per bottle.