I learned a tough lesson about groove spacing at a zine fair in Portland last month

I was showing off some lathe-cut 7-inches I made at this local zine fair in Portland, and this older guy who runs a small label came by my table. He picked up one of my records and pointed out that the grooves were way too tight on the last track, like maybe 25 microns apart when they should be closer to 35. He explained that the needle can't track tight grooves on cheap turntables, and sure enough, I played it on my friend's Crosley later and it skipped like crazy. Now I'm going back to adjust my cutting setup, specifically the pitch control, before I waste another batch of blanks. Any of you guys run into this problem with skipping on certain record players? What spacing do you aim for on the inner grooves?

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the_tara1mo agoMost Upvoted

Yeah, I keep inner grooves at 35-40 microns now. Fixed my skipping issue too.