-
I got one of those anti-static (carbon fibre) brushes as that's what my long-time record collector mate uses, also saw these in all the record shops so thought this must be good.
It's indeed good to carefully brush loose dust away right before playing the record I find.
Now I realize newly bought, never played records can have shit on them from the manufacturing process, and read a lot of people think you should clean / wash new records before you play them.
I have been trying the distilled water plus alcohol plus a drop of rinsing agent and microfiber cloth approach, and while a bit tedious it does work. Records play nicely, and I put them in their poly-lined sleeves afterwards with a content expression on my face.The static (and thus the dust) does return though.
I think it comes from the record player itself, the dry air, invisible cats, I don't know.
Maybe a better mat could improve things I tought.
Read up on the subject and now I'm super confused, frankly, there doesn't seem to be a one-fits-all solution to this.
salad-
The dust does come back but I usually wash with distilled water every few plays. The first wash is quite important for a lot of records though.
Bear in mind that paper dust can come from the labels and centre hole as well as all the other places. All my sleeves are covered, either sealed poly sleeves or open PVC depending on how much the record gets played. I still get dust on records though.
-
We all own carbon fibre brushes! good technique allegedly is to hover over the record and then move towards the label and touch the spindle. I use mine to clean the mat these days.
One thing I do use often is stylus cleaner, stylus scale and a home printed alignment disk. Also aim to get a test record to help set the arm/stylus up.
Airhead
Washing the record with de-ionised water (or in fact any water) works to reduce static. I use 3mm cork + 3mm rubber on one deck but having washed records reduces static to nearly nothing anyway. The water should be demineralised as well of course. I get mine from the window cleaner but pet shops sell it for fish tanks.