need help on theory behind table setup??? long

H

HeWhoIs

New member
here's my setup,

2 gemini pt2000 deck
pdm24s mixer
needles i'm using are stanton 500

now, from what i've read most dj's who scratch and juggle, put the weight on the arm all the way in and also reverse the weight so the off balance weight is leaning forward... well when i do this, and i do some fast baby scraching,just quick jigger scratching,back and forth, the needle will jump!!! or in back cueing quickly... beat juggling... what i think is going on is there is alot of weight pushing down on the needle and when the record changes direction it rocks the arm....

the antiskate goes from 0-7 and i have the hieght all the way up with the needle all the way forward... what i did next was used the old blank space on the record and set it up to where the antiskate was maxed at seven and setup the weight to where it balanced out, but still at this point the needle jumps on one of my decks, both setup the same, i swapped the whole head, unscrewed and swapped and the problem followed the head.. i went out and bought some stanton 500 AL II, but now i'm worse of!!!!!!! both of the needles suck or atleast i must be doing something wrong... i do have the hole in the center taped up, so it's not that, and i've been killing myself trying to figure out the problem, and now i'm fifty bucks in the hole with the new needles i bought,

basically if i setup the antiskate to 0, then setup up the weight to balance it out(balance meaning using blank record untill it stays in place) it's like not enough weight and still jumps, not when scratching but in beat juggling.. again i have one table with my old stanton 500 that works great, but the other stanton 500 and my new needles AL II don't work the same even with the same setup....

any help is appreciated....
 
Could it be that the tone arm is loose in it's gimble? Many a time when I use other peoples and club setups I find this problem to be the case, and it's effects are disasterous in scratching. To check if the tone arm gimble is loose, take hold of the tone arm by the headshell and give it a tug forward and left and right. If you feel the the tonearm move slightly in it's balance or give a click it is improperly set.

To correct this fault, try and guage by feel and sight by tugging the tonearm in which axis the looseness is. If the tonearm moves left and right in the balance tighten up the screws on the gimble's sides. If the arm is moves forwards/backwards while it's pulled tighten up the screw on the top of the gimble. Be careful when tightening up these screws as too much pressure will cause the tonearm to skip right across the surface of the record. A good way to tell it is set correctly is to place the tonearm in it's rest once you've tightened up the screws. If it jumps out of the rest, the screws are too tight.

Another cause could be the tonearm height, as this needs to be near the highest setting, I use setting of 6 on my Technics, but thats using M447 carts, and I've found Stantons work best at around 5.5 to 6 depending on the thickness of your slipmats.

Also check that the tone arm unit is tight at it's base and the lock is firmly engaged.

Have you got any extra weight on the headshells eg pennies? If so take these off as they dont help and the excessive weight destroys your vinyl!!!

Oh yeah, with antiskate it's best left at zero (this is on technics, as for Gemini 2000's I'm not sure), try a few different settings.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
it's not the arm, because like i said, when i swapped the whole tip, head, just unscrewed it out of one arm and into the other, the problem followed, so it has something to do with the whole head. that's when i decided to go out and buy some stanton AL II, but these were both worse off, i could not get these to even operate like what the regular 500 had!! just so i'm clear when i swapped the heads i mean, the whole end tip, from unscrewing the whole tip and swapping it to the other deck...

when i bought the new needles, all i replaced was the very very tip, just the part that you pull out and slide the other one back in, with just the long tip on the back of it that slides in... hope i'm clear... i'm thinking maybe i have to replace the whole tip part, but i didn't know if anybody else had bumped into this problem. thankzz for any help
 
I have my table set up as follows:

shure m-44g cartridges

anti-skate = 0
height = 1.5
weight = 1.5 for mixing, 2.5 for skratching - no headshell weight, no tonearm weight.

Works great for me - I don't get much skippage and my records don't get cue burn.
 
thankzz alot!!! that made a big difference i just went out and bought some AL II for nothing, works great with my old stanton 500.... thankzz again, back to work :-)
 
I gor almost same setup as you :-) except I use the SK-2f from Stanton.

This works the best for me:

Height Tone-arm= 2
Anti-skate= 0

No need to angle the carts.

U know how to calibrate your tone-arm? Well, if you have done that put the Blance Weight at 2,5 for scratching and add about 1 gram extra for juggling.

Also, you should have gotten extra headshell weights with your pt2000, use the 2,5 grams on your needles.

This should do it.
 
thankzz for the info... no i do not know how to calibrate my tone arms!! can you explain???? i'll try that setup but how i have it now is good for the most part.... i do have the weights but i haven't used them.... thankzz again for your help
 
Check how to calibrate your tone-arm over here:

http://www.stantonmagnetics.com/new_site/stanton/djworkshop/djworkshop_settings.htm

Under #2 is says how to do it When you've done that (your tone-arm is 'floating' by now) turn your styluspressure ring dial to 2,5 (giving 2,5 grams of pressure). And put the extra weight that you got with your TT on the headshell (the 2,5 grams).

Like I said, put height on 2 and voila, you got yourself a phat setup!
But remember, for juggling you might like to 'dial' an extra gram of pressure or so to make your needle less likely to skip during heavy backspins.

By the way, if the calibrating sounds vague (it did to me at first) let me know, I'll try to explain myself.

Hope this sorts it out.
 
I am having this exact same problem too!

I have calibrated and evertything, which has made it a lot better, but i only have 1 5g weight, as i bought my tt's (pt2000's) second hand

Is there any way around this or will i have to find some 2.5 gram weights somewhere - any ideas where to look?

any response would be appreciated

the funkmaster

oh yeah, i know this topic is quite old, but it seemed appropriate to reply to!
 
Dude, this post is old yeh, in the meanwhile I learned that it is better for your needles to not have any weight close to it (that would be NOT on the headshell) if you don't need it.

With the PT-2000 this should be nor problem coz after calibrating you can 'dial' 5 grams of needlepessure easily (you can go up to 7 I think :-) on the tone-arm.

I got this set-up now, 5 grams coming from the Balance Weight and the rest is the same as b4 (in above post). Works like a charm!

Good luck (throw away the 5 gram thing :cool: )

www.dutchturntablism.com
 
Oh yeh, I don't need to dial an extra gram of pressure anmore during juggling either... so just always 5 grams
 
Last edited by a moderator:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top