I recently bought a couple of brand new Shure cartridges on ebay. I've only used them for 2 gigs and they've worked fine. Tonight however one of them died on me just like that. I'm getting no signal at all and the scope reading its giving me is a fuzzy square. I hit thru and tried playing a normal record but im getting no playback at all... Has anyone had this kind of problem or ever seen a similar scope reading?

Thanks

Have you tried licking the 4 gold pins on the back of the headshell and then screwing it back onto the tonearm? That usually does the trick for me.

Hi and thanks for the response. I just tried what you said and I'm getting a bit of a signal, but you can hardly hear it compared to the other cartridge. I wonder what the problem is... a new cartridge shouldn't be doing this.

check here for scope problem.
www.serato.com

Thanks for the link. I've already checked those. The scope reading I'm getting is a dead on square and it isn't on that list.

Can you upload a pic or screen-dump of your scope view?
Did licking the terminals of the headshell help a little at least?

Also, take the heashell off and have a look of at the gold points in the tonearm its self, sometime gunk can accumulate in there too. Clean it with a one of thse cotton buds on a stick (the ones you use to clean your ears with, forget what they are called) and some water. I know Caig also have a pen/spray for deoxidising and improving connections for thegold connections. I still have try it myslef though and that's also on the proviso that is a headshell/tonearm connection issue.

Have you swapped cartridges to see if the problem follows the cartridge?

yeah tried that too... not working

if your sure its that particular cartridge, remove the stylius first, then gently pull the four color- coded wires out the back of the cartridge w/ small pliers. sometimes a little corrosion builds up on the connections. pulling em off an putting them back on usually scrapes away any corrosion or oxidation that will affect your signal & solves the problem.

dont ever lick them. you get them same result from quickly rubbing the contacts back n forth a few times on your jeans. licking creates corrosion especially inside the tone-arm of your turntable(which you should also clean just to be sure).

no licking!

Thanks brett. I heard from someone else that licking isn't a good idea, but in desperation thought I'd try it anyway. I also thought about trying to remove the wires but preferred to send it back to seller untouched (but licked!) Its in the post now and the seller agreed to send me a new one. Hopefully they'll find out what it is.

Don't ever lick the terminals. Ever!

Delete Scratch live and reinstall again, and problem fixed!!!!!!!!

this happen to me friday, suppose to dj a club, didnt work, Went home work on my sl box no problem, plug to my friends 57 no signal. delete the Scrathc live program and reisntalled, it work right away. For now on, Im have the latest SL program in a folder on my desktop ready to install for these type of problems

always keep backup program,drivers and make sure to always copy your scratchlive folder for backup :)

once the software is installed and operating stable like, why would it go bad that needs to be deleted and reinstalled? does not make sense.

Maybe its the way you're putting in (noho) the tone arm. When I use the club turntables, I have to adjust my needle while its in the tone arm. By moving it side to side. It works for me though. Have you tried the broken needle on the other turntable?

clean the 4 little connectors inside the tone arm with deoxit,using qtips.works everytime.

pencil eraser....

the eraser trick is great.but the deoxit actually cleans the metel to metal contact and sort of conditions the metal.i use it every month or so on my 1200's.and i use it on the 4 prongs of the head shells also.

just the standard fader lube? or the contact cleaner?

Anything but licks.....

just to chime in

I was getting a bad scope reading from time to time on one deck, I narrowed it down to the cartridge contacts

sprayed a little deoxit on it and have not had a problem since! clean those contacts....

thats what i do.and it seems to work everytime :)