I was listening to one of the interviews this weekend with Kenny Everett and Freddie, and Kenny stated that record companies struggled with rock records because the louder the music on the recording, the deeper the groove on the vinyl record....and the deeper the groove...the more prone the needle is to skipping.
This seems kind of counter-intuitive to me....it seems like a more shallow groove would make it easier for the needle to skip. Although I guess a deep groove might make it hard for the needle to settle down into it, and more likely to skip because of that, so maybe what he said is right. Can anyone confirm if what he said was true....or did he have it backwards? This interview is on the Queen On Air CDs. If this is an obvious answer please forgive my ignorance! It has been a lot of years since I played vinyl stuff.
He is right, cutting a vinyl too loud can result in skips. Especially the lower frequencies cause this.
It may sound counter intuitive at first, but the needle has to make large vertical movements if it is cut too loud and this can result easily in skips.
And it wasn't just the volume - it was EQ too. Too much bottom end would make it skip too.
It's why a lot of old albums lack in bottom end, and why they've needed to be remastered in recent years.