Restoring Old Recordings

Subject: RE: Restoring Old Recordings
From: LDave
Date: 22 Sep 00 - 06:39 PM

In an effort to clean up old recordings record companies sometimes go to far. On the Robert Johnson box set on many songs it sounds like Johnson is playing a guitar strung with rubber bands. The guitar sounds on the vinyl version [and the CD reissue] sound much more realistic. In general most songs on Columbia reissues sound kind of lifeless compared to the same song reissued on Yazoo, even though the later have more of the frying bacon sound.

Subject: RE: Restoring Old Recordings
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 22 Sep 00 - 01:32 PM

I don't mind popping and hissing on old recordings, usually. Sometimes, the only surviving copy of a recording can be some beat-up old 78. I don't mind it being cleaned up so you can actually make out the music in all the hissing, but I prefer 'authenticity' to 'perfection.' And what if they restore it, and it's NOT the way the original sounded?

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: Restoring Old Recordings
From: mousethief
Date: 22 Sep 00 - 01:17 PM

I'm all for removing crackles and ticks and such. The resulting sound is far closer to what someone would have heard in the studio with the original artist than the crackly, poppy version is.

Alex
O..O
=o=

Subject: Restoring Old Recordings
From: Doctor John
Date: 22 Sep 00 - 01:13 PM

I don't know if this has been done for old blues recordings but it certainly has for jazz. Where there's an old recording with cracks and gaps, those technical wizzards sample the sound on either side and fill in the space. A note that sounds like Louis but was never played by him. Very clever stuff but in the extreme you could end up with a whole side by Louis which wasn't. Is it justified? I'm not sure what I think of this; I suppose a little bit's OK but bits get bigger. Or would I rather listen to the crackles which weren't recorded anyway? What do other 'catters think? Dr John