montesquieu
02-03-2014, 01:47
I thought people might be interested in some of the experimentation I've been doing in 78 transcription with an Esoteric Sound Re-Equalizer box tweaked for me a while ago by Nick Gorham with upgraded components and a proper linear PSU ... here's a before and after, same input volume and settings, only difference is the equalisation box is used in the second to tweak the turnover and rolloff, and a fairly tiny amount of cleaning up in Audacity.
It's a lot of fun. I have a way to go to build my skills in editing files - as with Photoshop and images, it's easy to do too much and end up with something that sounds unnatural - but it's amazing the freshness and emotion you can draw out of an 80-year-old recording. The approach I'm generally taking is to not to overly reduce the noise - they are 78s after all - and attempt to bring out the music. It's easy to remove almost all the crackle but what you are left with afterwards is often hardly worth bothering with.
Before (https://www.dropbox.com/s/ti55ks4aowp5p9w/schumann-riaa.aiff)
After (https://www.dropbox.com/s/wedat7y1sdi0680/schumann-700-flat-mono.aiff)
The cartridge is a DJ job - Shure M44-7 - with 3.5ct tip from Expert Stylus (I have several sizes for 78s from different eras).
The challenge I've got is getting decent Lieder recordings to transcribe (Lieder being my main interest in this). Anything remotely intriguing on ebay tends to be over a tenner which is quite a lot for 6-10 minutes of music!
It's a lot of fun. I have a way to go to build my skills in editing files - as with Photoshop and images, it's easy to do too much and end up with something that sounds unnatural - but it's amazing the freshness and emotion you can draw out of an 80-year-old recording. The approach I'm generally taking is to not to overly reduce the noise - they are 78s after all - and attempt to bring out the music. It's easy to remove almost all the crackle but what you are left with afterwards is often hardly worth bothering with.
Before (https://www.dropbox.com/s/ti55ks4aowp5p9w/schumann-riaa.aiff)
After (https://www.dropbox.com/s/wedat7y1sdi0680/schumann-700-flat-mono.aiff)
The cartridge is a DJ job - Shure M44-7 - with 3.5ct tip from Expert Stylus (I have several sizes for 78s from different eras).
The challenge I've got is getting decent Lieder recordings to transcribe (Lieder being my main interest in this). Anything remotely intriguing on ebay tends to be over a tenner which is quite a lot for 6-10 minutes of music!