Klarinet Archive - Posting 000431.txt from 2005/01

From: Bill Hausmann <bhausmann1@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] RE: Edison recordings
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 08:19:00 -0500

At 11:09 AM 1/26/2005 +0100, Joseph Wakeling wrote:
>Bill Hausmann wrote:
>
>>Now that is an inexcusable error. Certainly they can adjust the playback
>>speed to be correct. Early disk phonographs had speed controls as a
>>matter of course, as the 78rpm speed was common, but hardly standard,
>>until the electrical recording era. I have a computer program that has
>>digital filters to clean up old recordings, and it can also compensate
>>for incorrect playback speeds.
>
>
>It's hardly an "error". It seems important to me to preserve these
>recordings *as they exist* without alterations. They're historical
>documents and should be respected as such.
>
>What Ed's requesting is something different which is that *in addition*
>there should be versions altered to try to recapture the acoustic
>sound. I think that's a good idea, but I would strongly reject any
>suggestion that this should be the *only* version released.

It is easy enough to adjust playback speeds to produce the correct key and
tempo, and it should be done as a matter of course, as is now being done
with old silent motion pictures. Filtering to remove scratches and surface
noise is entirely acceptable, and to the extent that frequency balances can
be altered to recreate the sound of the original PERFORMANCE, rather than
the sound of the original RECORDING, I see no reason why it should not be
done. This is not something so drastic as "colorization," but more on the
order of film restoration. Of course, suppression of the original is not
the intent.

Bill Hausmann

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is TOO LOUD!

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