Klarinet Archive - Posting 000448.txt from 2005/01

From: Bill Hausmann <bhausmann1@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] RE: Edison recordings
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 23:37:06 -0500

At 05:24 PM 1/26/2005 +0100, Joseph Wakeling wrote:
>Bill Hausmann wrote:
>
>>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.
>
>
>In the case of motion pictures, I think that's inexcusable. These were
>the finished works of directors and altering them in terms of speed etc.
>is akin to rewriting. We seem to forget that the technical limitations of
>artworks are an important part of their nature. That includes recordings,
>I think. And where it's simply a case of our equipment not being able to
>process them properly then we need to alter our equipment, not the data.

What, you think it is improper to go back to the original negative, get the
best possible print, and digitally remove any additional scratches and
other defects to produce a "perfect" version of the film? As long as the
original negative is not altered, I see nothing wrong, and much to be
commended, in such restoration. Early silent motion pictures were recorded
at different speed than is common today, but it had been accepted practice
to run them at modern projector speeds, resulting in the rapid, jerky
action that was NOT originally intended. When played at correct speed, as
is more common today, they may flicker a bit more, but the motion is correct.

>I can understand people using technology to try to explore the history but
>it's inappropriate to use it to *rewrite* the history. Even in the case
>of recordings, where one can indeed point out that one is trying to
>recapture the performance, I think it's important to preserve a sense of
>what was done *at the time* in technical as well as musical terms.

The artifacts of the recording process cannot be completely removed, but
they can be minimized. It is actually quite surprising how much
information is present in those early acoustical recordings!

>On at least one major album I know (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band)
>the digital remastering process actually resulted in alterations to the
>content of the work. In addition that album in particular was inherently
>designed to be *an LP*. These things matter in my opinion.

When they remix multitrack recordings and alter the balances, they do
indeed create a different work, almost as different as
colorization. However, the early 78's were not multitracked and the LEVEL
balances CANNOT be changed. Equalization can be applied to more accurately
reflect the FREQUENCY spectrum of the original PERFORMANCE, and filtering
can reduce the prominence of entirely unwanted artifacts of the recording
process, such as surface noise, clicks and pops, etc. In any case, the
goal was the best possible recording of the performance, within the limits
of the technology, and that is still the goal of anyone trying to clean up
the old recordings. (The Sgt. Pepper engineers were, in effect, altering
the PERFORMANCE, of which I do not approve.)

Bill Hausmann

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

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