I started cleaning up some recordings from archive.org a bit - I’d love to get your feedback, on what choice of tools is the best. I made a small archive with two tunes, and in various versions (noted at the end of the filename, the one without number is the original one) - so if you could tell me which of them you like the best, it would be great.
And any other comments like what to look after/aim for would be great as well. Only thing I have no clue about would be how to fix higher notes, which were hurt the most, and sometimes sound a bit shrill, while they should be singing. But I’ll watch the “singing” curve, and the shrill curve, and look what can be done (but I guess that “nothing much” is the answer).
And maybe it’s too little bassy - I have bass-high setup on my sound system, so if it the piano for example is not loud enough, please tell me as well
Not too pricey…ehm…It would be like a month of manual labor here. Anyway, I can do better things than manual labor, so I’ll try it and see how it works. The declipper sounds like a good thing - the rest can be done in Audacity as well.
I’ve saved everything in my career (including the archive.org recordings) at 44.1 khz/16 bit, using CoolEdit/Audition. I did take a couple of cracks with the pop/hiss tools, found it all too time consuming to be of interest. After hearing Phillipe Varlet’s dubs on the Rounder 78 reissues I knew that you can get sparkling pop-free audio out of these old discs if you have the right machines; almost everything I have is 2nd or 3rd generation dubs, many of them made with standard modern turntables, so longing after perfect audio would prove to be a waste of time.
I have messed about with EQ on some of the old cylinder recordings, a few of which have really distracting thumps caused by scratches in the wax itself. In the end I usually just listen to the originals. Helps that I enjoy noisy music, perhaps. The ITMA has freshly made dubs of the Touhey cylinders you can download, the audio is not dramatically better than the copies I have that were made in the 70s. Their 78 dubs are extra noisy, in fact.
The Rowsome 78s, and a few others, were dubbed for me by a studio. Many of the piping 78s and all the Tom Morrison stuff was 3rd hand from Phillipe, and they sound better…the Sligo fiddle material is largely dubs done by James Kelly, trawling through Rich Nevin’s collection; he made little announcements, too, done when he had a cold - one extra version of a side he dubbed has him sneezing. I think that’s 5th generation or something, really crappy quality.
Anyway, I used to use CoolEdit as well, and switched for Audition - and I think I can at least help the listenability But indeed, it’s time consuming. But the school starts in 2 weeks, so still some time left. And removing the extra noise sometimes can’t make it a pleasure to ear for everyday listening, but it can help to show some ornamentation etc.
The ITMA has freshly made dubs of the Touhey cylinders you can download, the audio is not dramatically better than the copies I have that were made in the 70s. Their 78 dubs are extra noisy, in fact.