That’s what I did. There is a speed control on my Graphanola so I tuned the 78 to a whistle that was in tune (as much as a whistle can be!), recorded onto mini disc and then onto the computer. Cleaned up slightly in Wavelab adding a tiny bit of EQ and noise reduction but nothing that would inhibit the original sound quality etc.
PD.
Edited for spelling.
Good job, Patrick, they sound great. 
Patrick,
You’ve done a great job filtering out the pops and hissing sounds off Touhey’s 78!
I was only able to listen to the “Steampacket” set, as that’s the same copy that I have on 78, but it’s a huge improvement!
Great stuff! (And I LOVE that bit that Tuohey does on the regs during “Miss McLeod’s” - what a showman he was!
Well done, PD!
BrianC
We can do a lot at home, but listening to a real class job of restoring these old records like Rounder’s “From Galway to Dublin” shows you what the pros can do. Some of my tapes have really good dubs of pristine copies of these records, too; some of these others are more scratches than music…
A funny thing about the regulator symphony in Miss McLeod’s, which is maybe Touhey’s most famous bunch of notes-Jackie Small and Pat Mitchell transcribed it incorrectly in their book. It’s (one chord or note at a time here): Gd gB Gd Gb Gb Gb…Gd Gb Gd Gb Af# Af#, not G B d B B…G B d B A A…that’s what Paddy Keenan plays. Capital letters are bass reg notes. I had a bit of an argument with John Walsh about this once; he seemed to think Mitchell and Small could do no wrong. Play it and see! An incredible book none the less. They were probably dizzy after trying to figure out what the hell he did in some of those records, and who can blame 'em?
Greetings from France !
Just a few lines, after reading your post dated 2003 (!) found at this page : http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=13202&view=next
to let you know that many Irish cylinders in Dublin University were transferred onto CDs in 2004, including Uilleann Pipe ones.
Please see links here :
http://www.ucd.ie/folklore/irish_html/sos.htm
and
http://www.ucd.ie/alumni/html/connections10/ucdpg20_21.pdf
and
http://www.archeophone.org/dublin_celtic.php
and
http://www.archeophone.org/windex.php
Kind regards,
Henri chamoux
Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2003 4:43 pm
Paul wrote:
Wasn’t there just a release of old Jazz glommed from Vinyl records and put to CD where they had used modern technology to clean the old records of static etcetra and the end result was supposed to be amazing. I wonder if something could be done with wax cylinder recordings.
I hadn’t heard, do you know what the record’s name is? Cylinders, and acoustic process recorded 78 RPM records, can sound quite pleasant; it’s just that they have a rather narrow frequency range. Patsy Touhey’s 78s are fine sounding, you can hear all the grace notes from his chanter, and the balance is quite good, although his bass reg does blast you out of the chair in “Miss McLeod’s.” That was the idea, though…he obviously knew how to set himself up in a studio to sound the best.
There are plenty of cylinders that Breandan Breathnach never got to play at all, including most of what was done of Barney Delaney, Chief O’Neill’s brother in law and a fantastic piper. Now, does anyone know if there is an Archeophone or similar modern, hi-tech cylinder player in Ireland, that these records could be played on?
Ah, are you involved with the “SOS” (Saving Old Sounds) project, Henri? I remember reading about the Archeophone before, wondering if anybody in Ireland was availing themselves of modern technology. Are there plans to make this material available on the Internet? I notice the Archeophone’s links, such as this batch of one hundred year old Turkish and Arabic records.
I digitized a box of cassette tapes once owned by Tom Busby, who made dubs of Patsy Touhey cylinders. Most of Tom’s tapes were from the 1970’s, C-30 and C-60’s, very cheap stuff. Tom’s dubs were used on the original NPU release of Touhey.
http://www.archeophone.org/dublin_celtic.php doesn’t translate into English when you click on the En anglais button; here is Google’s translation:
"Archéophone in the Celtic fashion
Breton Irish and cylinders
At University Dublin College
Invited by department the of Irish Folklore, University Dublin College , I could carry out this summer in Dublin digitalization on CD of 450 cylinders. They are recordings in single matter, carried out since 1899 on cylinders with the standard format, until A 1952 on cylinders of Dictaphone.
I thus could on the spot continue a work which had begun in France. Indeed, more than 250 cylinders to me had already been sent last winter by the post office, in made safe packing, for a first session of work. I insist on the fact that no breakage is to be regretted.
All these recordings were carried out at the inhabitant within the framework of musicologic research carried out in Ireland, Scotland and in the island of Man, in particular by L Ó Muireadhaigh [ 1883-1941 ] and Armagh O’ Donnellan [ 1878-1952 ]. The unit comprises for the majority of the recordings of traditional songs has capella, of the recordings of Uilleann pipes (very different from the bagpipe), as well as a great number of tales into gaelic. Some commercial cylinders, but not of least, make exception in this collection: recording of the famous tenor John Mc Cormack, W.N. Andrews, and several other artists at Edison, Clarion, Columbia, etc.
This whole of more than 1300 cylinders also comprises forty cylinders recorded in Brittany within the framework of the collections the type-setter and musicologist of Rennes Maurice Duhamel [ 1884-1940 ], which opened the way with the concept of “Celtic range”.
Inistioge bridge
Paris, September 8, 2004"
I think I’ve been to the UCD site before, here are some nice pictures of musicians:
Mummers’ orchestra, Carcur group, County Wexford
Wren-boys, Athea, County Limerick
Kinda on Topic:
Went over the folks place last week, while looking thru their usual collection of Irish pub song CD’s found one called “Irish Jigs and Reels” put out by a company called Laserlight (known here in US for selling ultra cheap CD’s) and put it on to give it a listen. Surprisingly impressed, I reached for the CD cover to get some artist and tune information and found nothing. On the back cover at the bottom in small letters it stated “Tracks 1, 3, 5 & 6 arranged by Neil Martin and tracks 2 & 4 arranged by Cran”.
Upon further investigation I found this posted online, dated July 14, 2005:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A15JQCLIVK1JS1/ref=cm_cr_auth/103-0890657-4764635?_encoding=UTF8
I kinda remember reading something on the NPU website about a month ago about Cran’s first recording “The Crooked Stair” has been re-issued. It sounds like they were finally able to regain control of their own music and its packaging. I’m glad! Ahh the “music business…..”
Cheers,
John M