[78-L] 78 "Restoration Challenge"!

[Antony Pepper]

Hello,

Merry Christmas everyone.

Recent talk on the list of differing restoration techniques, and a
possible challenge...

I'm never sure if restoration is really the right word, but
"representation" might sound a bit posh... Whatever, it means doing
things like declicking, decrackling, derumbling, EQing and/or whatever
else takes your fancy to make the sound in your view more listenable,
I guess.

Anyhow, I've uploaded four flat sample transfers to:-

www.historyanew.co.uk/78challenge/

All jazz. One vinyl pressing, and three shellacs. Armstrong's West End
Blues (1928) from an laminate Aussie Parlo, Duke's Braggin' in Brass
(1938) from a lam US Brunswick, Hawk's It Sends Me (1934) from a UK
Parlo (EMI crackle!), and Venuti & Lang's Doin' Things (1928) from
vinyl (and probably an alt take!!)...

Files are 96/24, stereo, in WAV format and ZIPped to make them a bit
smaller. ~1/3 gig total.

Together a nice batch of particular and general problems to overcome!

So, if you have a little time over the holiday season, please feel
free to download one or more of them and work on them as you would and
then send me the result, saying a bit about what you did and whether
you want me to put it up on the page for others to listen to or not.

Or post the result on your site, with a link to the above page, and
tell us about it here.

I'd suggest high-rate MP3s (320kbps), but any reasonable format would
be okay (FLAC for example, if you want non-lossy). I would not suggest
a 96/24 WAV file for the final product as that would be huge of
course! And if your result is mono, please make the file mono too.

I'll post my own versions of all four sides, after a short while (i.e.
when I've done them!), but don't wait for that.

Finally, it's not a competition - no judging and no prizes! It's just
for fun... :-)

Best,
Antony