[78-L] audio "restoration" question

[Michael Biel]

Limiting, or compression.  Or stupidity.  

Nothing should ever be done to vary the surface noise level.  It needs
to be kept constant.  And by bringing up quiet sections and/or lowering
loud sections that destroys the dynamic range that the musicians
intended.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com  


-------- Original Message --------

From: Randy Watts <rew1014 at yahoo.com>


A question for those of you who know more about audio restoration than I
do. (I just clean up the records and listen to 'em.) Someone I know sent
me a CD-R of 78s he "restored." Frankly, I thought what he did to them
sounded awful. I'd rather have heard them with surface noise, scratch,
pops and clicks intact. One thing I'm specifically wondering about is
what it is that people do to recordings that creates a very noticeable
pumping effect on the volume. I don't know what else to call it. During
loud passages, it's not that noticeable, but as the volume of a
recording goes up and down, you can hear this effect kicking in and out,
sort of like it's mashing down on the sound. The quieter the recording
gets the more noticeable it is. I'm not sure how else to describe it. I
hear this effect far too often on old radio shows that have had amateur
"restorations" and am just curious what causes it. It can make listening
to the dialogue on a radio show rather
 difficult, not to mention what it does to musical dynamics.

Thanks,

Randy
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