[78-L] audio "restoration" question

[David Lennick]

Limiting, compression AND stupidity. Unfortunately it's been applied to old TV 
shows and movies on DVD, and it's turned up on "professional" CD issues..the 
Helen Kane disc I did for Living Era is full of those defects as well as 
gurgling, scraping, incompletely removed pops some strange underwater effects. 
(Not executed by anyone on this list, I can assure you.)

dl

On 11/20/2011 9:22 PM, Michael Biel wrote:
> 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