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Re: [ARSCLIST] Certification (was Re: [ARSCLIST] Wire recorders)
Dear ARSC List People,
Karl and Mike have raised an interesting subject but one which needs lots
of careful attention and discussion.
"Do no harm" or "Do minimal harm" is a good first rule.
The first level of proficiency suggested seems by far the most important:
transcription, the aim of which some of us would probably agree is to
capture the maximum possible of the signal from the original, in analogue,
digital, or some other format (perhaps yet to be developed). That's audio
preservation.
ANYTHING done after that stage must be defined as editing. None of the
processes mentioned can be called "restoration" unless those attributes of
the original performance can be fully and provably documented (that's
difficult if not impossible to do, human audio memory being a fleeting
quality -- people forget sonic features, even simple ones, very rapidly);
and even the best recording engineers haven't time to document all
attributes of what they are recording. In most cases with which I'm
familiar, especially in commercial recording, documentation of what has
been recorded has been minimal and usually relates to the status and
settings of the equipment used.
Denoising nearly always changes one or more qualities of the recorded
sound, at least to a slight extent.
Repitching is fine if one can do it, but how can one learn how an original
was pitched ? Approximation is probably the best that can be expected in
most cases, especially those involving speech; and one should certainly
document what has been done in processing and the basis for doing it.
The working lives of many of us would be much simpler if there were some
way to learn what the original form of a signal was, but unfortunately that
is usually impossible, even in what may seem to be the most obvious cases.
There are hundreds of reasons for and examples of this.
It should be unnecessary to comment on "improvement" on the original;
anyone who has purchased reissues of recordings has heard both reasonable
and horrible results of such work.
No one who wants to call him or herself a sound archivist should be
concerned about more than 1) achieving the best possible transcriptions of
originals, 2) the suggesting of possible approximate pitch corrections, and
3) such noise reduction as does not cause significant changes to the sound.
Performing adjustments of the types in items 2 and 3 in that list should
apply to those who need to prepare copies of these transcriptions for
reference purposes (or at customers' requests for commercial purposes, such
as "pleasing" the listeners).
Any work beyond item 1 in the previous paragraph is editing, is likely to
be at least partly subjective, and should be, except for instances of 2 &
3, outside the scope of work of an audio archivist; and all of these ideas
except for transcription follow from the original principle of doing
minimal harm.
Unfortunately I don't have time to explain this position fully in an e-mail
message, but the subject is important enough that a brief attempt is needed.
With best wishes, Richard
At 09:25 AM 7/20/2004 -0700, you wrote:
At 08:34 AM 7/20/2004 -0500, Karl Miller wrote:
Which brings up the question (at least in my mind) what should be the
criteria for certification (assuming this is a good idea) in audio
preservation and restoration.
Mmm - a good one!
There is a first qualification: to do minimal harm. Equipment, methods and
experience are such that one expects minimal damage to the source material.
So certification would surely have to be by medium. Unlike medicine, where
a podiatrist may legally practice psychiatry in most states, in this field
there would be qualifiers for LPs, "78s", transcription discs, cylinders,
wire, and so on.
There is a second parameter of qualification, proficiency. That would be
similar to Bachelor, Master and PhD levels of conventional academia. The
first level would entail transcription (presumably including digitizing)
without editing. The second would qualify based on elementary denoising,
repitching and otherwise processing to return the signal as nearly as
possible to its original form. The third would entail 'improvement' on the
original: rebalancing, equalizing and so on to provide the preferred
listening experience to the customer.
The medium parameter can be assessed largely objectively. The first level
of proficiency is largely objective, the next is mixed, the last almost
entirely subjective. (E.g., from multiple-choice to essay exam. <G>)
Mike
--
mrichter@xxxxxxx
http://www.mrichter.com/