Re: [ARSCLIST] Archaeological 78 Fragments

[john loy <jloy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 I agree you should probably save the pieces until more reliable technology
comes about which may not be long. I disagree that the material is
"invisible". There are technologies that are  new therefore expensive that
actually take an optical digital "picture" of the groove walls and sample
them and convert them to a digital form. No needles no aligning the
grooves. Right now the technology seems only to work  on complete discs
even though I haven't worked with one on a daily basis. We may be getting
one here at the University of North Carolina, but I'm sure the capabilities
cant compare to  what could be done in a few years. We'll have to get the
machine and see once we dive into it. Remember new technology comes out all
the time that you don't hear about so something could be out there now. Of
course once you get what you can off that chip the best information you can
hope to get from a quarter size piece is genre'. That may be easy to
determine yourself or with the help of a musicologist or other music
professional. I wish your friend luck.
John A. Loy
Audio Preservation Engineer
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Southern Folklife Collection



Aaron Russell wrote:

> A friend of mine is an archaeologist who is currently excavating a
> historical lumber town in North Carolina.  Among the artifacts he is
> recovering are fragments of 78 RPM records, and he is wondering if
> there is any way to get sound off of these fragments.  He says they are
> generally pretty small (about the size of a quarter - I haven't asked
> yet if he's checked for cross-mends between any of the fragments), but
> is hoping that he could get some diagnostic snippets to let him know
> what people in the town were buying and listening to.  Has anyone on
> the list had experience with this kind of thing of have any ideas about
> how to go about working with these?
>
> Thanks,
> Aaron Russell