Re: [ARSCLIST] Podcasting--explained a bit...

[steven c <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Fine" <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Mike is saying in a more complete and definitely less snarky way what I
was saying. I totally agree
> with him, 100%. It's really a wrong move and bad engineering to record
anything in a lossy format
> from the get-go. This includes oral histories, by the way. Penny wise and
pound foolish procedure.
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
> PS -- also, if I were going to the trouble of transferring 78's, even
though most of them sound
> lousy, I would use a low-level cartridge and a preamp with EQ options. An
old Heath tube preamp can
> be had for near nothing on ebay. It has all the useful cutoff and turnover
EQ options to make almost
> any 78 sound the way it was intended, bad as that may be.
>
> PPS -- most 78's with what is considered by today's standards historic
significance or any sliver of
> modern commercial appeal have been expertly remastered and reissued on CD.
Folks like Doug Pomeroy
> take those metal parts and end up with better sound than was possible on a
pressed 78 played on a 78
> player back in the day. You find out that some of that stuff (late 30s
onward, mostly, mainly swing
> and classical, made by major labels in modern-for-the-time studios)
actually sounds pretty good (no
> top end or low bass but fairly accurate reproduction of the tone and
"sound" of individual
> instruments). Doug did particularly good work on the Benny Goodman
material released on Bluebird/BMG
> a few years ago. Some people turned an instant nose-up after some of the
early CEDAR efforts, and
> especially on badly-processed stuff like the Radio Spirits OTR CD's. But
when used properly, tools
> like CEDAR and Sadie can work miracles on those old grooves and those
CD's -- often budget priced -- 
> offer a far better listening experience than is possible with a worn out
pile of old pressed
> records.
>
Okeh...my reply/ies...

1) I can think about converting 78 sound to .wav files...but not until I can
afford a new(ish) computer...mainly one with a couple of 500GB hard drives
for archival storage! Curently, I'm working with a single 80GB drive (which
is actually 1.3 KILOtimes larger than my first 286 machine's 65MB, $400+
drive!) and that would fill up rapidly with .wav files of any quality.

2) Likewise with affording digital-audio niceties like CEDAR and its ilk...
One doesn't acquire that level of digitalia when one is "living" on the
pittance the gov't of Ontario thinks its disabled folks deserve...

3) Finally, keep in mind that I have been listening to 78's since they
were actually state-of-the-art records...and particularly since about
1973, which was well before the invention of either digital applications
to modernize the sound of 78's and such...as well as digital sound
itself. To me, the "digitally improved" sound I often hear on CD reissues
seems somehow artificial...as if someone were to take his/her/its
grandmother to a professional makeup (etc.) artist to make her look
like what it is assumed the looked like 40 years before! As well, age,
head injuries and too many years of standing too close to my guitarists'
Fender Twins turned up to 11, have combined me to leave me more-or-less
"deef as a post" (as my grandmother used to say)...so if I scratched
up the gazillion or so dollars to get state of the art hardware to
play my shellac ephemera, and state of the art software to make them
sound like they had been recorded a few days ago...I probably couldn't
hear the durned difference!

Steven C. Barr