Re: [ARSCLIST] Dynamic-frequency Range

["Steven C. Barr(x)" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Karl Miller" <lyaa071@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> On Thu, 19 Oct 2006, Steven C. Barr(x) wrote:
> 
> > Give the digital world another couple of decades, and they
> > will probably have figured out how to enable computers to
> > analyze a digital sound file taken from playing a vintage
> > recording...and provide a full-bandwidth stereo (or 7.1?)
> > rendering of what SHOULD have been recorded...
> 
> Well, one company has been working on this using recordings of piano
> playing. While I may have already mentioned this on the list but there is
> a company Zenph that takes older recordings, and will attempt to isolate
> the fundamental freqencies, with amplitudes and create a digital file and
> then play it back on a disklavier. They sent me some some of their promo
> materials. It included a Cortot performance of some Chopin. What I found
> interesting was that while indeed they did a fine job, the technology
> seemed to amplify the limitations of the technology used for the original
> recording...for example, some of the treble notes came across as
> significantly louder than when I made some eq adjustments to the original.
> 
> Potentially powerful use of technology, but tricky.
> 
In actual fact, what we have in any "vintage" recording (it
could be argued in ANY recording!) is a fraction of the actual
sound which occured when the recording was made.

For this reason, ANY "improved" or "reconstructed" version of
that sound recording is...in fact, MUST be...based at least in
part on guesswork (insofar as what can't be heard in the recording).
So, the task of the program creators becomes increasing the
accuracy of those guesses.

One interesting approach (and here I speculate) would be to
duplicate, insofar as possible, the hardware and environment
used for the original recordings...and then simultaneously
record something using both old and new technology? This would
allow us to create an algorithm based on the difference between
the two recordings and apply that to existing "old" recordings
to re-create what the "new" version must have sounded like...

Steven C. Barr