Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Minor Indulgence

So, couple of weeks ago, I finally found a nice, modern turntable that spun at 78 RPM.  It was at a pawn shop and the price was pretty good, even without a headshell or needle.  Of course no place local had a needle that would work on the old records, although the guy at Sam Ash tried to tell me I didn't need a special needle.  (He also told me there was a cartridge in the package I bought, but it was just a needle...  Moron.)  So I ordered a cartridge and it arrived today.  I've been playing all evening, figuring out how to remove the old RIAA curve and put a correct curve in place, how to strip out the low frequency sounds, how to remove some of the surface noise without stripping out any of the sound.  All things I do with my usual album recordings, sorta, but all completely different on these records.  So the first recording I got into a pretty decent shape was a square dance version of Jingle Bells that I grabbed the other day from the Goodwill Bargain Barn just before it was thrown in the dumpster.  It's even cracked, but I couldn't hear it in the recording.  I think I did a pretty good job of it, but I'd love to hear some critiques from those of you who have more experience in such things.  I recorded in Audacity in stereo, removed the clicks in ClickRepair, which mixed it down to mono, then back to Audacity for removing the RIAA curve, then some re-EQing.  I don't remember exactly what I did or didn't do to get this final version, since I went back and forth so many times.  I also didn't scan the record 'cause I think it's not gonna do that crack any good to sit on a scanner bed.  Anyhow, please give a listen to Carson Robison And His Pleasant Valley Boys, Calls By Lawrence V. Loy-Jingle Bells (RCA-Victor 10" 78 RPM 20-1832, 1946).  Lemme know what you think.  good, bad, indifferent, whatever.  I want to learn to do this right.  :)

MediaFire

10 comments:

  1. That sounds really good to me -- nice and clean. It is hard to believe that it is from a 1946 recording.

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  2. Sounds quite good, Ernie. There is a mid-range peak and it could use a rumble filter. I'm not sure how the Audacity re-eq function works, but if you want to correct for RIAA pre-emphasis, you might want to use Equalizer, which is freeware from the guy who did ClickRepair.

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  3. Ernie, sounds good to me...
    What a fun song...
    Thanks for this and for all you do... Love your taste in music...

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  4. You did a good job on cleaning it up. I've never had any luck taking scratches out of a song. Of course, I've never went through all of the stuff that you did. Great job.

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  5. Sounds good to me Ernie... nice work. I'd like to hear a clip of the original before you did any work just for 'shits and giggles'. If you can't scan the record... how bought just taking a picture of it?

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  6. oops... I meant 'bout... how about taking a quick picture of it. Sorry for the typo.

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  7. Dear Mr. Ernie (Not Bert):

    I am sending you all of my 78s.

    Peace,
    Stubby

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  8. Sounds fine. The back and forth process sounds like murder, though. I start with a 78 curve (my pre-amp has RIAA and 78 eq's, one each) and I do the hiss filtering and the stereo-to-mono with MAGIX.

    What tracking force are you using?

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