From the Higgs Boson Particle to Leadbelly 194
Roland Piquepaille writes "Physicists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are using the same methods to search for the elusive Higgs Boson particle and to digitally restore audio recordings from the past. Berkeley Lab signed an agreement with the Library of Congress to digitize the many thousands of early blues or jazz recordings it has in its archives. And the results are spectacular. Compare for example, these two versions of "Good Bye Irene", before and after being optically reconstructed (WAV format, 18 and 19 seconds). This news release describes the method used by the physicists. This overview contains other details and extra references about this project." We also covered finding Higgs Boson recently as well.
Yes!! (Score:4, Funny)
Does this mean (Score:5, Funny)
RIAA-MGM? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:RIAA-MGM? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:RIAA-MGM? (Score:4, Funny)
Are you sure it means what you think it means?
Re:RIAA-MGM? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:RIAA-MGM? (Score:5, Insightful)
quality loss (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:quality loss (Score:5, Interesting)
I would agree with this comment however the point of this project isn't to just improve music quality, but to enable the Library of Congress to save many 1000's of recordings that are so delicate that even putting a record needle on them could cause unrepairable damage to the record!
Re:quality loss (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:quality loss (Score:4, Informative)
Re:quality loss (Score:2, Interesting)
Progress, anyone?
Bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful)
Listen, you can by an SDAT tape drive that can read DAT tapes that were invented 15 years ago, and consolidate 10 of them into one new cartridge. And if you want to be safe, you make a copy and send that to a different site. And in 10 years there'll be a new generational standard that's backwards compatible, so you'll do another transfer then. Hell, you should be making multigenerational copies every few years and checking checksums between generations of media to make sure you're not propogating errors.
And why will this be possible? Because companies NEED THIS. They need to keep records for ages for various purposes. So the situation you detail will never happen if the custodians of the digital archive are just SLIGHTLY aware of the marketplace. Better than just leaving them to rot, eh?
Re:quality loss (Score:2)
At this point the problem merely becomes format-shif
Re:quality loss (Score:2)
Re:quality loss (Score:5, Interesting)
Noise != charm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Noise != charm (Score:3, Insightful)
But it seems like the m
Re:Noise != charm (Score:2)
Re:quality loss (Score:5, Funny)
You can always put them back, if you really want to.
Re:quality loss (Score:3, Funny)
Can't they be digitally added back in? Instant authenticity!
Re:quality loss (Score:2, Funny)
Re:quality loss (Score:2)
Re:quality loss (Score:2)
Even if a lot of quality of the songs are improved a bit of authenticity of the songs is lost. The cracks and the spikes in a song can give it a certain charm.
Why, do you think the singer's voice cracked and popped like that when he sang in the recording studio? How do distortions and degradations of the original performance increase "authenticity"?
This may help (Score:4, Interesting)
Higgs Boson? You fools! (Score:4, Funny)
TV doesn't lie to me!
Re:Higgs Boson? You fools! (Score:3, Funny)
Sheesh, all this wonderful anime [amazon.com] and nobody learns anything from it...
Re:Higgs Boson? You fools! (Score:2)
Lets Gekiga In! [snollygoster.com]
baka baka. (Score:3, Funny)
- ruri
Re:baka baka. (Score:2)
If you were actually insulting me, then I guess I really deserved it. But I doubt it.
It's not an insult coming from Ruri-chan. (Score:2)
How about digital? (Score:2, Funny)
Expensive record player (Score:3, Insightful)
Improved quality? (Score:4, Insightful)
They also ruined the whole EQ (Score:3, Interesting)
Evolution (Score:3, Interesting)
Like all technology, this will surely improve. And, as it does, those digital pictures can be "
Re:Improved quality? (Score:2, Insightful)
If you do a noise filter in Audacity 2.0, using some of the quiet parts toward the end to get the noise characteristics, you can get a very clear-sounding result. You may want to try different levels of filtering. I only filtered a little, since the defaults were too much.
Sheesh - All Around Wrong (Score:5, Informative)
2). It's "Good Night Irene"
Re:Sheesh - All Around Wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
Huddie died in poverty in December of 1949. One month later Goodnight Irene hit number one on the charts (as recorded by The Weavers) and stayed there for longer than any song has since.
Since that time other Ledbelly songs that have had great sucess on the charts include Black Betty, Midnight Special (written while in Sugerland, the Midnight Special was an actual train running out of Houston and prison legend had it that if it's headlight shone on you in your cell you would be released the next day. This was rather like saying that if you stuck your elbow in your ear you would be released the next day) and The Rock Island Line. Ledbelly was also a friend of Woody Guthrie. Woody's Roll on Columbia was written to the tune of Goodnight Irene (although Woody didn't realize this until Pete Seeger pointed it out to him).
I really pissed off a barmaid one night when I ended my first set with that song. Her name was Irene. She hates that song. I found out why.
Nice girl otherwise.
Good night.
KFG
Re:Sheesh - All Around Wrong (Score:5, Informative)
But perhaps the most telling Leadbelly song is about the time when Huddie Ledbetter, beter known as Leadbelly, came to Washington D.C. to record for Library of Congress's Archive of American Folk Song.
Huddie and Alan Lomax were denied accomodation at several hotels because the hotels wouldn't rent to an interracial group: Huddie was black and Lomax, co-founder with his father of the Library's Archive, and, was white.
So Huddie, with Lomax's help, wrote "Bourgeois Blues", which begins:
Huddie's gone now, and Alan Lomax died two tears ago, but the song, and their work, live on.
And even after desegregtion, Washington D.C.'s still a bourgeois town, it's a bourgeois town.
Re:Sheesh - All Around Wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
Huddie's manslaughter charges were basically semi-bogus. There was something of a tradition in Texas ( and much of the south at the time) that if there was a general melee in a bar, and someone never got up again, when the police got there they arrested, tried and convicted the biggest, toughest looking black man who hadn't run away yet. Huddie was almost always the biggest and toughest looking black man in any crowd, and not prone to run from anyone or anything (Sugarland Prison is still probably the nastiest prison in America, and Huddie earned his knickname by being the thoughest man there). That's also what made it so easy for him to sing his way out of prison. Everyone knew he was just the stand up fall guy who took the rap for a killing that couldn't actually be attributed to any one person.
It was racist, and hardly legal, but in an odd sort of way it kept the peace, because the public (both black and white) could pretend that justice had been done, if only in spirit, and I can't recall ever hearing that Huddie ever made any real complaints about it. And he might have actually had some hand in the killings, although in a modern court with a decent lawyer it's unlikely he would ever even have gone to trial. There was simply no evidence against him.
But the peculiar racism of Washington really, really pissed him off. The city was completely (although entirely "unofficially") segregated, and there wasn't anyplace he and Alan could go to stay or eat together, either in a "black" place or a "white" place. Even in the deep south he'd never encountered anything like that. (Dr. King had much the same experience when he went to Chicago. The unofficial, but very real, segregation of the north was much more insidious than the official segregation of the south, and continues that way in many places. Yeah, it's still a "bushwa" town).
Pete's still with us, but the last time I saw him (which was a few years ago) I was jolted into recognition of his mortality. Pete's always been the Dick Clark of folk music, and gave off a certain air of immortality. Other than a few more wrinkles he's always looked more or less like he did back in the 50's, and acted like it. All of a sudden he's started to look, and act, well, a bit old.
Quoting Pete on Ledbelly:
"One year he started having to use a cane to go on stage. His voice, always soft and husky when speaking, still rang out high on the melodies, but his hands grew stiffer and less certain on the guitar. Then one day he was gone, and we were left with regrets that we had not treasured him more."
I'm afraid it's time to start treasuring Pete while we can.
(I hope Pete doesn't read Slashdot)
(Ok, really, good night. At least for me. Your diurnalage may vary. Lord knows mine does, all the hell over the place)
KFG
Re:Sheesh - All Around Wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, I know. Recently I recall half listening to Folk Alley internet radio [folkalley.com], which features a lot of Seeger's songs, and I though I heard the announcer comment hat "Pete was" something or another. I spent several sort-of-panicked, sort-or-resigned, sort-of-apprehensive minutes on Google news until I'd convinced myself Pete was still around to rabble rouse.
He's almost a movement by himself.
I saw that, even though he has that typical Leftist problem. I have a Seeger compilation (Pioneer of Folk) on which Seeger sings "Round and Round Hitler's Grave" and
"Dear Mr. President" ("I hate Hitler...Now, Mr. President , we haven't always agreed in the past I know, but that ain't at all important now...We gotta lick Mr. Hitler...."
and on the same compilation ""Washington Breakdown" ("Franklin D, listen to me, you ain't gonna send me 'cross the sea"" and "C for Conscription". (I think I mentioned thsi once before on Slashdot.)
Of course, Pete's opinion on the desirability of fighting Hitler "matured" after Hitler's "Operation Barbarossa" commenced on 22 June 1941, the Hitler-Stalin Pact went down the memory hole, and Stalin jerked Comintern's strings 180 degrees.
(On a personal note, I've always been about equally disgusted by the Stalinists and the Red-baiting McCarthyites (Joe, not Gene, of course). Stalin killed millions, but "Tail gunner" Joe was pissing on my constitution. The America Communists I've always seen as rather willing dupes who would have sold us into Uncle Joe's Gulags, but I've also admired them for all the shit they put up with for bucking trends in America, and for their support (whatever their motivation) for civil rights and workers' protections. And I love the music.
I lost my copy of Pete's Songs of Hope and Struggle but I found a copy of Paul Robeson singing the 1944 version of the Soviet anthem. The tune is awfully rousing, and the lyrics are so boot-licking toward Stalin ("And Stalin our Leader, with faith in the people, inspired us to build up the Land that we loved."), especially given that it's on a album named Songs for Free men.
I can't help, from my 21st century perspective, enjoying the irony in a macabre way, Robeson being vilified in this country for his idealism about a Soviet Russia, where at about the same time, as Solzhenitsyn tells us in Gulag Archipelago there was that local Communist Party rally where the applause for Stalin's name went on for thirty minutes because everyone was afraid to be the first to stop. Not to mention the anthem principally celebrates victory in the Great Patriotic War, a victory that almost didn't happen thanks to Stalin's purges of the Army and State in '37, a victory which happened only after Hitler and Stalin split Poland down the middle and Stalin destroyed the Polish elite at Katyn Forest and then at Nuremberg blamed Germany for the massacre.
I have some Soviet recording of the anthem too --- big "proletarian" choruses of "New Soviet Men" as frightening in their raw-boned way as Hitler's blond-haired, fanatic-eyed Aryan poster boys. Still, I can enjoy the Soviet recordings, despite Stalin's 60 million victims, in a way I can't enjoy my copy of the Horst Wessel Lied or my few copies of SS marching songs -- those I only listen to occasionally when reading histories of the Nazi era. Does my hypocrisy shows too?)
Sorry for rambling. Back to Pete.
So I don't quite agree with his politics, but I love the spirit they represent. Even though that spirit was brutally misused in Soviet Russia, here in the U.S. the left did help bring about great things, especially the Civil Rights movement. Even knowing he was, to some degree, a "useful idiot". Because he also roused people to organize the AFL-CIO, and to march in Selma and he wrote Last train to Nuremberg! ("Do I see Lieutenant Calley?... Do I see the voters, me
Re:Sheesh - All Around Wrong (Score:5, Informative)
No it's not. His surname was Ledbetter, but his nickname was Leadbelly. More info about his life can be found here [duke.edu]. If you still think it's Ledbelly, look at the photo of his gravestone at the bottom of the page.
If there are any slashdotters who don't know who the hell he is, you might know at least one song he wrote : Where did you sleep last night which was sung by Nirvana on MTV Unplugged
Re:Sheesh - All Around Wrong (Score:5, Informative)
This mixing and changing of songs is and has been very common. The urge to be authoritative is very strong, but you ought to avoid it here. I have read Ledbelly, Lead Belly and Leadbelly without finding any truly convincing arguments about which is correct. Did he carry around buckshot in his belly? Was it just from Ledbetter? I do not know. With unwritten traditions, the roads often just peter out without leading anywhere conclusive.
Re:Sheesh - All Around Wrong (Score:3, Informative)
Good thing(TM) (Score:5, Interesting)
On a related note, why does the "after" filename contain the word RIAA? What the hell do they have to do with this? The Library of Congress recordings were made by Alan Lomax (another great american folk singer), somewhere around 1940. If the RIAA gets to make money off this, I think I'm going to be sick. Though actually, now that I think about it, I believe the RIAA has some "standards" for music formats. Hopefully that's all this is.
Re:Good thing(TM) (Score:2)
The Library of Congress recordings were made by Alan Lomax (another great american folk singer), somewhere around 1940
1940?!? I wonder what they were recorded on - acetate? There's much better quality recordings done in the 1920's that have been remastered using technology we've had for years.
Or maybe the LOC hasn't stored these records properly?
Re:Good thing(TM) (Score:5, Insightful)
That's precisely what they were recorded on, according to the article. That, and shellac, and wax. And it's not that we can't remaster them now. In fact, I have a CD of Leadbelly's LOC recordings. It's that this is a non-destructive way of remastering them. Prior to this, remastering them was merely playing them again. Granted it was in a controlled environment, with a near-perfect stylus and the record was painstakingly cleaned, but it was still playing them, and that is by definition destructive. Think of how this will change things. You can remaster something merely by taking a picture of it (yes, i'm oversimplifying). It will make remastering these recordings cheaper and more copies will be available (since the LOC doesn't have to worry about each remastering destroying the original)
RIAA Equalization (Score:5, Informative)
Back in the good old days of vinyl records, RIAA Equalization [wikipedia.org] was/is an industry standard for how music that is recorded on vinyl records is played back. The idea is to compensate for the fact that vinyl does not have a flat audio frequncy response.
The link above explains it much better (and in more detail) that I can.
\/Don
Re:RIAA Equalization (Score:2, Interesting)
Bass frequencies were attenuated before cutting the disk in order to put the grooves closer together on the disk. Treble frequencies were boosted, so that noise could be correspondingly attenuated by the playback reverse equalization.
Some of the first CDs were made with the vinyl RIAA eq. by mistake. Boy were the artists pissed!
Not really (Score:2)
And implimenting such a curve digitally is an essentially trivial exercise, so I fail to see how that would be an issue here. Anyone who is capable of extracting high quality audio from the PICT
Re:Good thing(TM) (Score:4, Interesting)
Why do I remember seeing exactly this technology (as in non-contact vinyl
reading) demonstrated on BBC's
We saw it actually demonstrated live, it wasn't just a theoretical idea.
IIRC they played a Cliff Richard album, and IIRC they also, with great
humour, scratched the fuck out of it for a second test, which the reader
passed admirably.
That was nigh on 20 years ago. It appears that the wheel has been
reinvented...
THL.
Re:Good thing(TM) (Score:2)
with a regular wintel PC (hell even a cheap one from 3 years ago) running a old copy of something loke cooledit could do the exact same job for much less money... [elpj.com]
what? did they even LOOK to see if there was a OTS solution before they spend Gobs of cash to do this?
Mirror of WAV (Score:2, Informative)
Sure it'll be slashdoted soon.
Orignal [netspace.net.au] & Digital version [netspace.net.au]
I still hear static (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I still hear static (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I still hear static (Score:2, Informative)
We did this in a signal processing project, where we scanned old recordings and extracted the music. We tried Wiener fitlerning, but settled on spectral subtraction. Listen in [s3.kth.se]. The problem is (as an anonymous coward so wisely pointed out) that you inevitably remove some of the wanted signal as well.
Woot! (Score:5, Funny)
Better, but far from perfect... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Better, but far from perfect... (Score:2, Funny)
You sound like you're fun to hang out with.
It has been said before. (Score:5, Funny)
Before the song is "Good Bye Irene".
After the song is "Good By Webserver".
The sound of this new song is unusually pure and quiet. My congratulations to the Berkeley team.
Big Deal (Score:2, Funny)
mod parent up (Score:5, Interesting)
The 'lame pulsing background noise' or whatever you call it is really quite bad. I haven't tried putting the original through Cool Edit but it wouldn't surprise me it all if it does produce better results as the parent claims.
Perhaps the technique will be improved, but the article should have been a bit more honest about the current state of the technology - its claimed results really don't match what you hear when you listen to the wavs. Reminds me of some wavs Microsoft supplied demonstrating the superiority of wma to some other format. Despite being samples picked by Microsoft to suite wma, the wma's sounded much _worse_ than the other format's. But their marketing obviously realised the simple fact that 99% of the readers wouldn't bother listening to the samples, but just assume that since the samples were there, the corresponding write-up must be credible.
Re:mod parent up (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:mod parent up (Score:2)
I read the paper published by the researchers and it contained this, which seems to be saying they don't know the cause of the 'lame pulsing sound':
A background continuous noise (hiss) is present in the optical sample. The hiss is also slightly modulated by a signal at about 4 Hz. The origin of this is not completely known but it may be related to the particular differentiation algorithm, imaging fluctuations in the edge finding p
link to the paper (Score:2)
http://www-cdf.lbl.gov/%7Eav/
Re:mod parent up (Score:2)
You've probably got experience dealing with these old recordings and I don't. But, I've got a couple questions. Would they have made the master on a wax cylinder at that time? And wouldn't it show up as a low-frequency rumbling instead of a high-frequency hiss?
Digital Needle (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Digital Needle (Score:2)
The virtual gramophone is an awesome project and I hope someone with the requisite skills will pick it up and do something with it. There's a pile of 78's in the bottom of my grandma's victrola that I'd love to clean up nondestructively.
Since all this stuff is out of copyright, there should be no problem sharing it for everyone to enjoy. Consider two records of the same music, damaged and scratched in different areas
Same Methods? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Same Methods? (Score:3, Funny)
interestingly (Score:4, Interesting)
There is the laser record player [elpj.com].
The cost is only $10k, plus $500 for a record cleaner.
Anybody in slashdot land know of a cheaper version that us mere mortals might buy?
Scanning records (Score:4, Interesting)
It's way too long ago to even thing of finding a link, but if anyone has it feel free to post it.
big news (Score:5, Informative)
They also emphasized about how they wanted digital version of the original recording, with all of the noise, clicks, and dropouts intact. After all, they are digitally archiving what they have, not restoring it.
One of the biggest finds was an original recording of "This Land is Your Land" by Woody Guthrie with the following stanza intact:
Was a big high wall there that tried to stop me,
Was a great big sign that said, "Private Property,"
But on the other side, it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.
I believe it's a one-of-a-kind and it was found on accident, as the archives literally have dozens of different "This Land is Your Land" recordings and it had previously been digitized before this version was found.
Re:big news (Score:3, Interesting)
Woody Guthrie - This Land Is Your Land [edu-cyberpg.com]
Re:big news (Score:3, Informative)
It's not a one of a kind, in the sense that the folk music community has known all along about Woody's alternative lyrics to the song. In fact Woody wrote several additional verses, as this link [geocities.com] shows. Considering the state of politics back in the 1950's and 1960's, it's not surprising that these lyrics were not widely published (or performed). In fact, I know of some musicians in my own community today who refuse to sing these verses because of concern that they would offend some members of the audienc
Re:big news (Score:2)
A filtered version, and what RIAA really means. (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.enderboi.com/Ender_Filtered.mp3
Obviously this was a quick job, as the sample was too short to come up with a decent noise profile.
And to answer a quick question about the presence of RIAA in the filename.. Whilst conspiracy theories are fun here at
I believe that 'RIAA' was a type of amplification method in old vaccum tube kits. I assume the RIAA in the filename is implying it was normalised based on the RIAA response curve.
Disclaimer: I'm not old enough to know what I'm talking about. I'm sure there are some old-timer audiophiles around here that know the details tho
Th eRIAA response (Score:2, Informative)
Basically, it involves the master being equalised with the bass rolled-off by (up to 20dB) and the treble boosted by a similar amount. On playback, the 'phono' input on your amplifier ampplies inverse EQ to re-create the original signal.
The reasons are two-fold:
The initial treble emphasis followed by roll-off reduces the contribution of record surface noise from the mechanical transcribing.
The bass rolloff means that the excurions required by th
Star Trek (Score:3, Funny)
Good Night Irene thru the intercom.
Now that's TV!
Re:Star Trek (Score:3, Informative)
A little info re: that LoC collection (Score:5, Informative)
There are some well-known LoC recordings that have gained some fame, including a series of recordings by Leadbelly and an awesome set of music and reminiscences by Jelly Roll Morton. However, both those sets were recorded "in studio" and are not field recordings. They are magnificent though.
Btw, I should make special mention of the Lomax family. Father John and son Alan were responsible for some remarkable recordings, including the work by Leadbelly and Jelly Roll. Alan also made the earliest recordings of Muddy Waters and some excellent recordings of Son House while working for the LoC. John was something of a Texas cracker (check out his dialog with Willie McTell on the LoC recordings), but he was a brave man going into some of the places he visited. He also wrote a very weird account of his acquaintance with Leadbelly in a book he wrote about the great self-proclaimed King of the 12-string Guitar..
Some of the catalog has been available to the public for quite a while, but I doubt that catalog has listed anything close to the amount of material the LoC must have in their vaults. Those acetate masters won't last forever, and I'm glad to learn that an attempt will be made to save those recordings.
Btw, I doubt copyright is an issue with this material. Unless I'm mistaken I believe all of it is in the public domain now. Perhaps someone else can clarify ?
No recent US administration would dream of doing such a project now. They definitely would *not* want to do it to know the collective mind of the people...
Re:A little info re: that LoC collection (Score:2)
Re: the Lomaxes: I don't know much more about them beyond the Leadbelly and LoC connections. Amazon lists a selection of books by or about John and Alan.
This is important work (Score:4, Informative)
I am a big fan of early blues. My favourites are Leadbelly, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Robert Jordan
Indecently, Robert Jordan is the guy who supposedly sold his soul to the devil one night at the crossroads in exchange for his guitar playing skills. This story gave rise to the whole blues, rock etc. comes from the devil story.
You can find a lot of their music on p2p networks - it's worth checking out. You'll be surprised how many songs you recognise - they have been copied and covered so many times.
Re:This is important work (Score:3, Informative)
Robert Johnson was an innovator of blues guitar and did lots of things like open tunings. Many musicians
Re:This is important work (Score:2)
Johnson not Jordon (Score:2)
Only Step One (Score:3, Informative)
A complete restoration would compensate for the transfer functions of the microphone and other recording equipment used for the particular recording. Need to archive and preserve all the recording equipment also!
Re:Only Step One: MOD UP! (Score:2)
In the 1970s someone published a series of small paperbacks about interesting aspects of blues history. The series included John Fahey's graduate thesis on the music of Charley Patton. It also included a volume focused on the blues labels, and how and by whom the material was collected, recorded, and distributed. Interesting history...
CBC (Canada) has a smilar restoration project (Score:3, Interesting)
ttyl
Farrell McGovern
For those who can't get through to the samples... (Score:4, Funny)
Undulating noise in result (Score:2, Interesting)
But I am curious -- there is a 4-5Hz broadband undulation in the result signal which does not, but I could be mistaken, sound like motor noise from the original disc recording. The undulating noise sounds like a digital artfact. Perhaps this noise relates to the digital filters used to process the images?
Spectral revelations about the result sound (Score:5, Informative)
Result sound viewed with -42 threshold [princeton.edu]
Result sound viewed with -60 threshold [princeton.edu]
Result sound viewed with -42 threshold [princeton.edu]
And the following image is a spectrogram of the original "Goodbye Irene" file:
Original sound viewed with -42 threshold [princeton.edu]
Each of these spectrograms was computed using 1024 point Discrete Fourier Transforms with a factor of 8 overlap. The dimensions of the images are unlabeled, but provide a frequency range of 0Hz - 22050Hz along the vertical axis, and approximately 344 horizontal pixels represent one second of time. Darkness represents the magnitude of the signal at a particular measured frequency.
With significant interest, I can perhaps label these axes for easier reading. Simply keep in mind that the top of the vertical dimension represents 22050 Hz.
Given the sound quality of the result sound provided, utilizing 16-bit quantization with a sampling rate of 44.1Khz is more than adequate. But while the result is promising, it is hardly archival quality in my opinion, due to the obvious digital artifacts.
The dynamic range of this particular music is confined by musical convention and the microphone technology available for the recording. The theoretical 96dB of dynamic range availed by 16-bit quantization is more than sufficient to represent the dynamic range of this particular music (and many others) recorded with similarly early microphony and disc-cutting technology.
The frequency range of the music does not appear (in this result mind you) to have significant musical information above an approximate (but conservative) 11000 Hz. The frequency range availed by a sampling frequency of 44.1 KHz is more than adequate to quite faithfully represent this music. To significantly reduce the broadband pops and crackles in the recording, high frequency information is lost. Further, the recording technology available at the time probably could not accurately transduce such frequencies from the original performance either.
The spectrogram reveals that the undulating noise in the result sound occurs at a nearly precise 5Hz. It also reveals that this "noise" is obviously an artifact of the restoration process; it really isn't noise, but the result of a time-varying filter which cuts gaussian lobes into the spectrum of the music from approximately 4000Hz to 9200Hz in a manner somewhat a kin to a wah wah pedal. The lobes can be seen clearly in all of the spectrograms I provided, but they appear more stark as the peak threshold of the spectral plots decrease. Their duration is quite close to .05 seconds.
In my opinion, archives should preserve physical recording media as long as possible to allow transduction techniques to mature. I find the 5Hz filtering artifact present in this result to make the current state of this particular optical transduction process unacceptable for archiving. It would be a shame to replace physical media with music colored with such avoidable artifacts. I am sure that such artifacts can be alleviated and that optical scanning of phonograph records (discs and cylinders) has great promise as a transduction technique.
pictures of records. (Score:5, Insightful)
How come it seems that no one is mentioning that they are mapping the surfaces of these records? That's the interesting part. That's why they are able to extract the audio from these records. They are essentially "taking photographs" of records and using a software program to simulate a needle traveling through the grooves. Removing pops and hisses is just run of the mill filtering (be it old high-pass, low-pass or newer wavelet techniques). This could be a neat new thing for record junkies to keep from futzing up their old records. Make a 3d model of the record then simulate it playing in a virtual record player.
Isn't that the amazingly cool part??
Do this yourself for only $10k (Score:2, Informative)
Weavers, not Leadbelly! (Score:2)
As mentioned in the press release, the clip is from the Weavers 1950 recording.
Re:Why WAV? (Score:5, Insightful)
What's better than an uncompressed format for this sort of archival work? I don't think there was any mention of the sample rate in the article, but it seems to me that they could make it as high as they want to, given that they are generating it from a model of an analogue system.
Obviously they are limited by the resolution of their scans, and the quality of their model, but it seems from the story that they have got both right already.
Re:Why WAV? (Score:2)
If there will be compression, let it be on the hardware storage level and not the file level.
Re:Why WAV? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why WAV? (Score:2)
You NEVER compress your archival files if you're serious about it.