Hi Bernie--
Interesting project. I bet it would be very expensive to explore the
"no-needle" scan methods. Its been a couple of years since this
(pdf) report: http://tinyurl.com/b4ulam but I've heard a related
process is now quite effective with optical sound on paper. Makes
sense to suppress the mechanical weaknesses/patterns working from
digital scans and avoid recreating them with needle playback. Then
you can go after it with developments in audio signal noise
reduction! :-) Rob D.
=3D =3D =3D
At 7:01 AM -0800 3/1/09, Bernie Krause wrote:
>In the old transitional days, when analog tape was still the
>preference, and adaptive-predictive-deconvolution systems first
>emerged (digital systems in the early 80s) you could really hear the
>artifacts, and the result was unimpressive when compared to the cost.
>And I agree, to some extent the artifacts are still present. But when
>trying to distinguish detail inherent in language from whatever
>source, human or non-human, and where subtleties are important in
>decryption - especially with extremes like old wax cylinders - this is
>just another tool. The example I showed was where the noise was gone.
>Different levels of noise reduction left more of the original context
>intact.
>
>For the linguistic anthropologists at the Lowie Museum in Berkeley,
>where the Ishi archive is stored, and where the focus is on content
>and language recovery rather than audio fidelity, this type of
>approach means a great deal. If more than very subtly applied, it
>would certainly destroy all of the spatial imaging of an otherwise
>well-recorded stereo or MS recording not to mention the inherent
>details of the biophony.
>
>Noise deconvolution has a way to go but it's coming along in pretty
>amazing ways. Eventually, it may even work for continuously variable
>noise like the Doppler shift and audio levels of a jet flying overhead
>ruining an otherwise perfect natural audio clip.
>
>Bernie
>
>On Feb 28, 2009, at 11:13 PM, Dan Dugan wrote:
>
>> Bernie, you wrote,
>>
>> > The audio clip contains a 30 second example of the original
>> > wax cylinder recording followed by the same clip cleaned up.
>> > Considering the quality of the original very few artifacts remain
>> when
>> > compared with other options.
>>
>> But all the naturalness is gone too, replaced by a strange robot-like
>> quality. I've done quite a bit of noise reduction work, and I often
>> hate myself in the morning. I get tuned into the noise, and it seems
>> great to get rid of it, but later I realize that the cost was too
>> great.
>>
>> -Dan Dugan
>>
>>
>
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