Re: [ARSCLIST] Certification

[George Brock-Nannestad <pattac@xxxxxxxx>]

From: Patent Tactics, George Brock-Nannestad

this is in relation to the input by Richard Warren, that I shall comment in
insert style, and end with some general comments of my own.


>
> "Do no harm" or "Do minimal harm" is a good first rule.
>
> The first level of proficiency suggested seems by far the most important:
> transcription, the aim of which some of us would probably agree is to capture
> the maximum possible of the signal from the original, in analogue, digital, or
> some other format (perhaps yet to be developed). That's audio preservation.

----- I would rather have "signal preservation", because the signal we can
pick off a record contains much more than audio. The non-audio part we may
want to discard, but remember that then also goes noise "fingerprints" that
actually constitute authenticity clues. When the totality of signal has been
preserved, then comes the skill (which will increase with time in some
directions and decrease in others (as elements get forgotten)) to get the
audio that we want for our purpose.

>
> ANYTHING done after that stage must be defined as editing. None of the
> processes mentioned can be called "restoration" unless those attributes  of
> the original performance can be fully and provably documented (that's
> difficult if not impossible to do, human audio memory being a fleeting quality
> -- people forget sonic features, even simple ones, very rapidly); and even the
> best recording engineers haven't time to document all attributes of what they
> are recording. In most cases with which I'm familiar, especially in commercial
> recording, documentation of what has been recorded has been minimal and
> usually relates to the status and settings of the equipment used.

----- I once pointed out that not even the absolute sound level during the
performance in front of the microphone is documented. Here, paradoxically, we
may fare better with acoustic recording, provided the orignal recording
equipment has been preserved, because there was no gain riding.

>
> Denoising nearly always changes one or more qualities of the recorded
> sound, at least to a slight extent.

----- I totally agree, but there has since the advent of the 16 bit CD been a
conditioning of people's ears not to tolerate noise. If we could only educate
them to accept the noise as authentic space.

>
> Repitching is fine if one can do it, but how can one learn how an original was
> pitched ?  Approximation is probably the best that can be expected in most
> cases, especially those involving speech; and one should certainly document
> what has been done in processing and the basis for doing it.

----- In the IASA Guidelines (almost available, I think) relating to transfer
to digital that I have contributed to in some way, we continuously stress the
need for documentation.

>
> The working lives of many of us would be much simpler if there were some
> way to learn what the original form of a signal was, but unfortunately that is
> usually impossible, even in what may seem to be the most obvious cases. There
> are hundreds of reasons for and examples of this.

----- in my experience it requires listening to as much live music as
possible

>
> It should be unnecessary to comment on "improvement" on the original;
> anyone who has purchased reissues of recordings has heard both reasonable and
> horrible results of such work.

----- I collect horrible results as "memento mori"s. I have always found that
the best way to learn about the manipulations and their influence on the
audio is to listen analytically above 2kHz, i.e. using a high pass filter.
Later, you can recognize the symptoms even during normal listening (if
listening to such recordings is normal at all).

>
> No one who wants to call him or herself a sound archivist should be
> concerned about more than 1) achieving the best possible transcriptions of
> originals, 2) the suggesting of possible approximate pitch corrections, and 3)
> such noise reduction as does not cause significant changes to the sound.
> Performing adjustments of the types in items 2 and 3 in that list should apply
> to those who need to prepare copies of these transcriptions for reference
> purposes (or at customers' requests for commercial purposes, such as
> "pleasing" the listeners).
>
> Any work beyond item 1 in the previous paragraph is editing, is likely to be
> at least partly subjective, and should be, except for instances of 2 & 3,
> outside the scope of work of an audio archivist; and all of these ideas except
> for transcription follow from the original principle of doing minimal harm.
>

----- I am in agreement. However, I see more and more that archives lack the
time to care for 2) and 3), and also know less and less about the sources.
Modern sound recording proficiency is not necessarily the best basis for
archive work.

At IASA in Oslo this year I shall give a paper on "Who cares about the
sound?", and it relates to just this problem. Over the years (I have been in
contact with international archiving and private collections for 23 years!) I
have come to realize that you must not expect knowledge about the various
sources for audio and how they were recorded, and hence how they could most
advantageously be used today, in archives. It is basically the responsibility
of the researcher, and he or she must specify what he or she wants from the
archive. Naturally, the distribution formats made available by archives will
act as an index to the content of the original recording, but if you want a
particular emphasis, you must specify it yourself as a researcher, perhaps
even pay for it. Unfortunately, a lot of research is based on commercial
reissues, far from our lofty ideals.

As to Certification: this is used in many fields, guaranteeing a minimum
ability to perform a service or job. However for at least 30 years it will be
inefficient, because the certifying body is created by the group of people
that will become certified, and no-one would be willing to subject themselves
to tests. So we will have many certified persons who are so due to the
"Grandfather Clause", and that is no guarantee. Only the young would be
forced to take the tests.

When for seven years I was responsible for the tuition of
conservation/restoration of AV media at the School of Conservation in
Copenhagen, among the practical subjects I taught work under the microscope
on shellac records, of which I had organised a good supply. That was not
because I expected my graduates to fiddle with filling voids and needle digs,
recutting grooves, flattening shellac records, cleaning shellac records in
their professional life, but because it taught them about the smallness of
the things and their already good manipulative skills (such skills were a
requirement before entry in the School) were honed to work at 40x
magnification. They were even taught how to prepare their own diminutive
tools, including hardening, tempering, and grinding to the right shape under
the microscope. They were shown and allowed to handle all possible recording
media, although they only worked on a few. The curriculum has since been
modernized, and they now know more about digital editing and less about the
materiality.

I have strayed into responses to other comments - no apologies, though!

Kind regards,

George