Re: [ARSCLIST] Disaster recovery- LPs

[Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

By the way, regarding Karl's first point about removing ticks and pops -- 
absolutely true. For my personal listening, I don't even bother with
anything beyond moderately damaged LPs. My personal bugaboo is groove
distortion caused by tracking with a dull or too heavy needle (ie a
drop-and-drag record changer of yore). I don't even bother with those,
because they cannot be made to sound good. Teeth-rattling distortion is not
fixable. Ticks and pops are another story. I believe the first and foremost
line of defense is proper cleaning of the disc. Then, after the transfer, I
go in and manually fix the worst pops and ticks. I can't afford SADIE and
all the plug-in digi-filters I've experimented with (admittedly not the
expensive ones) take out too much content for my liking. In Soundforge, I
use the pencil tool to simply rewrite the pops and ticks as part of the
intended waveform (I have other tricks but those are my secret sauce).
People with very critical ears have liked the results. I don't do this
except for the big problems. A little surface noise and occasional pop/tick
is a fact of life with LPs and if the content is compelling, even a careful
listener will not be bothered by it (if the content's not that compelling,
why bother with the PITA factor involved anyway?).

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Karl Miller" <lyaa071@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, September 30, 2005 9:18 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Disaster recovery- LPs


> On Fri, 30 Sep 2005, Tom Fine wrote:
>
> > One final thought. People who are used to CD's lack of background noise
and
> > are critical listeners who are bothered by things like rumble, ticks and
> > pops to the point of not enjoying the content will NEVER like ANY LP, so
> > it's a fool's errand to try and "convert" them. I personally do not like
LPs
> > very much but a lot of content I like was never released on CD's or was
so
> > poorly remastered that the LP sounds better, warts and all.
>
> To which I would add, in my limited experience, taking the noise (clicks
> et al) from an LP can sometimes be quite a challenge. However, once done,
> I find there can be some wonderful sound in those grooves. I am reminded
> of a demo I did in one of my classes. We listened to the opening of the
> Bernstein Kaddish (Columbia LP). The work begins with the chorus singing
> pianissimo. As we removed the clicks, crackles, and then some of the hiss,
> we could actually hear the entrance of the chorus at the beginning.
>
> Speaking of LPs that have never made it to CD, does anyone know if the
> original tapes for the MGM Classical issues survive...and/or a contact?
>
> Karl