Remastering/restoration showdown!
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- KVRian
- 1219 posts since 12 Aug, 2002
Rob...allow me to briefly crash this thread just to say that your new artwork and photography on your website looks wonderful.
And...of course...the enchanting Elena is looking very, *very* fine herself.

This is a gorgeous portrait of Elena, Rob.

My sincere compliments to you, your superb talent and your lovely missus.
Cheers
And...of course...the enchanting Elena is looking very, *very* fine herself.

This is a gorgeous portrait of Elena, Rob.

My sincere compliments to you, your superb talent and your lovely missus.
Cheers
To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders - Lao Tzu
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 1644 posts since 18 Mar, 2004 from Lincoln, CA
birrman - Your versions sound similar to what RonC came up with. Both of your versions seemed better maximized in terms of overall compression, but the higher frequency sparkles are not there.
jbravo - definitely try emailing it. I still can't download it.
dramsenik - Yours is probably the second best one so far, just a bit more shrill than stian's. I think the bottom on yours is a bit fuller than his though. His has better clarity and less shrillness, but the bottoom was a bit thin.
kilroy - Thanks bro! Hopefully someday in the future, I would be getting the same kind of reaction with my music. . ..
This is turning out to be very interesting, because it demonstrates perfectly how subjective our ears are (and also our skills in mastering). You guys have raised the bar for me--I'm going to have to work harder at getting the best quality out of my restorations, especially these will be permanently archived (all of it are rare and out of print stuff).
jbravo - definitely try emailing it. I still can't download it.
dramsenik - Yours is probably the second best one so far, just a bit more shrill than stian's. I think the bottom on yours is a bit fuller than his though. His has better clarity and less shrillness, but the bottoom was a bit thin.
kilroy - Thanks bro! Hopefully someday in the future, I would be getting the same kind of reaction with my music. . ..
This is turning out to be very interesting, because it demonstrates perfectly how subjective our ears are (and also our skills in mastering). You guys have raised the bar for me--I'm going to have to work harder at getting the best quality out of my restorations, especially these will be permanently archived (all of it are rare and out of print stuff).
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- KVRist
- 350 posts since 7 Sep, 2004 from UK
Hey guys, can you not post mp3's ???
Kind of spoils the whole point of critical listening.
Even a few seconds of wav will be a better option.
Kind of spoils the whole point of critical listening.
Even a few seconds of wav will be a better option.
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- KVRAF
- 2049 posts since 18 Sep, 2003 from Seattle USA
I took a look at the first one - Overture.
It's not very noisy in terms of hiss, and that comes out easy enough, but what the heck do you do for those poor distorted violins that sound like oxide is being scraped across the strings - arf !
It's not very noisy in terms of hiss, and that comes out easy enough, but what the heck do you do for those poor distorted violins that sound like oxide is being scraped across the strings - arf !
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 1644 posts since 18 Mar, 2004 from Lincoln, CA
I dunno. I think since the original was of low quality anyway, as long as the mp3 is not over-compressed, you could easily hear what's been done.Forever Sun wrote:Hey guys, can you not post mp3's ???
Kind of spoils the whole point of critical listening.
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Even a few seconds of wav will be a better option.
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- KVRian
- 901 posts since 1 Dec, 2003
Well, I've learned a few things tonight! 
1: I don't know shit about how to operate Redunoise PROPERLY
2: No matter how much money I throw at monitors, my ROOM sounds like crap!
3: Never listen to a 30 sec. clip for 4 hours trying to tweak it!
I honestly don't know what my clip sounds like. Probably sounds like mud.
I'm burnt!
I wasn't going to post, but what the hell!
There's certainly a fine line between hiss reduction and that "sparkley" high end. My skillz are weak! But then, how do you create "sparkle" when it's not present in the source material?
I suppose high end gear, like Cedar Audio might pull this off. I sure as hell can't!
Anyway, HERE"S my attempt of the Kujaku test, in .wav form until my bandwidth blows out! 5+ megs.
All critique is welcome, no matter how harsh.
Good job to all who have posted! Quite a fun exercize.
Phil
1: I don't know shit about how to operate Redunoise PROPERLY
2: No matter how much money I throw at monitors, my ROOM sounds like crap!
3: Never listen to a 30 sec. clip for 4 hours trying to tweak it!
I honestly don't know what my clip sounds like. Probably sounds like mud.
I'm burnt!
I wasn't going to post, but what the hell!
There's certainly a fine line between hiss reduction and that "sparkley" high end. My skillz are weak! But then, how do you create "sparkle" when it's not present in the source material?
I suppose high end gear, like Cedar Audio might pull this off. I sure as hell can't!
Anyway, HERE"S my attempt of the Kujaku test, in .wav form until my bandwidth blows out! 5+ megs.
All critique is welcome, no matter how harsh.
Good job to all who have posted! Quite a fun exercize.
Phil
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- KVRian
- 901 posts since 1 Dec, 2003
What I kept hearing was an annoying high frequency, somewnere around 9~10K. Am I hearing the bias carrier? It's been long enough that I can't remember bias frequencys.kylen wrote:I took a look at the first one - Overture.
It's not very noisy in terms of hiss, and that comes out easy enough, but what the heck do you do for those poor distorted violins that sound like oxide is being scraped across the strings - arf !
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- KVRAF
- 1743 posts since 3 Dec, 2004
the wow and flutter were driving me bananas on the second example, I tried autotuning to compensate, but to no avail...other than minute editing I cant think of how to beat them.
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- KVRAF
- 2049 posts since 18 Sep, 2003 from Seattle USA
What was bugging me after I peeled away some of the broadband hiss (Rednoise was tuned to the bass and high high mainly) was that I could hear the string section saturating the tape in all it's beautiful glory! I don't know what to to about that - maybe it was better masked - there wasn't a lot of hiss on there anyway I didn't think. I only looked at the first one - Overture - so maybe the high freq thing was on the 2nd piece.Landphil wrote:What I kept hearing was an annoying high frequency, somewnere around 9~10K.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 1644 posts since 18 Mar, 2004 from Lincoln, CA
You know, this has added to my respect for the recording engineers that have remastered old recordings of bygone days--stuff like old Billie Holiday or classical recordings. Some of the ones I've heard in the past, in hindsight, were amazing restorations.
Landphil - I'm downloading yours right now. If your room is giving your trouble, try headphones?
I can't tell you how many hours I've put into this project already--it's been going on for two weeks now, and I've only done 3 cassettes (and I might have to redo them now), and I have about, oh, 87 more to go. . ..
Landphil - I'm downloading yours right now. If your room is giving your trouble, try headphones?
I can't tell you how many hours I've put into this project already--it's been going on for two weeks now, and I've only done 3 cassettes (and I might have to redo them now), and I have about, oh, 87 more to go. . ..
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- KVRian
- 901 posts since 1 Dec, 2003
Don't worry about the restoration part right now. The main thing is to get all the tapes archived before they're no longer playable.Lunatique wrote: I can't tell you how many hours I've put into this project already--it's been going on for two weeks now, and I've only done 3 cassettes (and I might have to redo them now), and I have about, oh, 87 more to go. . ..
I've attempted remastering a few songs several times over the years due to new technology. What matters is I have the original on file to do so.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 1644 posts since 18 Mar, 2004 from Lincoln, CA
Yeah, I've thought about that too, but that would require an insane amount of harddrive space, unless I archive them all as high quality mp3s first. I think that might work since even the best cassettes don't require .wav to capture the full detail--mp3 with VBR set at highest quality should be more than enough. What do you think?Landphil wrote: Don't worry about the restoration part right now. The main thing is to get all the tapes archived before they're no longer playable.
I've attempted remastering a few songs several times over the years due to new technology. What matters is I have the original on file to do so.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 1644 posts since 18 Mar, 2004 from Lincoln, CA
Holy crap how did you get rid of the shrillness? Just by eq'ing? I think you did an amazing job in the regard, except I think in the process you took out the body and made it a bit too thin and airy. If you restore the body (but leave out the shrillness), you'd probably end up with the best remastering done so far.Landphil wrote: Anyway, HERE"S my attempt of the Kujaku test, in .wav form until my bandwidth blows out! 5+ megs.
