GG: Sound restoration, etc.

["John P. Hill" <jphill@frank.mtsu.edu>]

On Mon, 20 Jul 1998, Mary Jo Watts wrote:

> A point that's not really been mentioned in this thread is that
> restorations are always a product of the time-period in which they were
> done-- tastes change and ideas about what restoration should do change
> with fashion.  

Yes!  Another equally valid issue is the fact that the *technology* is
also evolving constantly, but fixed at the moment of the archiving or
remastering.  In the audio world, digital master tape formats have only
been with us for about 20 yrs., so it's complete speculation about how
those tapes will be holding up 50 yrs. from now.  Consider also the fact
that 16-bit, 44.1 kHz. encoding was the highest quality digital format
available for many years, and lots of projects were realized and archived
at that fixed quality level.  Now, in 1998, we have 96kHz. encoding at the
24-bit level and, make no mistake, that's a big jump forward.  Even so,
there are engineers not yet satisfied that digital is really where it
should be yet.  I know many engineers in the pop music field who plan to
do all of their master recordings in analog until they feel that some of
the more hotly disputed issues with digital are worked out.  Some
(including me) also prefer the sound of analog.  Keep in mind that we've
been recording classical music on digital master media now for about 20
yrs., so this is not really a new thing anymore.

> Restoration and translation have a lot in common philosophically.  As
> you tinker with and represent the original, you have to be mindful that
> you have an understanding of what the original author's/artist's/ or
> technician's intentions were but you're not them. You are altering the
> artifact-- be it sound, film, photos,  documents, etc. The general rule
> with most academic archival work is to err on the side of caution and
> the least expense.  

I'm not sure if that aesthetic is the operative one in audio right now.
Many engineers operate along the lines of "we have the technology, so
we're going to use it!".  The  philosophical or critical-listening
issues often take a back seat to the more obvious commerce-oriented
concerns.

 > A couple of film examples:  1) The restored version of Hitchcock's
> _Vertigo_ includes sound-effects that were not present in the original-
> Jimmy Stewart's car has a rumbling digital idle as he stalks Kim Novak
> and footstep sounds have been added to the Mission scene.  The idea
> behind the addition of these (IMHO hideous) effects is that Hitchcock
> would have used stereo (in this way) had it been available to him.  This
> is the aural equivalent of Turner's stupid colorize-the-classics
> campaign of years past. It may be an interesting addition or add
> suspense for a general contemporary audience, but it's not Hitchcock. 
> 2) The restored version of _My Fair Lady_ had several "holes" in the
> print they used as the base for the restoration-- holes that existed
> over the opening credit sequence and over Audrey Hepburn's desperate
> face in a key scene.  The problem was solved by adding digital
> information to the holes-- pixels with shading patterns copied from
> undamaged spots. Just fixing AH's face for a few seconds of screen time
> cost about $10,000 but the restorers decided it was worth the cost.  Who
> knows what wasn't?

These two are very different manipulations, though.  They both qualify as
"post-production", but in the first case there are artistic manipulations
being done that quite drastically change the original piece of work.  I
really find that type of thing to be annoying and innappropriate, because
it's a bit like making an alteration to the  expression on the Mona Lisa.

A GG equivalent?  Well, maybe flying his performance of a piece out to a
PRO TOOLS rack, doing a new tempo map and fixing some wrong notes (there
are some in these recordings) along the way and requantizing a few rubatos
just 'cause we can.  I doubt that GG would have liked this idea, because
it would significantly alter his original conception of the music.

On the other hand, if a talented mastering engineer can lower the noise
floor and improve on the muffled, band-limited spectral balance of an
original GG recording, that seems to be both justified and an improvement
in the sense that more listeners can get closer to the original
perfomance.  Some of us actually *do* listen for sound quality in
*addition* to musical aspects and (depite Bradley's rather good
suggestions) don't really want to use the "next-room filter" to put all
recordings into the lowest common denominator of listening experience.
High fidelity does matter to many serious, trained listeners (I'm not
going to use the term "audiophile").

Another issue would be noises like GG's chair, GG's humming, the
"hiccuping" of CD318 on the Inventions/Sinfonias album, etc.  These are
noises/sounds that *are* related to the music being performed (engineers
might refer to these as *linear* vs. *non-linear* distortions) and they do
add an aspect of uniqueness to the particular session date and recording.

I would make the case that these really should *not* be removed.  Unless
they really obliterate the sound of the instrument in question.  They
are, after all, part of what happened at the session and are driven
directly by the artist's performance.  Analog tape noise isn't.  The
analogy there would be that you have a mirror in need of some cleaning.
But admittedly, some folks like soft-focus lenses...

So where does that leave us?

jh