Date:         Mon, 13 Oct 2003 11:18:51 -0700
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Sender:       Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
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From:         Gary Higgins <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:      Re: seeking advice
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I'm new to the list also, but over the last 18 years, I have transferred and
archived over 12,000 spoken word recordings from reel and cassette. My
procedure has been to run the signal through outboard processing equipment
onto DAT as the first step, and then when we are ready to edit the program,
it is loaded onto Macs and edited with Sonic Solutions.

My first suggestion is a good noise filter, and one of the better filters I
have found at a reasonable price is the Burwen DNF1201A. Cedar probably
makes one of the better pieces of equipment for filtering hiss, but can be
quite expensive compared to the Burwen. Burwen at some point was bought out
by KLH and that specific piece of equipment is no longer made but can
occasionally be purchased used. If you can find one, pick it up. It's very
easy to use and is one of the better noise filters for voice because most
filters gate the noise which doesn't really work well for spoken material.
The Burwen allows you to actually filter as much or as little of the hiss as
necessary. My other suggestions are just to go with good quality parametric
(notch) and graphic equalizers, a good compressor, and maybe a de-esser to
help with sibilants.

We are at the point now where we are looking to copy everything that we have
transferred so far onto the most current and reliable storage media so our
audio staff is researching this: hard drive? DVD? Or ??? Any suggestions
would be greatly appreciated.

Gary Higgins
The Living Word
North Hollywood, CA


-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of sam stephenson
Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2003 12:09 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [ARSCLIST] seeking advice

Greetings ARSCList:

I'm new to the list and I'm writing for advice on our collection of
recorded sound.  We have a collection of 1600 7" open reel tapes.  418 of
the reels, we now know, contain about 1000 hours of jazz music and spoken
word dialogues made in a NYC loft building 1957 to 1964.  We have
outsourced our transfer work to make preservation and access copies (reels
and CD-R), and we are very pleased with the quality of the work so far.
Per preservation guidelines, everything is being transferred flat, without
any added filtering or e.q.  Eventually, we will clean up all the sound,
especially the valuable music.  But the spoken word dialogues need
cleaning up now so we can better make out voices and transcribe what's
being said, which helps us identify content.

We have a modest budget for software to help clean up the sound.  It's
been recommended that we buy WaveLab to do this, but I'm not sure we need
something that sophisticated in the short run.  None of us are engineers
or technicians and we won't be doing any real restoration work until all
content is identified.  Hearing spoken words more clearly would be very
helpful.  We need something that is user-friendly and relatively
affordable and that does not require a steep learning curve.  I'd like
your thoughts and opinions for which software programs you might recommend
for this purpose.  Is a Mac any better or easier to use for digital audio
work than a PC?

Many thanks in advance.

Sam Stephenson
Center for Documentary Studies
Duke University
1317 W. Pettigrew St.
Durham, N.C. 27705
(919) 660-3608
(919) 681-7600 fax
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