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 Kyma Forum
 Confabulation
 About Duetsche Grammaphon?
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| Author | Topic: About Duetsche Grammaphon? |
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David McClain Member |
posted 11 May 2001 03:34
 
I have been banging my head for a week now trying to get rid of annoying buzzy, fuzzy, sound in a CD recording of a Schumann piano concerto. I finally took off all my hearing assistance and it is still there! So it isn't the Kyma! It has to be some junk at frequencies below 2 KHz or else I wouldn't be able to hear it without assistance. I finally checked the album notes for details about the recording. The only information is that it was first recorded in 1989 in Berlin, and pressed to CD in 1990. Anyone know about how DG recorded these kinds of things back then? I used a parametric EQ to try to isolate the buzz -- around 1800 Hz but very broad. The buzz is in the piano notes. It gets worse during the louder portions. It almost sounds like they might have been overdriving the mics or else they had bad saturation on the tape? I think I should just throw the CD onto the historical heap... - DM [This message has been edited by David McClain (edited 11 May 2001).] IP: Logged |
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John Dunn Member |
posted 11 May 2001 11:06
Sound Forge, from Sonic Foundry, has a first rate noise reduction program that might work on this. I used it recently on the recording that I had asked about the RIAA filter for. ("Mehitabel & Archie" - an, old, very noisy and very cherished recording of my wife's.) The Vinyl Restore process uses several algorithms, and as you might expect it takes quite a while to run, but the results are amazing. The particular algorithm you probably would be most interested in will do an analysis (I think FFT, or FFT-like) of a quiet passage that has the noise, then subtract it out from the entire recording. I'm not sure, but I think it is offered as a free-for-a-few-days trial. URL is: http://www.sonicfoundry.com IP: Logged |
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David McClain Member |
posted 11 May 2001 12:09
But John, it does not appear to be noise, per se. Rather I hear it on each individual piano note, getting worse as the notes are struck harder. The quiet portions have no noticeable noise artifacts. Doesn't noise removal behave at constant level throughout the entire sound being cleaned? What kind of noise is dependent on sound volume? (Perhaps in 1989 they had to record on tape and the drove it too hard? The sound is rather like a "fuzz box" that rockers like to use on guitars.) ...you know -- maybe I should shut up and go try your idea out anyway! I'll let you know if it works! - DM IP: Logged |
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John Dunn Member |
posted 11 May 2001 13:02
Ah, I misunderstood - I thought you meant it was constant, but louder on the loud parts. You are quite right, the subtraction algorithm I mentioned does depend on a constant sound. Works great for air conditioning noise and 60 cycle hum, but I doubt it would help your recording. Although if it turns out to be a free download, you might enjoy playing around with it - it's a pretty sophisticated set of NR tools. As for where the distortion is coming from, I doubt very much it was in the original recording because DGG wouldn't release a recording with microphone clipping. Just wouldn't happen. My guess is this record has been played with a chipped needle, and it did a retrofit cutting of the vinyl for you to give it that post modern rock edge. If this is the case, you may be able to do some smoothing on it - you are the man with the magic touch with Kyma filter algorithms - but I doubt if you will be able to restore it completely. IP: Logged |
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John Dunn Member |
posted 11 May 2001 13:05
Woops. I just noticed you said it was a CD. Probably not a chipped laser beam problem, so scratch that last post. IP: Logged |
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pete Member |
posted 11 May 2001 13:08
Hay David This reminds me of a session I did many years ago where I was playing a grand piano. It sounded fine when you listened live but as soon as we heard it in the control room it buzzed like crazy. It was only then that we noticed the macanical buzz coming from the piano itself in the studio . It seemed that the mic was homing in on the noise no matter where we put it ,but our ears were seperating the buzz sound (sort of localizing it)from the rest of the piano when we were listening to it live. As the true profesionals that we were, the engineer conviced us that if we desided to ignore it ,then by the time it came to mix down with all the overdubs and effects, it would become un-noticeable. How wrong we were !! It seemed to sound like a destortion on everything. I've since lost the master tape and we never heard the buzz since. I don't think this will help you in any way at all ,exept to remember that all engineers are human. regards Pete IP: Logged |
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David McClain Member |
posted 11 May 2001 13:13
Hey thanks guys! Pete, you sound like you had the exact experience I am now hearing... I never thought about the virtues of spatialization in quite that way. But I can see now from your description how it would have happened. I guess most people hear what was intended and don't generally listen so critically. At first I thought it had to be something I was doing to the sound but all my other piano stuff sounded just fine. Then after turning off all the effects processing and still hearing the buzz, I realized it had to be in the recording itself. Some of my effects tend to emphasize it a bit making for bad listening. Thanks guys! - DM IP: Logged |
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pete Member |
posted 11 May 2001 14:05
Also as you say you can listen to something for years and not hear the blemish , but as soon as someone or somthing points it out , you can't not hear the blemish from then on. IP: Logged |
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