Editing Voice / The Shadow
Editing Voice / The Shadow
I downloaded, from the Internet Archive site, episodes of old time radio shows. I realize that some of these files are poor because of the lack of quality in capturing, but they should be better, in my opinion, than what they are. If anyone can go to this site and download this episode...it is League Of Terror from 1938. I'm specifying because it gives one a better idea if they can try the same thing. I am really a novice at this, but have been playing with the program for years. I have had some luck by boosting the mid range. That is it. Most of these recordings sound a bit like they are out of synch or have some kind of echo. Any help would be appreciated.
Re: Editing Voice / The Shadow
Please provide a link-The internet archives can be difficult to search sometimes if the submitter does use the right keywords-I cannot find the episode you are referring to. I can make a suggestion that may or may not help you. Try using the mono-mix feature in the channel mixer if you are recording in stereo. I have only used this on 78 rpm records. If they are close in phase but not quite right it may help or maybe not. You can try raising the voice frequencies a few octaves - again a suggestion that may or may not help--It works great on 78's.
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DewDude420
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Re: Editing Voice / The Shadow
Here's the thing you need to remember about old time radio shows:
Tape wasn't invented till the 40's and it wasn't till after World War II that the first machines were brought over. Yes, we had wire recordings, but they were only used in mostly telephone applications till the 40's when tape hit the market in which they held a small but very short niche.
For the most part...all we had was electirically transcribing things to disc. The most common method of doing this was to have a radio reciever somewhere within a good reception range connected directly to turntables. This was how WJSV archived it's entire broadcast day. They rarely (for some reason) ever took the audio going in to the transmitter...likely because it had been sent through a lot of circuits to get it up to broadcasting level and they didn't want to muck it up. This is how many of these old radio shows survived...the station transcription discs. Most of the acutal programs were pressed onto shellac or maybe even acetates...and a lot of times they were recorded by the station over telephone lines if they weren't being broadcast when the network was pumping it out.
But either way...let me tell you right now you cannot fix these recordings WITHOUT doing a new transfer...which would be impossible. It's even possible that whoever archived this broadcast back in 1938 messed it up...so there's a chance that we'll never have a good copy to go from. I'll admit, this is sub-par for some old time radio shows I've seen which leads me to believe that whoever submitted these to the archive messed them up. they did state they did noise reduction and normalization....that right there is a good sign of they're likely to be messed up. the entire things sounds muddy and distorted...the only problem is you can't fix that type of distortion to any real degree.
as far as the out of sync part..i've got no idea what you're saying. the echo could be attributed to almost anything. this doesn't sound like it's the best quality source for this show and is likely a best available scenario.
But, really..I'll tell you a couple of my rules of thumb when it comes to audio since you're new. If it's been processed...then do not do anything else do it unless you're 100% you can fix a problem. When it comes to these old radio shows...just don't try...the quality is so sub-par to begin with it's not worth it.
Rec78: if you're getting things slightly out of phase between channels....i'm betting you're using a stereo cartridge with (I hope) a 78rpm stylus on it. You get this because of the nature of radial tonearms. Basically the angle of the pickups skews as it goes across the record. If this is how you're doing it...then you should REALLY invest in a proper 78 cartridge that's mono rather than a stereo cart.
Tape wasn't invented till the 40's and it wasn't till after World War II that the first machines were brought over. Yes, we had wire recordings, but they were only used in mostly telephone applications till the 40's when tape hit the market in which they held a small but very short niche.
For the most part...all we had was electirically transcribing things to disc. The most common method of doing this was to have a radio reciever somewhere within a good reception range connected directly to turntables. This was how WJSV archived it's entire broadcast day. They rarely (for some reason) ever took the audio going in to the transmitter...likely because it had been sent through a lot of circuits to get it up to broadcasting level and they didn't want to muck it up. This is how many of these old radio shows survived...the station transcription discs. Most of the acutal programs were pressed onto shellac or maybe even acetates...and a lot of times they were recorded by the station over telephone lines if they weren't being broadcast when the network was pumping it out.
But either way...let me tell you right now you cannot fix these recordings WITHOUT doing a new transfer...which would be impossible. It's even possible that whoever archived this broadcast back in 1938 messed it up...so there's a chance that we'll never have a good copy to go from. I'll admit, this is sub-par for some old time radio shows I've seen which leads me to believe that whoever submitted these to the archive messed them up. they did state they did noise reduction and normalization....that right there is a good sign of they're likely to be messed up. the entire things sounds muddy and distorted...the only problem is you can't fix that type of distortion to any real degree.
as far as the out of sync part..i've got no idea what you're saying. the echo could be attributed to almost anything. this doesn't sound like it's the best quality source for this show and is likely a best available scenario.
But, really..I'll tell you a couple of my rules of thumb when it comes to audio since you're new. If it's been processed...then do not do anything else do it unless you're 100% you can fix a problem. When it comes to these old radio shows...just don't try...the quality is so sub-par to begin with it's not worth it.
Rec78: if you're getting things slightly out of phase between channels....i'm betting you're using a stereo cartridge with (I hope) a 78rpm stylus on it. You get this because of the nature of radial tonearms. Basically the angle of the pickups skews as it goes across the record. If this is how you're doing it...then you should REALLY invest in a proper 78 cartridge that's mono rather than a stereo cart.