Tom --

Is the "warble" directly because of "nip and tuck" or do you think it's
exacerbated by the use of digital tools?

Were these digital tools commonly available around '84?

I'm thinking the best description in the discography I could use might be
"artifacts from noise reduction processing".  Some releases are worse than
others - this is one of the more annoying examples.

Randy


On Tue, Jun 3, 2014 at 7:33 AM, Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> It sounds like a combination of two bad practices -- overuse of digital
> "tools" which cause artifacts, and also bad nip and tuck splicing to remove
> bad ticks. I doubt that's a direct transfer to master of the disk. I bet
> the disk was dubbed to tape at some pre-digital time, the old nip and tuck
> method was employed, and then when it was time to remaster for CD, someone
> decided to over-use the newest "tools." The company that bought Goldin's
> retail operation, Radio Spirits, is notorious for terrible digital
> processing. The only people I know who consistently make good audio from
> OTR transcriptions are Art Shifrin in Queens and a guy last name Ellis who
> sells MP3 and WAV downloads out of Virginia.
>
> Speaking of Vic Damone, here's a dub of scatchy Mercury 78 promoting
> Damone's first 78 album:
> https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/55748706/Mercury_Promo%
> 20-%20Virgil_Trucks.mp3
> some context: Jackie Smith was Mercury's pop promotions person out of
> Chicago. She ended up being a pioneering businesswoman in the midwest.
> Virgil "Fireball" Trucks pitched for the Detroit Tigers and later for the
> Washington Senators. He and Smith must have worked together during WWII.
> "Merc" was a smiley-faced cartoon "trademark" for the label, briefly
> replacing the stern-faced Mercury romanesque messenger head. It's clear
> that a record company wanting to take itself seriously would do away with
> "Merc" in its promotions, as Irving Green & Co quickly did. The other side
> of the 78 is a Vic Damone side from that album. I'm not sure if the record
> was meant to be played in stores or on-air. I didn't use anything to clean
> up the sound, so it's noisy. If someone wants to play with digi-tools on
> it, ping me offlist and I'll send you WAV.
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Randy A. Riddle" <
> [log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2014 6:26 AM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Odd warble
>
>
>
>  Here's a sample that includes some "warbles".  It's a 14 mb .wav file that
>> was ripped directly from the cd "Pop Singers on the Air!".
>>
>> The cd was issued in 1984, so this would have been some kind of technology
>> available during that time.  My guess is that it was some kind of hardware
>> box that did click removal that was adjustable - in the sample, you hear
>> the "warble" in addition to some broader surface noise on the original
>> transcription.  Again, you can hear the same "warbles" on both the lp and
>> cd versions of some of the Radiola releases, so it's in the master tape
>> and
>> not an artifact of the media.
>>
>> https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/54210054/warble-sample-radiola.wav
>>
>> Randy
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 3, 2014 at 12:52 AM, Paul Stamler <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>  On 6/2/2014 8:03 PM, Ellis Burman wrote:
>>>
>>>  Hi Randy.  Can you make short mp3 of just that section?  Maybe 10
>>>> seconds
>>>> or so?  Then you could use a higher bit rate, and hopefully preserve it
>>>> better.  If you make the section short enough, you can even send it as
>>>> an
>>>> uncompressed WAV.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Or a .flac file.
>>>
>>> Peace,
>>> Paul
>>>
>>>
>>
>>