Re-mastering / Repairing an old recording

[connloyalist]

Hi All,

First post, so please be gentle Sorry, this is a long one.

This requires a bit of background info.

Not too long ago a long lost recording of the community (wind) band I am a member of turned up. This recording was made in 1988 in the Royal Conservatory in The Hague as a student project and the band was playing very well that day. The student was a former member. I found him and he has given me some details of the way things were setup (I remember being there, but not the details of the setup). He says most likely two B&K microphones in an AB setup behind and above the conductor.

The recording turned up on a 10" reel to reel tape. We suspect it is a copy of the master. I transferred the tape to my computer using an Akai GX-630DB tape deck.

Here is the problem, which I suspect occurred during the recording session. Perhaps an equipment problem?

- The first 8 tracks have too much bass and weak highs.
- On the last 6 tracks the left channel has much better highs. Sounds fine. The right channel however has weak highs similar to the first 8 tracks.

The highs start thinning out after around 3000 Hz. and are down to almost nothing above 6000-8000 Hz. The result is that on the last 6 tracks the drums and especially the cymbals etc., which were in the center, sound like they are on the left.

On the first 8 tracks there isn't that much that can be done except perhaps some gentle EQ reducing the low end and boosting the high end.

On the last 6 tracks I am wondering what I should:
1) Leave it as is and accept the flaws.
2) Same gentle EQ'ing as the first 8 tracks.
3) Strongly boost the highs in the right channel. This helps a bit but isn't ideal of course.
4) Sum to mono and recreate stereo artificially by using mono to stereo reverb.
5) Discard the right channel, use the left channel for both and recreate stereo artificially by using mono to stereo reverb.

Any suggestions?

Regards, C.

 

[witzendoz]

After making a work copy of the original digital recording, I would make it sound the best you can.

On the track with too much bass, you may find that when you fix the low end and adjust the volume that the highs start to come out OK.

I would try the same thing on the right channel of the last 6 songs. You may find that once the bass has been cut that the highs start to appear.

If the left channel has captured the whole performance (instruments) maybe discard the right channel if nothing sounds right. I would however then leave it centred mono.

Alan.

 

[Pinky]

I recall this phenomenon occurring when the tape wouldn't pass through the heads on the reel to reel properly. Bummer.

Sounds like you already know what needs to be done and realize the tediousness involved. That's just how it is trying to bring things to life. Thankfully in digital there's the undo button, so if one approach doesn't work you can try something else.

Before doing any of the fine tuning you may want to use a noise reduction app and get rid of the hiss that most tapes have. That will start you off with the cleanest noise floor you can get before raising and reducing frequencies.

 

[fgonza2]

sounds like the reeel to reel machine that you used for transferring the tape may not have been calibrated. Or the worst case, the original recording was made in an out of calibration machine.