Audio Restoration Project from old 33 record

Late last year we were contacted by a family in Victoria that had come across an old record that had been recorded for a radio station that contained an interview with the lady's father. 

The question was could we tranfer it to a CD or digital format so that the family could listen to it?

Of course that opens up a lot of questions,

What "type" of record was it? a 45, 33, 78 or LP for example.

How old? That might give us some idea of playability

and how well had it been stored and it's physical condition. So we could get an idea of how much time we would have to spend taking out pops, clicks crackles and other noises. 

After assuring the client we could handle their precious recording appropriaely it was packed up securely and sent to us for examination. 

Here's what we found when the packaging was opened up:

33 Record from 1958We quickly realised that this needed to be transferred as soon as possible as the surface was peeling off the aluminium base. While the big chunks that were missing were generally not part of the recording the very begining and end were in very poor shape. We also realised that we'd be lucky to get much more than one pass of each side before the disc would become more unplayable.

Very carefully the initial transfer was done and here's part of the conversation as it came off this 55 year old record:

 Click to play original record sample:  

You'll notice that the original volume is quite low and that there are a number of problems.

Lots of surface noise, small crackles and interspersed with many large clicks. Background noise due to the older recording format and there were issues where the record had to be stopped and restarted to get the information off because the surface was damaged in many places and wouldnt play all the way through.

After many different processes to reduce the problems and time taken to edit all of the small audio files together the end result is now much better and the family has been able to hear an important part of their history.

Click here to hear part of the restored audio:  

A lot of surface noise has now been reduced, the small & large pops and crackles have virtually been eliminated and the rumble caused by the warped record has been reduced. This also means you'll notice that it's possible to increase the overall volume significantly.   

If you have some family audio sitting unplayed in the corner of the lounge room, give us a call on 08 9375 3902 so that you can enjoy it too.