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| Audio Preservation http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=45969 |
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| Author: | xboxtravis7992 [ Mon Oct 18, 2021 11:29 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Audio Preservation |
One thing I have enjoyed recently, is hitting up stores with used records to find LP's of steam locomotive recordings. I have several steam LP's now, most of them from Howard Fogg; that I have discovered doing this. UtahRails has a great breakdown of some of the railroad audio productions on their website: https://utahrails.net/rr-audio.php#rail ... tutahrails With that said though, with an eye towards preservation; has any efforts been made to capture and preserve the source and master files of these recordings? I know with the peak of railroad LP's being from the 1940's-1970's, that its likely most of the master recordings and dies for the LP presses have been lost to time; but knowing the tenacity of railroad preservation a part of me hopes that somehow some of it has ended up in preserved collections. Secondly, it could help capture a better audio sample off the original field recording as while the LP's I have found are all still in a relatively good state and are listenable, there is still plenty of static, pops and crackles they have accumulated in the five to six decades from their original pressing to the time they landed in my hands. Finally, if the opportunity to obtain publishing rights of any of these old records ever came up; what would be the opinions on a railroad preservation group buying the rights up and then digitizing the audio for distribution? Seeing how finding these records relies on secondhand purchases now, it might help these audio recordings reach wider audiences via copying them into a digital format... but who knows if its even possible to negotiate with the rights holders seeing its likely they are two or three generations removed from the people who actually made the original LP to begin with. |
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| Author: | 70000 [ Tue Oct 19, 2021 2:13 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Audio Preservation |
The people who run "The Trolley Dodger" Website have reissued the entire audio catalogue of the Railroad Record Club which includes steam material as well as traction. You need to scroll well down through their sales page for the info.... https://thetrolleydodger.com/online-store/ I've not got any of their material, but had noticed the expanding range of recordings when looking at their main website |
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| Author: | rem1028 [ Tue Oct 19, 2021 9:19 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Audio Preservation |
I can vouch for the quality of the Trolley Dodger product. The RR Record Club reissues are excellent. I have purchased many of them and have some on their way right now. There is some occasional surface noise and artifacts since they are dubbed from vinyl, but the sound overall is great and so is the material. PRR and NYC steam, PRR 460 on the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore lines, DM & IR Yellowstones, and so much more. John |
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| Author: | jayrod [ Tue Oct 19, 2021 10:23 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Audio Preservation |
Probably more than you care to know…. If the original tapes are available, unless one is extremely lucky, they’d likely be deteriorated and not usable. If the dies for the vinyl presses exist, there are boutique shops around that can still press LPs. Without going into excruciating detail: If you’re gonna rip from vinyl to a digital format, it’s best to find an LP that’s as pristine as possible. There are software packages that make the transfer easier and include automated wizards that can go after the pops, crackles and sizzles. The better professional ones will also allow you to to deep dive into the wave forms to selectively go after anomalies that the the wizards can’t completely reduce or remove. It can be a long tedious process to clean up an LP depending on how bad the source is or how much of a perfectionist you are. Keep in mind that this is all destructive editing and there are some noises that no matter what you do, you can’t clean them out without noticeably affecting the recoding itself. Been there, done that. |
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| Author: | wilkinsd [ Tue Oct 19, 2021 10:49 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Audio Preservation |
70000 wrote: The people who run "The Trolley Dodger" Website have reissued the entire audio catalogue of the Railroad Record Club which includes steam material as well as traction. You need to scroll well down through their sales page for the info.... https://thetrolleydodger.com/online-store/ I've not got any of their material, but had noticed the expanding range of recordings when looking at their main website A couple of friends bought some recordings from them. The transfers were done poorly, and do not sound that great. There's also some question as to whether Trolley Dodger has the copyrights or permission from the original holders to reproduce the material. The O. Winston Link Museum in Roanoke had all of Link's issued records reissued in a box set of CDs a number of years ago. I believe you can still get it from their site. One of the books they issued in the last ten years also contained an audio CD of tracks previously not issued. |
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| Author: | Alexander D. Mitchell IV [ Tue Oct 19, 2021 7:37 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Audio Preservation |
A couple pertinent notes: 1) Sometimes the "master tapes" of old are not even tapes. Semaphore Records released on various releases much of the output of Buffalo, NY-area railfan John M. Prophet, who began recording back in 1948 or 1949 using that then-new "portable" recording device, the wire recorder, which used the same magnetic principle as tape on flattened steel wire. There was some resistance at the time to using the wire recorders, I understand, because the "technology" originated from the same empire that brought us the Volkswagen.......... I helped acquire and restore (and modernize) a wire recorder I found at a "hamfest" for an oral history project on a state level, but this is truly a niche effort at best. 2) From what research I've done into the Railroad Record Club, there's a possibility that the copyrights on the recordings they issued are all but unenforceable. The recordings that were used on the record issues were submitted by club members, and although there are generalities saying "the moment you create/publish, you own the copyright," there are, for example, no RRC titles on file with the Library of Congress. Furthermore, we are talking about a product that now has about the most ridiculously tiny niche appeal possible. The commercial market for railroad audio recordings was completely obliterated decades ago by 1) the development and production of commercial video recordings of railroads, and 2) the development of model railroad sound systems on board model trains. By now, the only demand for such audio is by video producers hoping to dub in sound for vintage amateur railfan silent film for re-release. Between the low amount of money involved and the fact that basically no one is paying attention, the likelihood that any survivor or heir to any claimant of a copyright to any of these recordings is going to come forward to claim copyright infringement is so infinitesimally small as to be effectively zero. 3) What IS a valid concern is whether there is any museum, archive, etc. that is willing to tiptoe around those rights issues and take on preservation of a digitized archive. Almost every rail museum library I have been in has a selection, small or large, of such LPs or cassettes of commercially made audio rail recordings, with no idea what to do with them or how best to preserve them, preserved out of inertia or guilt. Now, decent vinyl won't deteriorate just sitting there, and audio preservationists at places like the LOC and Smithsonian have made spectacular strides in the preservation and promotion of historically significant audio recordings. An organized, centralized effort to preserve such recordings should receive support from the organizations that say they preserve railroad history. But seeing as the NRHS' movie film preservation projects go little remarked or noticed, I'm not optimistic. (But should it happen, I have records from multiple nations to offer to the project......) See also: https://railroadrecordfanclub.wordpress.com/ https://mikekonopka.com/audio-restorati ... cord-club/ https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/ ... 11,4305062 |
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| Author: | Alexander D. Mitchell IV [ Tue Oct 19, 2021 11:45 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Audio Preservation |
I should note that there is already a prototype for the preservation of railway audio recordings. The extensive archives of Peter Handford, the founder of Transacord and the major recorder of British and European railways, reside with Britain's Science Museum as part of the National Railway Museum's permanent collection. At the same time, the rights to sell recordings have remained with labels over time. See: https://blog.railwaymuseum.org.uk/peter ... -of-sound/ https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.o ... rd-archive https://www.steamindex.com/library/handford.htm http://www.transacord.co.uk/about/peter-handford.shtml The problem we have with such a project in the United States is that, to my knowledge,we have had no audio engineer with access to the most high-end equipment that was dedicated enough to compile a carefully curated, masterfully engineered audio collection, along with extensive notes, in North America, aside from Brad Miller who only got his start just as steam was going/gone from railroads here. Furthermore, steam ended before feasibly portable technology was available to any non-professional audio engineer. |
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| Author: | Alexander D. Mitchell IV [ Tue Oct 19, 2021 11:46 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Audio Preservation |
By the way: Wanna add to your "to-do" list? https://utahrails.net/rr-audio.php |
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| Author: | wilkinsd [ Wed Oct 20, 2021 1:00 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Audio Preservation |
As a side note, if you want to purchase any of these records, a better place to look is the marketplace at Discogs. On eBay, you pay higher prices, likely due to it being marketed to rail enthusiasts. On Discogs, to most record sellers, these are oddballs. I picked up a mint original pressing of Mister D's Machine for $5, plus $4 media mail shipping from Discogs, for example. |
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