AES New York 2017
Archiving and Restoration Track Event AR01
Wednesday, October 18, 10:45 am — 12:15 pm (Rm 1E12)
Archiving & Restoration: AR01 - Get into the Groove: A Panel Discussion on Grooved Media
Chair:George Blood, George Blood Audio/Video/Film - Philadelphia, PA, USA
Moderator:
Rebecca Yuri Feynberg, New York University - New York, NY, USA
Panelists:
Peter Alyea, Library of Congress - Washington, D.C.
David Cawley, Timestep - Dartmouth, Devon, UK
Melissa Widzinski, Indiana University - Bloomington, IN, USA
A panel on grooved media. Grooved media comes in may forms, cylinders, records, Dictaphone recordings and other bizarre shapes and sizes. If it has grooves then this panel of experts should be able to help. There will be four short presentations featuring George Blood on The Great 78rpm Project; Peter Alyea on IRENE update; Melissa Widzinski on Field Cylinder Digitization at Indiana University and Dave Cawley on why All EQs are equal, but some EQs are more equal than others. There will be a 30 minutes question and answer session where you can field even the most awkward questions. Our panel of experts can advise on everything from stylus size, speeds, EQ, turntables, cylinder players, optical reconstruction and almost everything else. Beginners and old hands are all welcome.
George Blood: The Great 78rpm Project
The Great 78 Project is a community project for the preservation, research and discovery of 78rpm records. From about 1898 to the 1950s, an estimated 3 million sides (~3 minute recordings) were released on 78rpm discs. The Internet Archive is spearheading a project to digitize 400,000 sides to create a reference collection to make accessible a format that changed the way we experience sound recordings. George Blood, whose company is working on behalf of the Internet Archive, will describe the curation and technology behind the project, explain its goals, and discuss how others can contribute to the project.
Peter Alyea: IRENE update
The machine that's saving the history of recorded sound by allowing the playback of broken media. Peter Alyea, a digital conservation specialist at the Library of Congress presents an update on IRENE
Melissa Widzinski: Field Cylinder Digitization at Indiana University
As part of the Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative at Indiana University, the audio preservation team was tasked with digitally preserving approximately 7,000 wax cylinder recordings. The vast majority of these are field-recorded cylinders made between 1893 and 1938. This presentation will focus on how we digitize the cylinders, and the machine that we use to do so – the Endpoint Audio cylinder machine, designed by Nick Bergh.
Dave Cawley: All EQs are equal, but some EQs are more equal than others
Why EQs and Preamplifiers are not perfect and how to maximise your archival throughput. Dave Cawley talks about the how and why of equalisers (EQs) and preamplifiers. Why they matter, how they should operate, how they should "feel" and why they are such an important part of archiving.
 | This session is presented in association with the AES Technical Committee on Archiving Restoration and Digital Libraries |