"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Iain Churches wrote:

The declicking method to which Dave refers was frowned upon,
(but nonetheless widely done!) and referred to as "destructive editing"
as one not only removed the click but the music underneath it.

Very true Iain. Now inform us just how you removed such clicks in the
analogue days long before you had a computer to do the work for you?


Surely this is something with which, as a former
broadcast pro from the analog era, you should be
very familiar?

The UK is fortunate to have a number of people
with exceptional skills in audio restoration.
Back in the day, I worked and shared ideas
with the best of them. Restoration has always
been something of a black art, with "wet transfer"
solutions mixed by hand to one's own recipe:-)

Most musicians, and anyone else who can count a
bar in demi-demi-semi-quavers will spot your
destructive editing instantly, Dave, and berate
you loudly for it, so it should be avoided.

It is essential to have access to as many copies
of the original as you can lay your hands on.
Quite often metal matrices (mothers) were still
available. These were an excellent source of
cleanish audio and helped to speed up the
process. But, you could not mix shellac and
metals as a source for the same title.

As a rule of thumb, I used to transfer any shellac
pre 1946 with an acoustic gramophone and a
large capsule Neumann microphone, 47 or 49.
Later recordings, 1946-1955 were transferred
electrically. I was fortunate that the studio had a
very well equipped pick-up lab run by a very
knowledgeable chap who could suggest and
provide the best combinations for the job in hand.

At least three good shellac pressings were required.
We used to clean and rinse them meticulously, using
plenty of distilled water, a droplet of liquid detergent,
and a soft toothbrush. Cleaning agents, and transfer
lubricants used in vinyl transfer were not considered
suitable for shellac, so I never used them. The amount
of muck that came out of the groove never ceased to
amaze me!!. Just cleaning was a major step in improving
the quality. Peter Lewis, who was a veteran while
I was still learning my craft, introduced me to "Songster"
trailer needles which sounded good. I later developed
a preference for thorn and fibre needles, which could be
used once only before sharpening.

The next stage was to listen to the three shellac pressings
and put them in order by condition. We used to zero tape
machine timer and then note down the times of the clicks
on each version. For the transfers, two quarter-inch recorders
running at 30 ips with full-track (mono) heads and Dolby A 361,
level matched, were needed. These machines had specially
made editing blocks to enable long oblique splices. The audio
from each of the shellac pressings was recorded to both
machines. The tape from the A machine was used to make
up the master, with material from the B machine being used
for backup, and also for "build-outs" if you were unfortunate
enough not to have a clean copy to cover a particular passage.

Then you just need to count bars. If you could find
a transfer with an intro having say four click-free bars,
this was cut out and moved to a third tape machine
on which you were assembling the master. Then you
moved to the second or third transfer, counting bars,
and used a section of that from say bar five,until the
next click. This way, a good composite master could
be edited together, click free. Some titles need
several edits per bar.

Material recorded at 30 ips made editing easier.
The method was "non-destructive", and the
demi-demi-semi-quaver toe-tappers were kept
happy.

Iain