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Post by Stephen Byers on Aug 26, 2014 21:56:38 GMT
In another forum I asked about removing mains hum from old audio recordings on tape. One respondent opined: "... but I do know [that] a number of Doctor Who fans audio-taped the series as it was broadcast; this is the source for many of the audio recordings that the re-constructionists have used. Quite a few had varying degrees of background noise and mains hum as well as other audio problems (drop-outs, speed variation, etc.) that needed to be filtered out or compensated for. "The BBC remastered the tapes in the early 2000's. Mark Ayres ran a diary on the project to clean up the audios of "The Daleks' Master Plan", which was transcribed and is available here (that's actually a direct link to a page off the restoration team's website, which is available here ) Interesting stuff. |
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Post by Hugh Pearson on Aug 26, 2014 22:15:10 GMT
I was told that one of the chaps involved in the recons - Michael Palmer, who did his own as well as worked with others, notably as part of the Joint Venture recon team - did some audio clean-up work too. I think that the Ice Warriors trailer on the JV recon was an example of his work - to my ears, it was better than the audio on the trailer that was included on the somewhat recent IW DVD. h
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Post by George D on Sept 22, 2014 12:25:40 GMT
If a better copy of the trailer audio exists, it's too bad it wasn't supplied to the dvd at time time. Sadly that's all they had
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Post by Paul Vanezis on Sept 23, 2014 22:29:30 GMT
When I first collected Graham Strong's tapes, I was surprised that there were just 4 quarter inch tapes. There were 115 episodes in total on those 4 tapes. This was possible because they ran at just 1 7/8ths speed over 4 audio tracks. I transferred each tape direct to DAT on a Sony 4 track machine. The first tape which began with episode 8 of 'The Daleks' Masterplan' was already shedding the oxide during the transfer. I had to clean the machine between episodes to get a clean transfer. I'm pretty sure that that tape is no longer playable.
Later, I transferred David Holman's tapes. Stephen Cranford was the go-between in getting the material to me. He was the guy who discovered Graham in the first place.
The originals were returned to Graham and David some months later, the DAT recordings were stored at Pebble Mill for several years, during which there were numerous requests for digital clones to be made for the BBC Radio collection. I can tell you that the sound from the original tapes and preserved on the DAT recordings were exceptional compared to previous recordings of the same material, although typical of recordings made in the way they were. The subsequent restorations were made using the original DAT tapes I recorded. I suspect any other restorations may sound superficially better, perhaps on poor quality speakers or headphones, but when listened to on reasonable 'hi-fi' speakers would not compare to the original restorations.
The audio trailers are interesting; there are several recordings of the trailers about.
Regards,
Paul
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Post by Hugh Pearson on Sept 27, 2014 11:35:54 GMT
There is an excellent summary article about the various off-air audio recordings and the fans that made them in
"Audio Dramas" by Bruce Robinson (pages 47 to 54), Nothing at the End of the Lane Issue #1 (July 1999) .
Although it is 15 years old now it is still worth a shufti.
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Richard Develyn
Member
Living in hope that more missing episodes will come back to us.
Posts: 574
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Post by Richard Develyn on Sept 27, 2014 17:49:25 GMT
Later, I transferred David Holman's tapes. Stephen Cranford was the go-between in getting the material to me. He was the guy who discovered Graham in the first place. Stephen brought you Graham but I was the one who brought you David. Sorry to seem immodest about this but it took me 7 months of long phone calls and lengthy emails to trace the thread to its source and then to persuade David to come over to the BBC. Stephen certainly helped, as did Graham, and the credit for finding David belongs to a young lad (I suppose he must be in his 20s now) who lived near to David in Kent, and the credit for finding *him* belongs to a gentleman in the US, and I wish to apologise to both of them for forgetting their names but I believe this is all documented somewhere. Best regards Richard |
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Post by charles drummel on Sept 27, 2014 21:19:20 GMT
When I first collected Graham Strong's tapes, I was surprised that there were just 4 quarter inch tapes. There were 115 episodes in total on those 4 tapes. This was possible because they ran at just 1 7/8ths speed over 4 audio tracks. I transferred each tape direct to DAT on a Sony 4 track machine. The first tape which began with episode 8 of 'The Daleks' Masterplan' was already shedding the oxide during the transfer. I had to clean the machine between episodes to get a clean transfer. I'm pretty sure that that tape is no longer playable. Later, I transferred David Holman's tapes. Stephen Cranford was the go-between in getting the material to me. He was the guy who discovered Graham in the first place. The originals were returned to Graham and David some months later, the DAT recordings were stored at Pebble Mill for several years, during which there were numerous requests for digital clones to be made for the BBC Radio collection. I can tell you that the sound from the original tapes and preserved on the DAT recordings were exceptional compared to previous recordings of the same material, although typical of recordings made in the way they were. The subsequent restorations were made using the original DAT tapes I recorded. I suspect any other restorations may sound superficially better, perhaps on poor quality speakers or headphones, but when listened to on reasonable 'hi-fi' speakers would not compare to the original restorations. The audio trailers are interesting; there are several recordings of the trailers about. Regards, Paul Hi Paul, I remember reading a while back that the full quality, restored audio masters (meaning not your DAT tapes of course) for some of the episodes no longer exist in a form without the narration appended. Do you know if there's truth to that, or if it's just a silly internet rumour? |
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Post by Hugh Pearson on Sept 27, 2014 22:08:46 GMT
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Post by Paul Vanezis on Sept 28, 2014 21:03:48 GMT
Later, I transferred David Holman's tapes. Stephen Cranford was the go-between in getting the material to me. He was the guy who discovered Graham in the first place. Stephen brought you Graham but I was the one who brought you David. Sorry to seem immodest about this but it took me 7 months of long phone calls and lengthy emails to trace the thread to its source and then to persuade David to come over to the BBC. Stephen certainly helped, as did Graham, and the credit for finding David belongs to a young lad (I suppose he must be in his 20s now) who lived near to David in Kent, and the credit for finding *him* belongs to a gentleman in the US, and I wish to apologise to both of them for forgetting their names but I believe this is all documented somewhere. Best regards Richard Hi Richard, Apologies, I couldn't recall exactly what happened when David came to TVC, it was 20 years ago though! But we should all be proud to have played a part in it. Cheers, Paul |
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Richard Develyn
Member
Living in hope that more missing episodes will come back to us.
Posts: 574
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Post by Richard Develyn on Sept 28, 2014 22:26:19 GMT
Hi Richard, Apologies, I couldn't recall exactly what happened when David came to TVC, it was 20 years ago though! But we should all be proud to have played a part in it. Cheers, Paul I remember the day well - I mean, it was quite a big deal for me coming to the BBC and meeting you guys. Richard |
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Post by dennywilson on Sept 30, 2014 0:20:35 GMT
What is the story about the James Russell tapes? Have they been fully assessed,indexed,and transfered by now? What is the quality?
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Post by George D on Sept 30, 2014 14:35:49 GMT
It Would be terrible if true but hopefully someone can shed some light on this. When I first collected Graham Strong's tapes, I was surprised that there were just 4 quarter inch tapes. There were 115 episodes in total on those 4 tapes. This was possible because they ran at just 1 7/8ths speed over 4 audio tracks. I transferred each tape direct to DAT on a Sony 4 track machine. The first tape which began with episode 8 of 'The Daleks' Masterplan' was already shedding the oxide during the transfer. I had to clean the machine between episodes to get a clean transfer. I'm pretty sure that that tape is no longer playable. Later, I transferred David Holman's tapes. Stephen Cranford was the go-between in getting the material to me. He was the guy who discovered Graham in the first place. The originals were returned to Graham and David some months later, the DAT recordings were stored at Pebble Mill for several years, during which there were numerous requests for digital clones to be made for the BBC Radio collection. I can tell you that the sound from the original tapes and preserved on the DAT recordings were exceptional compared to previous recordings of the same material, although typical of recordings made in the way they were. The subsequent restorations were made using the original DAT tapes I recorded. I suspect any other restorations may sound superficially better, perhaps on poor quality speakers or headphones, but when listened to on reasonable 'hi-fi' speakers would not compare to the original restorations. The audio trailers are interesting; there are several recordings of the trailers about. Regards, Paul Hi Paul, I remember reading a while back that the full quality, restored audio masters (meaning not your DAT tapes of course) for some of the episodes no longer exist in a form without the narration appended. Do you know if there's truth to that, or if it's just a silly internet rumour? |
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