Progressive Recordings?

I'm listening to the NPR Talk of the Nation podcast because oftentimes science Friday has some seriously intriguing material. So far I've listened to a professor of mathematics teacher, Kevin Short, explain what he did to win a 2008 Grammy Award for best historic album. He basically repaired a recording of a Woody Guthrie concert at 1949 Newark which was recorded on an analog wire (which were primarily used in dictation machines).
Well anyways, the significance of the recording was that it was the only existing live track Guthrie's and there's a wild story behind all of it. I actually found the story behind the recording more interesting than the scientific process of repairing the wires. Evidently there was this Rutgers college student who took the wire home following the concert and stuck it in a box in the closet where it remained stagnant until moving day.

He must have promptly forgotten the thing because this little treasure was in that closet for over 50 years when, a little after 9/11 on moving day in 2001, he decided to send the box of wire into the Woody Guthrie Foundation. Short shines light on the scene of the mailed package. "Getting a box full of heavy wire was a little bit scary at the time(after 9/11).

At this point, the foundation brought in the experts. The Magic Shop and Plangent Processes were called in to fix the timing in these things so that the live wire could be made into a more modern recording. During this time, Kevin Short was called in with his expertise.

NPR reporter: There is a mathematical description, or you can characterize mathematically what it means to have a clear attack from a guitar?

Kevin Short: Well, sure. So what it comes down to is, we find and isolate that signal that tells us whether the original recording device was speeding up or slowing it down. And we then look at the mathematics to say, okay, this is what they measured on the tap, but if that was the result of speeding up and slowing down, we've put it back to the original form.

I don't doubt the mathematical awesomeness it takes to recreate such an incredible recording, nor do I discount Short's well-deserved merit at the Grammy Awards. I'm actually fairly fascinated with this abomination.

At the start of the interview I, like the NPR anchor, attempted to grasp this analog-to-modern process. He said rather fragmentedly, "As i read some of the descriptions it was a bit of a nightmare getting this stuff off the wire and on a digitized... (he pauses) but they did it."

After NPR played the two editions (the original wire recording and the recently digitally remastered version) I had a reaction similar to a caller from Menlo Park, California. Granted, I do odd jobs at a vinyl shop in Missoula, Montana and I'm rather enthralled by old recordings and a possible Vintage Vinyl Revolution in the recording industry. But the caller and I were instantly turned off by the modern track.

He said, "I was listening to the excerpts as you alternated back and forth between the original recording and the digitally cleaned up one and I prefer, you know I didn't hear enough long excerpts to detect serious fluctuations of pitch, but I liked the original sound better because it has more atmosphere to it, and has the actual feeling of being at a concert, whereas the digitally cleaned up one sounded kind of cold and sterile as if I was at a studio somewhere.

"There's a local station that plays big band music, and sometimes they play digitally cleaned up versions of the 20s and 30s, and to me they're not as involving, and again... they're not giving the sound that the original audience heard."

The anchor seemed kinetically pleased and surprised at the caller's response to the two tracks. He turned it right over to Professor Short who said that this remastering was done clearly for archival purposes and attempted to prove that removing the "warmth to hiss" from "old vinyl" was not cleaning up the original; it was merely improving it and actually placing it in the original atmosphere.

So here we have two opinions about which is truer to the musicians and which actually gives the feeling of original music. This naturally brings out a few questions for me.

What's so intrinsic about making this LIVE object of history sound like a 2008 studio recording? I doubt the Woody Guthrie Foundation would discard the original, but will they put it on display in New York or Thailand or something to show its physical beauty and alongside it play the "new and improved, enhanced, shiny red white and blue version"?

Sure, it's neat to flex our collective muscles for digital advancement. But I might as well be just as impressed by the advancement of the living story behind the recording, and the beauty of the original.

Professor Short was astute when he pointed out that his work was not "cleaning up the track", and that his work would not distract the listener with pops and crackles of the original.

After the 36 hour process of reworking the 50 year old wire, I must ask the question: Is this worth it?

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