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When Alan posed the question "What are the blues? What do they mean to you?" the answers were in part something he sought for himself, to understand this musical form that may have been as ancient as the griots in West Africa, or perhaps as recent as the automobile, the airplane, and the phonograph (all of which made guest appearances in the blues). The blues had become a craze, like ragtime, which grew up alongside it, and it leaped from the bottom of the social order to the Astors and the Vanderbilts, who staged blues contests for their own amusement well before the rest of white America came to know them - from Alan Lomax, The Man Who Recorded the World, by John Szwed

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Author Topic: I've remastered a few Charlie Patton tracks. I'd appreciate some input.  (Read 5500 times)

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Offline cc132

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I've remastered a few Charlie Patton tracks. I'd appreciate some input.
« on: July 09, 2011, 10:08:49 AM »
Same old story as anyone else -- I'm trying to remove as much noise while preserving as much of the music as possible.  I think I've come pretty close.

Opinions?  Thoughts?

High Water Everywhere Part 1 - http://www.mediafire.com/?87u876og1upx3ug
Screamin and Hollerin the Blues - http://www.mediafire.com/?gimzr0rk8j087cl

(Sorry for the Mediafire links, but the files are too big to upload straight to the forum).
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Offline Slack

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Re: I've remastered a few Charlie Patton tracks. I'd appreciate some input.
« Reply #1 on: July 09, 2011, 10:27:21 AM »
Those sound great to me - wow!
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Offline daddystovepipe

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Re: I've remastered a few Charlie Patton tracks. I'd appreciate some input.
« Reply #2 on: July 09, 2011, 11:38:24 AM »
Congrats, best Patton I heard.
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Offline JohnLeePimp

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Re: I've remastered a few Charlie Patton tracks. I'd appreciate some input.
« Reply #3 on: July 09, 2011, 01:27:25 PM »
Moar?
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Offline Gumbo

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Re: I've remastered a few Charlie Patton tracks. I'd appreciate some input.
« Reply #4 on: July 09, 2011, 02:47:00 PM »
It seems to me that when one does this kind of thing you either get the noise or the vocal or the guitar.

compared to my jsp version it sounds like you have minimised the surface noise (i hear very little) and kept the vocal at the expense of the guitar. The vocal sounds clear and clean while the guitar has that shimmery artifact kind of sound.

Can I ask which source you started with?
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Offline cc132

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Re: I've remastered a few Charlie Patton tracks. I'd appreciate some input.
« Reply #5 on: July 09, 2011, 02:58:22 PM »
Quote from: Gumbo on July 09, 2011, 02:47:00 PM
Can I ask which source you started with?

Yazoo's "Founder of the Delta Blues" CD.

I monitor everything that I filter out, and I didn't hear any guitar in any of it.  It's possible that the "full" sound of the guitar doesn't exist on the recordings at all, and the hiss/surface noise fills in for it.
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Offline Stumblin

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Re: I've remastered a few Charlie Patton tracks. I'd appreciate some input.
« Reply #6 on: July 09, 2011, 04:34:09 PM »
High Water Everywhere part one sounds good to me. But now I don't know whether I don't actually prefer a bit of noise...
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Offline Norfolk Slim

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Re: I've remastered a few Charlie Patton tracks. I'd appreciate some input.
« Reply #7 on: July 10, 2011, 04:18:40 AM »
Sounds really good to me too.  Especially high water.
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Offline eric

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Re: I've remastered a few Charlie Patton tracks. I'd appreciate some input.
« Reply #8 on: July 10, 2011, 07:37:31 AM »
That's pretty remarkable for an beat-up Paramount.  I assume your method was pretty labor intensive and you didn't just apply some generic filters.  Removing the patented Paramount bacon-frying background noise without degrading the signal too much is pretty cool.  What software did you use?
« Last Edit: July 10, 2011, 09:36:28 AM by Eric Hubbard »
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Offline lindy

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Re: I've remastered a few Charlie Patton tracks. I'd appreciate some input.
« Reply #9 on: July 10, 2011, 09:53:22 AM »

These are days of miracle and wonder. A hobbyist, using basic software and hardware tools available to anyone, does in a week(?) month(?) what all kinds of expert recording engineers tried to do over 8-9 decades, with much better results. I can hear all kinds of little brush strokes and grace notes, sounds that I never knew existed, and I'm using really cheap speakers hooked up to my MacBook. Please describe the tools you used to do this.

Lindy
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Offline maddoggirl

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Re: I've remastered a few Charlie Patton tracks. I'd appreciate some input.
« Reply #10 on: July 10, 2011, 02:48:26 PM »
Fantastic work, would love to hear more! I agree that there is a great deal of atmosphere and charm in the rickety originals, but it is nice to listen to Patton and not have to work  :D
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Offline cc132

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Re: I've remastered a few Charlie Patton tracks. I'd appreciate some input.
« Reply #11 on: July 10, 2011, 03:42:53 PM »
Quote from: Eric Hubbard on July 10, 2011, 07:37:31 AM
That's pretty remarkable for an beat-up Paramount.  I assume your method was pretty labor intensive and you didn't just apply some generic filters.  Removing the patented Paramount bacon-frying background noise without degrading the signal too much is pretty cool.  What software did you use?

Not labor intensive in the least bit, there was just a lot of trial and error to figuring it out.  All the plug-ins I use are from Wave, using Ableton as the host (although the host is pretty inconsequential).  The best thing about Waves plug-ins is that you can monitor the master-channel and the removed audio separately, so I can listen to what's being removed and fine-tune it so that none of the important signal is lost.  That's why "Screamin' and Hollerin" still has some hiss -- I couldn't get rid of that last little bit of his without losing guitar.

Quote from: lindy on July 10, 2011, 09:53:22 AM
These are days of miracle and wonder. A hobbyist, using basic software and hardware tools available to anyone, does in a week(?) month(?) what all kinds of expert recording engineers tried to do over 8-9 decades, with much better results. I can hear all kinds of little brush strokes and grace notes, sounds that I never knew existed, and I'm using really cheap speakers hooked up to my MacBook. Please describe the tools you used to do this.

Lindy

Your thoughts are pretty in-line with mine.  I actually don't think I deserve much credit for these sounding good -- I would never be able to come close to the results without using software that simply didn't exist 10 years ago.  I'm just the guy pushing the buttons and fiddling the knobs.

Although, sadly, the software I use is far from basic.  If the last 10 years is any indication, there will be nearly equivalent open-source software available to everyone within the decade (Office vs. OpenOffice, Photoshop vs. Gimp, etc).

All of that being said, I can clean up a track fairly quickly, so I'm open to requests.  I know that some old recordings are nearly unlistenable, and I'd love to help out the community in any way I can.  Anyone reading this should feel free to ask me to clean up any old songs that they'd like to hear better.  I can't promise much, except that I'll do my best.  I could use the practice anyway.
« Last Edit: July 10, 2011, 03:51:52 PM by cc132 »
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Offline Slack

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Re: I've remastered a few Charlie Patton tracks. I'd appreciate some input.
« Reply #12 on: July 10, 2011, 04:49:02 PM »
Fascinating CC, I'll have to check out the Wave software, not that I need anymore projects.  And very generous of you to take requests.  I always wished that Jaybird Coleman's recordings were not so whupped.  For something different, how about 'Man Trouble Blues'?
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Offline cc132

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Re: I've remastered a few Charlie Patton tracks. I'd appreciate some input.
« Reply #13 on: July 10, 2011, 05:49:29 PM »
Quote from: Slack on July 10, 2011, 04:49:02 PM
For something different, how about 'Man Trouble Blues'?

Fantastic!  The noise in this track is quite a bit different than what I had to take out of the Patton tracks (Coleman has more of a high-pitched crackle, rather than a lower tv-static kind of sound), which seems to be in the same frequency range as Coleman's voice.  This should be a good challenge!  Exactly the kind of suggestion I was hoping for.
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Offline eric

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Re: I've remastered a few Charlie Patton tracks. I'd appreciate some input.
« Reply #14 on: July 10, 2011, 06:15:35 PM »
OK CC132,

How about Son House:  Preachin' Blues and  Dry Spell?  Charley Patton's Green River Blues might be another good one. :D
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