Toronto AES Bulletin Meeting Preview Feb 1997

Restoration of Early Glenn Gould Broadcasts

In the early 1950's CBC Radio broadcast a number of performances by an exceptional young pianist named Glenn Gould. In 1955 Gould became internationally famous with the release of his first recording for Columbia Records, J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations.

While Gould's recordings with Columbia have been released and re-released on various formats, the early CBC broadcasts have been heard by only a handful of people in the last 40 years. Recently CBC Records has begun releasing these broadcasts on compact disc. The primary technical challenge is that the source material consists of airchecks which are often second or third generation, and in any case are always on acetate discs.

On hand to describe the restoration process will be Gilles St-Laurent, Audio Conservator, Music Division, National Library of Canada and Peter Cook, Music Editor, CBC Records. The talk will cover the story of finding the best possible source material (most of it from Gould's own archive, now in the National Library), transferring the disks to the digital domain, and the complete restoration process. Issues such as playback compensation EQ, special considerations with digital processing, the benefits of using a stereo cartridge for mono sources, and the concepts of historical document vs commercial product will be touched on.

The digital tools available for restoration (declicking, decrackling, azimuth correction, broadband denoising, complex filtering) will be described. In particular the advantages and disadvantages of the current versions of Sonic Solution's NoNoise system and the CEDAR system will be discussed. Samples of music in various stages of the restoration process will be played.

Biographies

Gilles St-Laurent is the Audio Conservator at the National Library of Canada where he has worked since 1983. He is a graduate of the Music Industry Arts Audio Engineering programme, Fanshawe College and of the Faculty of Business Administration, University of Ottawa. He has received training from the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound, New York City, and The Belfer Audio Lab, Syracuse University.

Gilles is a member of the Audio Engineering Society (AES), International Association of Sound Archives (IASA) and the Canadian Antique Phonograph Society (CAPS). He has written for the Commission on Preservation and Access, Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC), CAPS and UNESCO and has produced several CDs of historical sound recordings.

Peter Cook currently works as Music Editor for CBC Records at the CBC Broadcasting Centre in Toronto and teaches in the Masters of Music programme at McGill University. Prior to joining the CBC in 1991 Peter worked at Classic Sound in New York City, and as a freelance recording engineer and editor in Montreal. He is a graduate of the Sound Recording programme at McGill (B.Mus 84, M.Mus 91) and taught classes in that programme for several years. His masters thesis investigated using stereo microphone techniques for encoding acoustic music recordings for Dolby Surround-compatible playback.

Peter is a founding member and past president of the McGill Student Section of the AES and is currently Chairman of the Toronto Section.

Date: Tuesday, 25th Feb 1997

Time: 7:30 pm

Place: Ryerson Eaton Lecture Theatre, Rogers Communications Building

Address: 80 Gould Street, Toronto

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