Andy Lanset and James Williamson (WNYC); Seth Winner and Vincent Pelote (Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies); Art Shifrin a.k.a. "Mr. Wire". The case labeled "WNYC" in front of the speakers contains a hand-crank powered tape machine, found by Andy Lanset in a storage room at WNYC.
Review by David Prentice
So much audio, so little time. The October meeting was an examination of the different media that have been used to capture audio, the necessity and technical requirements to recover that audio, and a look at the developing field of making that audio more accessible to the public. James Williamson of WNYC hosted presentations by Art Shifrin, Vincent Pelote, Seth Winner, and Andy Lanset ranging from recordings of 1913 to today.
Art Shifrin, an accomplished restorer with a particular interest in older film and television audio, (http://shifrin.net/) demonstrated the progression in recording quality by playing examples of various pre-magnetic tape recordings ranging from a 1913 Edison Kinetophone through metal and lacquer disks and a 1948 stamper. The final examples were wire recordings from the late 1940's, including Woody Guthrie playing live, whose wow and flutter problems were corrected with the Plangent Process. Vincent Pelote from the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers Newark campus talked about the over 1500 hours of tapes, in all formats, which comprise the Jazz Oral History Project and played some examples of the artists reminiscing. The Institute provides CD copies for research use and in engaged in the long process of transferring the files to a server for greater access without physical wear and tear. Seth Winner of Seth Winner Sound Studios, who worked on the Jazz Oral History tapes, talked about the conservation of and recovery of sound from magnetic tape stressing the fact that recovery is primarily a mechanical solution of tape to head contact rather than an electronic "enhancement" process. Andy Lanset, the archivist of WNYC, talked about the current project of preserving and making accessible over 50,000 recordings covering the station's past 80 years while keeping up with 40-50 hours of new material each month. Currently both Mr. Pelote and Mr. Lanset work with conventional CD copies for researchers or producers' access and the new area of server-based files with the challenges of creating a useful database and properly describing the materials.
The Section thanks all the contributors for sharing their time, knowledge, and enthusiasm.
