Audio editing

There's a bit of discussion on a tango dj forum I'm on about quality of source material - I'm putting this blog entry up real quick to illustrate some points, so if you don't really know what I'm talking about, no worries! It's just part of my tango life, editing old music to make it sound better....

All the screenshots are from Euro Records "Coleccion 78" series.

Here's an example of a clean, pristine file that has not been overly compressed and does not exhibit any clipping - it retains its dynamics and sounds very natural and alive:

Here's an example of a file that exhibits too much compression...the dynamics are lost, and you can hear it when you listen - individual instruments are not distinct and the whole sound seems "choked" - you can tell because the wave file is "fat" throughout with a lot of "green". It's not the worst example by far, but does illustrate the point.

Here's an example of a file that exhibits excessive clipping - again, not the worst example but nonetheless Rufino's high end is chopped off, as well as the violin highlights - the sound is very unnatural where the waves are "chopped off", especially around 2:05.

The bottom 2 examples illustrate why many of us are still hungry for more releases out of the vaults of the record companies - we want files that look like the first example!