# Recommend Some High Potential Recordings with Minor Flaws



## bfBrian (Aug 12, 2018)

I've been using my knowledge of DSP to improve some classical music recordings. I started doing this entirely for my own benefit because I would listen to certain recordings so many times I'd start to wish there was less background noise, or a different spectral balance. Eventually I even turned my efforts toward attenuating annoying sounds like page turns, or coughs. I'm very particular about maintaining full musical fidelity when using noise reduction, which is why I had to write my own algorithm.

In the end, I'm very pleased with what I'm able to do, and I have been creating a library of "remastered" recordings, that I much prefer to their original counterparts. I decided to share many of these "remasters" on youtube. I think there are 2 groups of people who might appreciate these efforts. The first is people who aren't really into classical music. I think they are somewhat put-off by old, noisy recordings with no bass, after listening to modern pop music recorded in studios. The other group is people who have developed an emotional connection to a particular recording due to the musicianship, and would like to have a version that's actually cleaner.

I'm posting this thread to seek recommendations for recordings that would benefit from some clean-up, and would likely be appreciated by others. I'm looking for things that have the potential to sound really nice afterward, so I'm not looking for something where the music is buried in the noise (remember, this is noise "reduction" not "elimination", and counterintuitively, the louder the noise, the less it can be reduced). Similarly, I'm not looking for something where someone in the audience coughs every 5 seconds. That gets to a point where it's not enjoyable for me anymore. I need recordings that are available on CD, or perhaps via lossless download, but which I can preview ahead of time.

Here's an example of what I did for Urbs Roma by Camille Saint Saens, performed by the Orchestre de l'ORTF under the direction of Jean Martinon.

Original quiet period, followed by a loud page turn at 25:10:





My version, with reduced noise, updated spectral balance, and the page turn attenuated at 7:14.





If I get some good recommendations, perhaps it would be appropriate to start a poll to determine where to focus my efforts. I could probably do one a month if there is interest.


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

Please remaster as many Cortot recordings as humanly possible!

Some essential ones:

Schumann Symphonic Etudes

Schumann Kreisleriana

Schumann Kinderszenen

Chopin Preludes

Chopin Waltzes


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

How about this? It's the oldest surviving, and much better than Nikisch!


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## bfBrian (Aug 12, 2018)

Thanks for the recommendations. I spent some time with the Cortot Etudes, and realized some improvements, but not enough for a "high fidelity" result.

I wouldn't call the flaws in these suggestions "minor".

I'd be happy to hear of additional recommendations, particularly if the flaws are less severe than those I've received to date.


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## bfBrian (Aug 12, 2018)

I went back and spent more time with the Cortot Etudes. I updated my algorithm, and I was able to achieve a greater reduction of the noise. I have included a spectrogram image showing the original (top) and the noise reduced version (bottom). I have also included a 1 minute audio sample that switches between the original and the remastered version about every 5 seconds. I think this is very encouraging. I'm starting to think that I actually can address the amount of noise in that recording, which I previously found to be unsurmountable. What do you think?


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## Ekim the Insubordinate (May 24, 2015)

Can you edit Gould’s damn humming out of his Bach piano recordings? Especially the Goldbergs?


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## WhateverDude (Jun 21, 2019)

Ekim the Insubordinate said:


> Can you edit Gould's damn humming out of his Bach piano recordings? Especially the Goldbergs?


I'd prefer you cut the piano playing out of the Gould's recordingings and just left the humming there


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## bfBrian (Aug 12, 2018)

WhateverDude said:


> I'd prefer you cut the piano playing out of the Gould's recordings and just left the humming there


If I could separate the humming sounds from the piano sounds, it would be easy to keep either one while filtering out the other. It's pretty standard to do something similar with noise reduction techniques, and mine is no different in that regard. My algorithm does its best to separate the noise from the music, and then I go back in and add some amount of the noise back in to mitigate artifacts.

I can't simply apply my noise reduction techniques to remove (or keep) humming, because humming would appear to be musical (rather than noise). If I were inclined to try to do this, I would probably use the Zenph re-performance recordings as a reference to design filters that I would apply to the original performance. The piano sound from Zenph is pretty different from the original, but that could probably be addressed by allowing the levels of the harmonics to be different. It's an interesting project idea, but it's completely different signal processing from what I've been working on.

I am pretty curious to hear what Gould was humming though.


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