Disc recordings come in all shapes and sizes, from little paper records to broadcast transcription discs. Production of 78 RPM records began in the early 1900's, and are commonly called shellacs. A commercially-released 78 from labels such as Victor, Decca, Columbia and so on can actually sound quite good.

ACETATES - Popular in the 1940's and 1950's were "acetate" discs. They look like ordinary 78's, but have names like Recordio, Silvertone, Audiodisc, and so on. Click here to see some acetate disc labels. Most are aluminum-based, but there are still quite a few cardboard discs in existence. There are many problems with restoring home disc recordings, not the least of which was the person operating the recorder! All too often, the recording level is so weak that a voice can barely be heard, particularly when the subjects are females and children. Another problem is the very nature of the disc itself. The material is quite soft compared to shellacs, and the groove wore out very quickly on the steel-needle "record eaters" of the day. A well-loved acetate will usually be very noisy and distorted for that reason. The basic rule of thumb is, if it's a good recording on a bad disc, we can restore it. If it's a bad recording on a good disc, we can restore it. If it's bad recording on a bad disc, there isn't much we can do.

VOICE-O-GRAPHS are another fairly common type of disc recording. Made in coin-operated recording booths, the quality of Voice-O-Graphs is usually very poor. You had to be YELLING to get picked up by the machine, and sometimes the machine just didn't work right. They required a lot of maintenance, which was often neglected as long as the quarters kept coming in.

ALUMINUM RECORDS
Aluminum records do not have a groove, but rather a light embossing on the surface. This severely limits the fidelity that can be recorded on the disc. Add to this a record that cannot be cleaned, and you have the worst possible sound recordings. Click here to hear an aluminum disc.

This is why we're called the "miracle workers".
Click on the record to hear it!

Our Philosophy.

We will not try to achieve a dead-silent background with source material that is inherently poor and noisy, such as paper records. While a silent background can be initially impressive, the cost is too high in terms of digital artifacts and loss of signal. We will always remove as much undesirable noise as is possible with today's technology, but will never push that technology to the point where it will harm the original content of the recording. We feel that a natural-sounding voice with a small amount of background noise is preferable to a quiet background with a voice that sounds like a bad cell phone.

Click here to hear an example of a truly bad restoration. In his mania for total silence, this "restorationist" has completely destroyed the original recording. Note the swirly digital artifacts, the pumping, the overall "canned" sound, and how his "restoration" has completely obscured the softly-spoken passage. That record is gone forever, and all that's left is that garbled mess.

Or listen to this horrible example of restoration. This train wreck was actually released on CD by a record company! That someone actually got paid to perform this "remastering" is totally inconceivable. Compare that to our restoration of a disc from the same era. The record was in very poor condition - we could have done better with a better record.

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