- Introduction to Ben Chesterman and Craig Field, their roles at the National Archives of Australia, and their backgrounds in music production and post-production.
- The remit of the National Archives: handling records from various government agencies including the Department of Defence, ABC, SBS, and more.
- The process of archiving: from receiving physical materials to ensuring they are stored in optimal conditions.
- Digitizing audio: challenges, techniques, and the importance of maintaining the original format.
- The significance of preserving cultural and historical records for future generations.
- Advanced archiving techniques: using lasers to read vinyl grooves and preserving shellac records.
- The importance of creating multiple copies and using cloud storage for long-term preservation.
- Digital preservation challenges: dealing with outdated formats and ensuring accessibility.
- Real-life examples of rare recordings being rescued and digitized.
- The role of archivists in maintaining and updating archives to keep them relevant and accessible.
- Tribooth: The best vocal booth for home or on-the-road voice recording. Use code T-R-I-P-A-P 200 to get $200 off your Tribooth.
- Austrian Audio: Making passion heard.
- National Archives of Australia: Website
- Ben Chesterman's LinkedIn: Profile
- Craig Field's LinkedIn: Profile
- Source Elements: Website
- Tribooth: Website
- Austrian Audio: Website
- Subscribe to the show and join our Facebook group to engage in discussions, suggest topics, or just say g'day. Visit our website for more details.
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(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Y'all ready to be history?
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Get started.
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Welcome.
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Hi.
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Hi.
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Hi.
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Hello, everyone.
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To the Pro Audio Suite.
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These guys are professional, they're motivated.
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Thanks to Tribooth, the best vocal booth for
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And Austrian Audio, making passion heard.
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Introducing Robert Marshall from Source Elements and Someone
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Audio Post, Chicago.
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Darren Robbo-Robertson from Voodoo Radio Imaging, Sydney.
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Tech to the VO Stars.
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George the Tech Whittam from LA.
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And me, Andrew Peters, voiceover talent and home
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studio guy.
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Line up, man.
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Here we go.
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And welcome to another Pro Audio Suite, thanks
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to Tribooth.
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Don't forget the code, T-R-I-P
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That will get you $200 off your Tribooth.
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And Austrian Audio, making passion heard.
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This week, we're talking archives.
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Archiving your material, very important.
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And we're joined by a couple of guests.
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We have Ben Chesterman and Craig Field from
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the National Australian Archives.
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Or the National Archives of Australia.
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I'm not quite sure.
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Which way around is that, by the way?
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National Archives of Australia.
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Good.
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Excellent.
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We cleaned that one up.
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Now, archiving is something we don't normally think
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about until we've lost something.
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But just give us a bit of a
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background on the National Archives that you work
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on and some of the things that you
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actually have to work with.
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And also, who the heck are you?
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We'll start with that.
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My name is Ben Chesterman.
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I'm the Digital Audio Visual Preservation Manager, which
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is a proper bureaucratic handful of a title.
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So my team takes in audio, which is
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obviously something we're all familiar with, but also
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film sound, 35, 17.5, 16 mil film.
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And then the video side as well, which
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we won't talk about on this podcast.
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It's a dirty word, I'd imagine.
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Within my audio team is headed up, I
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guess, by Craig Field.
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Yeah.
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Hi.
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My name's Craig Field.
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And like Ben, I'm part of this team
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here at the National Australian Archives.
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And yeah, I head up the audio department
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here.
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And we look after lots of different formats,
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things that we can discuss later if you
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like.
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But yeah, it's an interesting thing.
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Both Ben and I come from the corporate
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world or come from music production and post
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-production, and we're both quite new at the
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archives.
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So we're quite young archivists, but keen nonetheless,
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all right?
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So let's start with this then.
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To give us an overview of what you
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guys do, if someone said to you, what
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does the audio department of the National Archives
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of Australia do, what's your answer?
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The remit of the National Archives is to
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deal with all government agency records.
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And that could be anything from the Department
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of Defence.
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It can be Royal Commissions.
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It also includes the broadcasters, Film Australia, ABC,
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SBS.
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But unlike, say, the National Film and Sound
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Archive, our priority is not, I guess, the
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cultural significance of a record.
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Any record.
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It could be something as dry as The
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Wool Board or the Bicentennial Authority's backstage stuff
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at Rose Tattoo in Akkadak.
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Or it could be some Royal Commissions and
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really significant records like that.
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So there is a lot of cultural tags
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that come into it, security as well.
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But obviously the primary remit is to make
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that material safe and accessible to the researchers,
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the public, and those agencies in the future.
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I guess the U.S. equivalent is the
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Library of Congress?
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Yeah, absolutely.
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That's correct.
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And we very much engage with them in
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regards to what our specs are and TCO6
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and all these sorts of specifications.
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And that stuff is done with the Library
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of Congress and also, I will add, within
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the agencies here.
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So NFSA and us work quite closely together.
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So the Film and Sound Archive, to be
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clear though, is separate to you guys, obviously,
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but does a similar thing.
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But it's sort of the archive of Australian
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treasures, I guess, isn't it, in terms of
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recordings?
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Yeah, that's right.
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There's definitely a sort of lens of cultural
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significance that they put onto whether they accept
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a transfer.
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With us, we probably accept everything.
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And then there's a lot of crossover.
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They'll contact us because they may only have
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a low-res copy or a dub of
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something.
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We may have the original source.
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So we do a lot of that.
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Oh, wow.
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So you're sort of backing each other up
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as well, almost, then archiving each other.
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Absolutely.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And the ABC too.
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We do almost daily transfers back and forth
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between ABC Radio, Archives and us when they
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have things that we need and vice versa.
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The ABC is the Australian Broadcast Commission, guys,
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for you guys in America.
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That's what the ABC is.
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So let's go through the process then.
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If something comes in to you guys, how
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do you sleep soundly at night knowing that
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it's securely archived then?
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What's the process?
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What happens?
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So I guess on the physical side, you'd
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start with a transfers team.
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So they would engage with the agency to
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make sure that's packed properly and all the
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rest of it.
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Obviously the first part of it is getting
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the material to our repository safely.
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Then everything is stored in the proper conditions
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depending on that format.
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And there are vaults here in Sydney as
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well as in Canberra, probably the largest one
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in Canberra.
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And depending on those formats, so film sound
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needs to be dealt with much colder temperatures
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generally than, say, an optical format like CDEC.
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So that's part of it.
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And then also there's an accessioning they call
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within the archives.
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That's where a team will sit down with
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the paperwork or the files that come from
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the agency and record that in our database
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so that we actually describe that record, as
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it's called, and make sure that that's accurate.
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Then in terms of what we do digitising,
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I'll hand over to Craig for that side
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of things and treatment and so on.
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Well, again, I guess the first thing we
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do is have a look at the format
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and see what there is.
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There's a wealth of knowledge here at the
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archive, as you can imagine.
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There's a lot of people like Ben and
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myself who've had pretty extensive professional careers and
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find themselves at the archives.
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In my second week here, someone who's been
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here a long time put his hand on
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my shoulder and said, don't worry, son, everything
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old ends up at the archive.
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Thank you so much.
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There's a lot of grey hair in the
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room right now.
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I haven't been offered a job yet, but
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maybe my time is now.
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Your time may be coming.
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So that's one of the first things that
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we do, obviously, as Ben mentioned.
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It goes to lending.
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It's very well cared for and put in
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different spaces.
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At our repository, for example, we've got cold
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rooms that are, you know, supersonic temperatures that
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are climate controlled, so to speak, where the
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air is refreshed every X amount of time.
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When there's certain amounts of particles in the
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air, the air is extracted and then put
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back in so that canisters can be kept
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at the best condition.
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We've got dehumidifying ovens and things like that
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for analog tape.
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Obviously, it's just best practice, really, and all
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those different formats require different techniques and different
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things, you know, right down to a HB
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pencil and a cassette tape.
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So some of it's preserving the actual original
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format and the earliest, most original format possible
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physically for as long as possible, and then
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part of it is transferring this to a
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medium that can be replayed over and over.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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Some things can't be shared from our particular
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archive, the National Archives.
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Some things are kept for under government policy
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and some things are available for public research
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and public access.
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But ultimately, what we try to do is,
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and again, I'm quite new at the archive,
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but it is a complete surrogate copy of
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the content, as pristine as humanly possible, and
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that obviously, say, in the, if we're talking
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a quarter-inch tape that's 40 years old,
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that can require a fair bit of care
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and understanding about what the format is and
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preparation before you do the recording because you
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might only have one shot of it.
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That's right, one shot.
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It's a one-take thing.
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Yeah, one shot.
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Which is, you know, when we were talking
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earlier about DSD and things like that and
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no editing, that really motivated me professionally as
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an engineer that you've got one shot at
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this, man.
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You've got to get everything set up, get
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it right, get it done.
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Why is that?
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Because a lot of people listening may not
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understand that the process of, we call it
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baking the tapes here in the US, but
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why is it you get one shot at
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that?
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Is it because after the tape is baked
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and then it is played, it falls apart,
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something like that?
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Not necessarily.
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In fact, if you don't bake it, it'll
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fall apart more possibly, I think.
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Yeah, that is right.
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The baking is to try and minimize the
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shedding, but you will get some.
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But the baking does affect the emulsion, so
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you are wanting to try and digitize well
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on your first pass.
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You have to know, I guess.
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Right.
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Do you know what we found that works
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great for baking?
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Do you remember?
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I mean, they're even perfectly sized like the
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reals.
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So do you remember back in the day
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they used to have these, like, get all
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your bananas and slice them and slice your
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strawberries and then you dehydrate them?
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Food dehydrators.
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Yeah, and really you're dehydrating the tape, and
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that works better than tossing it in the
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oven at 150 degrees, I think.
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But what do you guys do as far
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as baking tape?
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We've got a microwave downstairs that is thrown
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in every five seconds.
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That's right.
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It's in the kitchen.
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I don't know about rust in a microwave.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Look, technically, don't use the term baking, okay,
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because the last thing you want to do
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is have a baked tape.
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Well, hang on.
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When you're recording to tape, we call it
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baked.
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It's baked in once you've recorded it to
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tape.
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You certainly can have it.
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Yeah, yeah, it is.
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And most of the people in the studio
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are baked.
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That's not a problem.
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I don't know about that.
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That's a given.
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But when you're getting there, you don't want
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to bake that tape, okay?
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You do want to dehumidify it.
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Dehydralize is the term they use.
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Dehydralize.
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And as Ben stated, what they've found, and
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it was the Library of Congress that came
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up with some of the disciplines that they
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use in these ovens, they used to use
00:11:01
a process where the ovens were set to
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38 degrees and they would put a tape,
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two-inch, quarter-inch, one-inch, they would
00:11:10
put in there for four days.
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And they used that standard for many, many
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years, and it's only recently after extensive tests
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that they've now changed that temperature to a
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standard of about 48 degrees and a constant,
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and they give it 48 hours in there.
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And they have found that that helps the
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emulsion, you know, pretty much just rejoin the
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tape so that it's solid, so that you
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can play it back.
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Because after a period of time, there was
00:11:41
a lubricant that was commercially applied within the
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manufacturer of the tape, and that lubricant amongst
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other chemicals slowly starts to break up and
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causes the emulsion that's on the top of
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the tape that we would magnetize to lift
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and shed and break up.
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And the warmth and the constant warmth and
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that constant temperature helps that emulsion just join
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back to the back of the tape and
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can give you a chance of...
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So it's still only one pass, though, by
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the sounds of it.
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It's not necessarily one pass.
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I mean, after you bake it, it's been
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through trauma, but it's not necessarily completely dead.
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But every playback, I mean, technically every playback
00:12:28
of a tape is wearing off, you know,
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it's friction.
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Yeah, that's right.
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It's like a record.
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No, you're right, Robert.
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It's not always one pass, but generally the
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archival way is to try and get a
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single pass in, so you're not doing edits
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and anything like that.
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But I would add to that, the ovens
00:12:45
that are used by us and vendors, I
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should add, there's digitization vendors that do work
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for all the archives, basically scientific medical ovens
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because they're required to be at those really
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low, essentially, low but stable temperatures.
00:13:00
And I have worked on a project, I
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won't name names, but someone had an oven
00:13:04
that completely malfunctioned.
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The thermostat went up in the middle of
00:13:08
the night and came in the morning.
00:13:10
They had some lovely sculptures, but not great.
00:13:13
We took a melted quarter-inch reels.
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It was quite a sight.
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That's when it's baking.
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That's when it's baking.
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It's literally baking.
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That's right.
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And I would add as well that a
00:13:23
big part of what Craig and the team
00:13:25
do here is to evaluate the issues with
00:13:27
that source before they even start.
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You might have other issues that aren't related
00:13:32
to hydrolysis or sticky shed syndrome as it's
00:13:35
often called.
00:13:35
There's another one which is known as loss
00:13:38
of lubricant where the actual lubricant on the
00:13:40
tape is worn off and then you get
00:13:44
this quite noticeable squeaking as it goes across
00:13:46
the reels and the capstans.
00:13:48
And that's a different issue.
00:13:50
You'll actually deal with that in a different
00:13:52
way by using solutions drip-fed onto the
00:13:56
tape as it's heading over the heads.
00:13:59
You can use other…
00:14:00
What's the stuff the NFSA were starting to
00:14:03
play with?
00:14:04
Hydromethazone.
00:14:05
Yeah, hydromethazone is a new product.
00:14:07
I'd like to try some of that.
00:14:11
That's almost like a silicon-like solution.
00:14:14
It's used to help with that loss of
00:14:16
lubricant.
00:14:16
They found that on old cassettes as well
00:14:19
that that's worked really well.
00:14:20
Well, I was just going to ask, you
00:14:21
mentioned it before, has anybody come up with
00:14:23
anything better than the HB pencil on a
00:14:25
cassette yet?
00:14:26
I mean, really?
00:14:27
Look, there were originally in the 80s, funnily
00:14:30
enough, there were winders.
00:14:32
They were commercially available.
00:14:34
Yes, they were.
00:14:34
I remember.
00:14:34
And they're very hard to get because after
00:14:36
you've…
00:14:37
We're looking down the barrel of one particular
00:14:39
project soon that's got about 500 cassettes and
00:14:42
they all need analysis, they all need checking,
00:14:45
they all need revision, tightening, and ultimately, as
00:14:51
Ben sort of insinuated, when we're archiving something,
00:14:55
it needs to happen in one pass without
00:14:58
any editing.
00:15:01
So it needs to be one complete recording
00:15:04
or it stops being a legal document, it
00:15:06
stops being a surrogate copy.
00:15:09
So if you put a cut in there
00:15:11
or you put an edit or you have
00:15:13
to stop for some reason, and this includes
00:15:15
if we're doing top secret things, if someone
00:15:17
enters the room, that recording is no longer
00:15:20
a legal document.
00:15:22
Wow.
00:15:22
And you would find that with archiving throughout
00:15:24
the world so that when you're doing certain
00:15:26
things, it's just like engineering, it's the preparation
00:15:30
and the means and the communication prior to
00:15:35
it and then the actual function of the
00:15:38
recording.
00:15:39
So there's a few elements involved.
00:15:43
No, the HP pencil is still pretty important,
00:15:46
I think.
00:15:47
And if anyone knows where there's a whole
00:15:49
stash of winders, old stock from the 80s,
00:15:53
please write to Craig at the archive.
00:15:56
Craig, I think I do actually have one.
00:15:58
I have a cassette repair kit.
00:16:00
Name your price.
00:16:01
Well, it's my birthday in July, so you
00:16:04
can let me know.
00:16:06
Send us a box.
00:16:07
You've just beggared one more question for me.
00:16:09
Given the high stakes that's going on, what
00:16:11
has more pressure involved, recording an orchestra or
00:16:14
a three-meter piano or sitting down to
00:16:16
dub a cassette?
00:16:17
Oh, look, you face all of the problems
00:16:20
just like we did our technical problems this
00:16:22
morning, just hooking up all these sorts of
00:16:25
lines.
00:16:25
You just face them as they come as
00:16:27
an engineer.
00:16:28
And I think you get so used to
00:16:30
things not working and figuring out problems that
00:16:35
you either embrace that in your career and
00:16:38
realize that that's one of the largest parts
00:16:41
of the career is you plug something in.
00:16:43
I came this morning, plugged something in, and
00:16:46
one of my leads isn't working.
00:16:48
Now, it's like, come on, one of the
00:16:50
leads.
00:16:51
I just couldn't believe it.
00:16:53
And so it worked yesterday.
00:16:55
Yeah, of course it did.
00:16:56
I mean, that's the old set up the
00:17:01
session the night before and you leave it
00:17:02
open.
00:17:03
You don't close Pro Tools.
00:17:04
You don't do anything.
00:17:04
You come in the next morning and two
00:17:06
mics aren't running or something's not working.
00:17:08
What the hell is going on here?
00:17:10
Exactly.
00:17:11
Yeah, that's it, right?
00:17:12
That is the law of it.
00:17:14
So I would say to answer your question,
00:17:18
when, say, you're recording a small ensemble, no
00:17:21
one really knows.
00:17:23
When you're the engineer and the technician, even
00:17:25
if there's a producer with you, maybe the
00:17:27
producer understands, but few people really know what's
00:17:30
going on, especially with trying to capture the
00:17:33
dynamic and the room and capturing the air
00:17:35
and the performance and all of those sorts
00:17:37
of things that you're trying to oversee.
00:17:39
Mostly the musicians are very focused on themselves
00:17:41
and their performance.
00:17:43
I've found, coming from that and working at
00:17:46
the archives, that you're surrounded by a whole
00:17:49
group of really professional people who are totally
00:17:52
kind of with you.
00:17:54
So there's a great deal of support.
00:17:56
There's a great deal of knowledge, and we
00:17:58
can go down to Canberra or call up
00:18:00
someone who's got 20 years' experience with a
00:18:03
particular format, and they'll talk you through it
00:18:06
over the phone, hold your hand, and if
00:18:09
it does go wrong, they'll probably buy you
00:18:11
a coffee at the end of it.
00:18:13
It's a different world, but it's a very
00:18:16
supported environment to work in, and it's great
00:18:19
being there's just so much knowledge here.
00:18:22
It's fantastic.
00:18:24
What's one of the most difficult formats that
00:18:26
when you're presented with it, you're thinking, oh
00:18:28
boy, what's one of the challenging ones?
00:18:32
In audio land?
00:18:33
DAT tapes.
00:18:33
DAT tapes that decide to crap out.
00:18:36
DAT tapes.
00:18:36
DAT tapes that fuck up.
00:18:39
Anything with a spinning head, right?
00:18:40
A spinning head tape.
00:18:42
We were all of an age that we
00:18:43
used DATs back in the day, and they
00:18:45
were bad even then.
00:18:46
If you were recording a TASCAM, you couldn't
00:18:48
play back in a Sony, all that nonsense.
00:18:50
So that continues.
00:18:52
We have to have a range of machines,
00:18:54
and we have a bunch of different brands.
00:18:56
Yeah, DAT tapes.
00:18:57
I used to carry around a little portable
00:18:59
to do some production sound mixing for a
00:19:01
film, real low budget.
00:19:03
And you would just pray that that thing
00:19:05
wasn't going to drop bits and drop out.
00:19:08
So here's a question.
00:19:10
First of all, actually one quick question.
00:19:12
Have you ever had to bake a DAT
00:19:13
tape?
00:19:14
Well, yes.
00:19:14
You should bake DAT tapes.
00:19:16
And then the second question, which is something
00:19:19
I've noticed, and I'm wondering if you've noticed
00:19:20
yourself.
00:19:21
I've done a few projects where someone brings
00:19:24
me all their old tapes, and you dry
00:19:25
them out, and then you get your one
00:19:27
playback.
00:19:28
And I have seen it.
00:19:29
If you guys haven't seen this, it goes
00:19:31
through the pinch roller, and it plays back.
00:19:33
And coming off that pinch roller, one piece
00:19:36
of tape becomes two.
00:19:37
And the second piece of tape just disintegrates
00:19:40
because it's just literally the oxide.
00:19:43
And the funny thing I've noticed is that
00:19:44
sometimes when people bring these projects, the cheap
00:19:47
tape from Radio Shack doesn't mess up.
00:19:51
And the expensive Ampex or BASF tape, that
00:19:57
stuff delaminates.
00:19:58
And you really have to make sure you
00:20:00
bake that stuff.
00:20:01
But the old crappy tapes, whatever they did
00:20:04
differently on them, those seem to deal with
00:20:06
the age better.
00:20:07
I think it's the additional cheap uranium content
00:20:10
in the Radio Shack.
00:20:12
It just seems to go forever, you know?
00:20:15
You don't rub it.
00:20:16
You're putting the radiation in Radio Shack.
00:20:18
Is that what we're saying?
00:20:19
Yeah.
00:20:19
I really think you're right, Robert.
00:20:22
It's funny.
00:20:23
I came here and was surprised to learn
00:20:26
that Ampex 456, which when I started out
00:20:29
was like, that's the tape.
00:20:31
That's what you use.
00:20:32
It does not age well at all.
00:20:35
There are other brands that weren't as well
00:20:37
considered back in the day that just, for
00:20:39
whatever reason, they just hold their condition better.
00:20:42
And so they'll require treatment.
00:20:45
I was thinking another format that's a nightmare
00:20:48
are optical CD-Rs, you know, the ones
00:20:51
you record.
00:20:51
I was going to say DVDs.
00:20:52
Don't they have a shelf life and they
00:20:54
just start to eventually start throwing errors?
00:20:58
In regards to your guys' audience, a lot
00:21:01
of us would have those DVD-R backups,
00:21:04
CD-R backups of our sessions.
00:21:05
Those are my archives, by the way, for
00:21:07
a lot of my media.
00:21:08
That's it.
00:21:09
Disc rod is very real.
00:21:11
I think we're all probably familiar with it.
00:21:14
You pull out a disc and it's got
00:21:15
those big holes in it.
00:21:16
It's where the reflective layer just breaks down,
00:21:20
and that can be anything from light-related
00:21:22
chemical breakdown.
00:21:24
So, yeah, they're one we'd really want to
00:21:26
be getting off.
00:21:27
Just on that, a really cool approach, and
00:21:30
we were talking about the HP pencils before,
00:21:33
but what we've really liked coming into this
00:21:35
is some of the novel approaches that are
00:21:37
really starting to come out now.
00:21:38
People are using 3D printing to build new
00:21:43
machines, essentially new components for these old machines.
00:21:46
At the same time that Craig and I
00:21:48
have come in here and we're digging back
00:21:49
into old machines that we haven't used in
00:21:52
40 years, there's that element of finding obsolete
00:21:56
equipment, as it's called, and cleaners, the old
00:21:59
bow cleaners that you string up a tape
00:22:01
and run it through first.
00:22:02
There's also some really novel stuff being done
00:22:05
with 3D printing, using new machines to be
00:22:07
able to take a tape out of its
00:22:10
case, roll it around, have a look at
00:22:13
it, really kind of judge it.
00:22:15
And with DATs, I've seen people using the
00:22:18
old data DATs that we would use to
00:22:21
put data to in the old day, and
00:22:23
they're actually extracting the audio data from that
00:22:26
DAT using an old SCSI setup, and so
00:22:30
they're not actually having to run for an
00:22:32
old Sony or a Tascam machine.
00:22:33
So like Craig said, around the world there
00:22:35
are archivists, they're very sharing, there's no sort
00:22:38
of competition.
00:22:39
It's a special DAT drive that reads data
00:22:44
and audio.
00:22:45
Yeah, that's right.
00:22:46
Because Mark Gilbert used to use those, I
00:22:48
think they were the Connor drives, and he
00:22:50
had DAT Studio, and you could load DAT
00:22:53
tapes in at double speed via data instead
00:22:56
of via as audio playback.
00:22:59
Yeah, that's right.
00:22:59
But you had to find those special DDS,
00:23:01
what was the DAT format, DDS3 was that?
00:23:06
DDR3?
00:23:07
DDR3 was it?
00:23:08
Yeah.
00:23:08
Yeah, and then you also have to find
00:23:10
an old SCSI card and something that can
00:23:12
run that.
00:23:13
And an old computer that can run the
00:23:16
software.
00:23:17
I like to ask the audience questions that
00:23:20
somebody would love to ask.
00:23:23
So what's the oldest piece of audio medium
00:23:26
that you had to archive?
00:23:30
A wax cylinder.
00:23:31
We're both pretty new, but down in Canberra,
00:23:34
we've both been down there.
00:23:35
They have some wire recordings, they've got quite
00:23:38
a substantial.
00:23:40
And I can't remember the technician's name down
00:23:44
there.
00:23:44
Aren't wire recorders after wax cylinders though?
00:23:47
I think wax cylinders predate wire recorders.
00:23:48
Yeah, they've got wax as well.
00:23:50
They've got wax as well, but because of
00:23:52
Australia being such a broad country and those
00:23:56
wire cylinders were easy to transport, there was
00:23:59
quite an industry here in Australia at that
00:24:01
time.
00:24:01
So people were sending them out to sheep
00:24:03
stations and different places like that.
00:24:05
They were quite robust.
00:24:07
And when you see what happens if you
00:24:10
take the spool, there's two kilometres of very
00:24:15
fine wire on that thing.
00:24:17
And when it comes off badly, it looks
00:24:20
like steel wool.
00:24:24
Like an afro.
00:24:24
It's a mess.
00:24:26
It's terrible.
00:24:27
And listening to their stories of having to
00:24:31
detangle those and put them back, but they've
00:24:33
got quite an advanced understanding of that.
00:24:36
And their technician down in Canberra has actually
00:24:38
gone over to university in America and lectured
00:24:40
on it.
00:24:41
And they've developed, just so they could get
00:24:44
an understanding of the magnetism techniques, they've used
00:24:47
a horn and done their own wire recordings.
00:24:51
So they've actually recorded through old machines just
00:24:55
so they could get a better understanding of
00:24:57
how it was originally done, so they could
00:24:59
also do the transfers because there was so
00:25:02
much significant content.
00:25:04
Now I would say with some of the
00:25:05
formats, what's interesting is some of the older
00:25:08
formats, including wire recording, some of the early
00:25:13
shellac and vinyl, they're really at very low
00:25:17
risk because they're still functioning quite well.
00:25:20
And they come off and they work and
00:25:22
sound great.
00:25:23
And I would say the same for tape
00:25:25
and quarter-inch, if it's been stored well.
00:25:27
And there were very good technicians back in
00:25:31
the day when people were recording.
00:25:32
The stuff that we get obviously comes from
00:25:35
the National Broadcaster and things, so it's really
00:25:37
well recorded.
00:25:38
The sound that comes off them is fantastic,
00:25:42
even on a 40-year-old Studer.
00:25:44
And at least compared to film, it doesn't
00:25:46
catch on fire if you store it wrong.
00:25:47
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
00:25:49
I guess film sound's probably a little out
00:25:52
of the scope of this podcast, but some
00:25:54
of the guys, I think you've probably heard
00:25:56
of vinegar syndrome, where the acetate breaks down
00:25:59
and you get a very strong smell of
00:26:01
vinegar.
00:26:03
And Tony Ravichow, head film sound guy, calls
00:26:07
them hockey pucks when they get so bad
00:26:09
that you pull out these reels of mag
00:26:12
and it's just a solid lump.
00:26:14
Just solid, yeah.
00:26:15
He will sit there.
00:26:16
An old drummer, he's a drummer, so he
00:26:18
has an old drum mic stand set up.
00:26:21
It's almost like a hairdryer.
00:26:23
Yeah, it's like a little hairdryer.
00:26:25
And then blows that onto the reel and
00:26:28
bit by bit just pulls it out.
00:26:30
Pulls it apart.
00:26:31
Wow.
00:26:31
And then he can actually get a transfer.
00:26:33
Porno mag syndrome.
00:26:34
And we use these big old...
00:26:39
You must really, really want to see what's
00:26:42
on or hear what's on that.
00:26:43
Yeah, totally.
00:26:44
Well, it's our job.
00:26:45
It's not about something we really need to
00:26:48
hear it.
00:26:49
It's our job.
00:26:51
So we get given these things and some
00:26:53
things have been stored really quite poorly or
00:26:55
they've been moved around or government departments have
00:26:57
closed down.
00:26:59
They've been put in boxes and stored and
00:27:02
left to the elements and they come to
00:27:04
us and it's not so much, oh, we
00:27:06
really want to hear it.
00:27:06
We have to hear it.
00:27:08
It's our job to get it off.
00:27:09
We need it stashed away.
00:27:10
We need to find what it is and
00:27:11
then we need to record it.
00:27:13
And it's really exciting.
00:27:15
That's a really...
00:27:17
We get given the resources.
00:27:20
We get given the support and the time
00:27:22
to do it.
00:27:23
It's like archaeology.
00:27:24
Yeah.
00:27:25
I'm sure there's a bunch of top secret
00:27:26
stuff along the way that you can't talk
00:27:28
about, but is there anything that's come through
00:27:29
that you've gone, wow, they recorded that?
00:27:32
That's really great.
00:27:33
I recently got to listen to a fantastic
00:27:37
Nick Cave recording that he did when he
00:27:41
was quite young and he was still living
00:27:43
in Berlin, but he'd come back to Australia
00:27:45
and he was sitting into...
00:27:47
It was a program for the ABC that
00:27:49
ran for a very long time and he
00:27:50
read from a book and also sat and
00:27:53
played at the piano and sung.
00:27:54
It was beautifully recorded.
00:27:56
The tape looked pretty damaged and we did
00:27:59
some work to it and we cleaned it
00:28:02
and we ran it through our cleaners and
00:28:03
we rehydrated it and then we did a
00:28:05
take.
00:28:05
And just hearing a great recording, a young
00:28:09
prolific artist coming from this beautifully recorded and
00:28:14
engineered process and just hearing it from tape,
00:28:17
it just sounded fantastic.
00:28:19
Do you ever improve the recordings?
00:28:21
Like if the original deck had Wow and
00:28:23
Flutter on the input, do you ever try
00:28:26
to go in and take out the Wow
00:28:28
and Flutter from what would have been a
00:28:30
flawed recording?
00:28:31
Not the Preservation Master, no.
00:28:33
So I guess probably should go to that.
00:28:35
We create a Preservation Master, which is just
00:28:38
the transfer that I mentioned, the straight in.
00:28:40
And then if a researcher or a member
00:28:43
of the public wanted to access that and
00:28:45
that was approved, we might then do some
00:28:48
treatment, some editing even.
00:28:50
Some restoration to it.
00:28:52
To make it more...
00:28:53
But generally as a rule, restoration is not
00:28:55
part of what we're doing here.
00:28:58
Where the brick lays.
00:28:59
Way back before wax cylinders, I forget who
00:29:01
it was, he came up with a system
00:29:03
called audiograms and he was able to take
00:29:07
a sketch of the waveform, but there was
00:29:11
nothing to play it back.
00:29:14
And then I think around 2000, early 2000s,
00:29:16
I began taking these photographs or these audiograms,
00:29:20
however he captured them, they would load into
00:29:22
the computer and convert it back to a
00:29:24
waveform.
00:29:24
And it was literally captured in 18 whatever,
00:29:27
60, and never played back until 2005.
00:29:32
That's quite special, isn't it?
00:29:33
That's amazing.
00:29:34
Well, some of the broken...
00:29:37
They now have a laser technology where they
00:29:40
can look at broken shellac and they can
00:29:42
grab the pieces.