The following examples show the kind of thing we can do. Not all of them are fixing dramatically gross faults – most of those get noticed in plenty of time anyway. In each case, the original (mostly a snippet of up to 10 seconds, with the fault roughly in the middle) is followed by the processed version so you can hear the difference. Most of them are taken from private recordings.
1. Vocal retuning. This is probably the commonest thing we are asked to do. Here’s a typical example.
Audio clips -
Flat singer before
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and after
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2. Instrumental retuning. There’s no fundamental difference between this and vocal retuning. This one is distinctly subtle but it bothered the performer no end.
Audio clips -
Cello tuning before
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and after
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3. Correcting a wrong note. Here’s a classic: the entire viola section played a wrong note due to a misprint in the part, and the conductor and producer both missed it at the time. This is an extreme case of retuning. Subtly different approaches are required when retuning exceeds about half a semitone.
Audio clips -
Wrong note before
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and after
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4. Correcting piano tuning. This is very different from any other instrument, as pianos have two or three strings on (almost) every note and the ‘twangy’ character is due to just one of these strings losing pitch. It took two years of on-and-off work and headscratching to work this one out. This example is taken from a genuinely historic recording by a long-dead pianist of note.
Audio clips -
Piano unison before
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and after
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5. Correcting faulty diction. The singer forgot the last letter of the word ‘jetzt’, an easy mistake to make, as you’ll realise if you try to say it!
Audio clips -
Missing letter T before
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and after
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6. Inserting a missing note. The first example obviously lacks a note, which was missing from the parts.
Audio clips -
Missing note before
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and after
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How is this done? Software of course is an invaluable resource and plays its part, but in fact practically all the techniques used in Recording Rescue work make use of unremarkable commercial software. What’s different is the way it is used. A combination of lateral thinking, experimentation, hard work and an unusually acute pair of ears has made it possible to do things that the software’s creators never foresaw.
Above all, this kind of work requires constant ingenuity. Some tasks are fairly predictable from one recording to the next, but almost every Recording Rescue job throws up some new challenge that calls for a subtly different approach.
OTHER THINGS WE CAN DO
Just because Recording Rescue is all about a unique suite of techniques, it doesn’t mean we don’t do the more conventional stuff too! This includes tricks like removing loud coughs, chair squeaks etc. from recordings – we aren’t the only ones who can do that, but it’s still quite specialised. Indeed, many of our existing clients find it convenient to entrust to us their ‘regular’ mastering. We can do pretty much anything with stereo recordings, up to and including producing pre-production ‘Red Book’ CDs, with CD-TEXT if required, error-checked for compatibility with glass-mastering equipment.
CONFIDENTIALITY
We appreciate that not every artist or label will want the world to know that a recording has been to some extent ‘cheated’ (though we all know that the first cheat occurred the first time someone rerecorded an unsatisfactory take, some time in the very early 20th century). Be assured that ‘before and after’ versions will not be popping up on YouTube! In fact, we don’t need to know who the artist is. We don’t necessarily even need the whole recording. Many Recording Rescue techniques require only a few seconds either side of the offending ‘blip’. You send us what you think we need: if we reckon we need more we can always ask, with reasons.
PRACTICAL DETAILS
We can accept files for processing on audio CD, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM or electronic delivery (our Gmail address will accept attachments up to 20MB: beyond that we recommend www.YouSendIt.com). We can read most file formats, including Monkey’s Audio and FLAC, both of which save space and uploading time without compromising quality. We strongly advise against sending anything as MP3 format (unless of course the original recording was for some reason made as an MP3) due to the significant quality loss this entails.
LIMITATIONS
In theory, it might appear possible to go through a recording note by note and turn a meaningless, inaccurate ramble into a work of genius. Obviously, even if this is feasible it’s going to be horrendously time-consuming. In other words, if your recording simply sucks, bin it and make a new one. Recording Rescue, as the name implies, is about rescuing fundamentally good recordings that are marred by a small number of distinct flaws. We can’t turn a dog’s dinner into caviar!
COST
By now, you’ll have realised that this is a specialised professional service and prices are in line with that. But a Recording Rescue job can still be very cost-effective. Compared with the expense of calling everyone back into the studio to fix a troublesome passage, our fee will seem very small change indeed. In fact if it is just one passage giving trouble and fixing it doesn’t require completely new techniques, you may find that costs are gratifyingly modest, since they are based simply on our time taken to do the work. Even better, apart from reserving the right to levy a £15 administration charge (which we are currently waiving while the service is still new to the market), we charge NO FEE where there is NO FIX.
