Enhancing old recordings

Let's start off with a recording from 1919.
The original was recorded by the Edison Company and is a short comedy skit.

As expected, lots of noise, limited frequency response and it's monophonic. 

When restoring and cleaning up old material, there is always an important question to be asked..
How much to clean up.
For these examples, I will restore to different levels, so as to better demonstrate what is possible.

Below, is the same clip, cleaned and a stereo field is re-created.

The judge is on one side, the bailiff on the other and general sound effects centered slightly wide. 

Here is another, a 1953 Elvis recording.

Usual sort of thing, noise and limited frequency response.
The recording was not badly made, it was the norm for the 50's.

Technology has moved on, and so has music and how it sounds.
There have been many studies on how music (frequency wise), has evolved over the decades.
Here is a graph showing the average results from thousands of songs across many genres.

Today's music has more low end, less mid-range and more high end by several dB's, when
compared to the 1950's.

So let's apply it to the 1953 recording.
Listening on good speakers or headphones is recommended.
Note how the guitar is richer, brighter and wider.

It's a tad too "bright" for my liking, but I intentionally left it like that to show what can be achieved.
The trick here, was to re-create the high frequencies that were non existent in the original.
Simply using EQ is not going to do that, as it will just amplify more noise.

One more example, a LM radio special broadcast for New Year's eve, 1969-1970.

Since it was recorded off a shortwave radio, there is plenty of noise, crackles, whistles and heterodynes.
The original is barely listenable due to a constant whine and carrier heterodyning with other stations.

After much processing as there where plenty of interfering sounds and carriers, we have something

much more pleasant whilst keeping the characteristic shortwave "sound".

Next Post - The call of the Ibis