ameer - 6-19-2010 at 08:17 AM
Hi all. I have discovered quite a few old recordings of Farid El Atrash and Wadi El Safi online, all of which I like. The only problem is some of them
they sound like they've been run through a guitar "phaser" pedal. For a few of these recordings there exist clean versions but for the rest I have
been unable to find any. Moreover some of them sound like they've been run through a delay effect instead of a phaser which garbles the vocals and
makes the oud playing sound a bit strange. My question is does anyone know how to counter either of these effects or if such a thing is even possible?
Thanks in advance.
esteso - 6-19-2010 at 11:41 AM
It's probably not possible though you might have some luck with an M/S decoder, which processes the side channels differently than the center channel.
But even this is a long shot and it's relatively expensive. If you're computer savvy you can download a demo of Ozone and see if it works on the
file.
Good luck!
Brian Prunka - 6-19-2010 at 07:17 PM
These are probably tape artifacts.
Differences in tape head alignment can cause phase and flutter issues. Old tapes can have the magnetic fields "imprint" from one layer to the next,
causing a delay effect (or even a reverse delay if the tape was stored wound the wrong way!).
These may be from the original tapes, but more likely we're hearing transfers from later reel-to-reel or cassette tapes that introduced these
artifacts.
Who knows where the original tapes/acetates/etc. are, or if they even still exist.