Cleaning up 78 transfers Options

[tinpanalley]

Hi all,
I'm taking a 78 recording (and several others that I'm transferring) and trying to clean it up. I'm capturing the audio with Audacity at 32-bit IEEE float, as a stereo recording from a 78 stylus on my turntable at 45 then changing the speed, finishing it off with inverting the RIAA curve.
My question is about cleaning up from this point forward understanding of course that one method simply won't work in every case.

I have Audacity, Sound Forge, DeNoise and ClickRepair. I've tried following this to a certain degree but I have no way of knowing if there's something I'm missing, if it's out of date, if there's a better way, etc. Mastering, I'm ok with. It's just the cleaning part I want to know with the aim of archiving these transfers.

Any thoughts?

[botface]

FWIW when I was doing my major "78 project" I was in touch with collectors all over the world. They all had several different size/shape styli for different labels/periodsbut invariably listened via RIAA eq. I guess that's partly because RIAA was effectively a default being built in to every amp that had disc replay capability. But knowing the lengths some of them went to in pursuit of their hobby I'm sure they would have spent whatever was necessary to get the right eq if they thought it mattered that much - or maybe they were more interested in the music than the technicalities as 2B says

[2Bdecided]

FWIW when I was doing my major "78 project" I was in touch with collectors all over the world. They all had several different size/shape styli for different labels/periodsbut invariably listened via RIAA eq. I guess that's partly because RIAA was effectively a default being built in to every amp that had disc replay capability. But knowing the lengths some of them went to in pursuit of their hobby I'm sure they would have spent whatever was necessary to get the right eq if they thought it mattered that much - or maybe they were more interested in the music than the technicalities as 2B says

You may have just known the wrong collectors. The two I know with many styli also have dedicated analogue pre-amps giving any possible curve.

Cheers,
David.

[botface]

FWIW when I was doing my major "78 project" I was in touch with collectors all over the world. They all had several different size/shape styli for different labels/periodsbut invariably listened via RIAA eq. I guess that's partly because RIAA was effectively a default being built in to every amp that had disc replay capability. But knowing the lengths some of them went to in pursuit of their hobby I'm sure they would have spent whatever was necessary to get the right eq if they thought it mattered that much - or maybe they were more interested in the music than the technicalities as 2B says

You may have just known the wrong collectors.
Cheers,
David.

I don't think so. They were mainly the people behind the standard discographies covering the early jazz and dance band eras in the UK, North America/Canada and parts of Europe. Actually it's just occurred to me that maybe they weren't bothered about the correct eq as so much of their collections was "pre electric". Unfortunately I think they're all dead now so I can't check with them

[2Bdecided]

I don't think so. They were mainly the people behind the standard discographies covering the early jazz and dance band eras in the UK, North America/Canada and parts of Europe. Actually it's just occurred to me that maybe they weren't bothered about the correct eq as so much of their collections was "pre electric". Unfortunately I think they're all dead now so I can't check with them

Sadly, I've never known anyone that important personally (and I would love to have met Brian Rust!). The closest person I do know (and he's very much alive) plays his jazz (should be jass!) 78s on whatever he has to hand.

Cheers,
David.

[botface]

I don't think so. They were mainly the people behind the standard discographies covering the early jazz and dance band eras in the UK, North America/Canada and parts of Europe. Actually it's just occurred to me that maybe they weren't bothered about the correct eq as so much of their collections was "pre electric". Unfortunately I think they're all dead now so I can't check with them

Sadly, I've never known anyone that important personally (and I would love to have met Brian Rust!). The closest person I do know (and he's very much alive) plays his jazz (should be jass!) 78s on whatever he has to hand.

Cheers,
David.

Out of interest I got in touch with the only one of those old guys that I know to still be alive - Jack Litchfield; author of The Canadian Jazz Discography. He spent a lot of time transferring his favourites from his collection to CD about 10 years ago. He told me :

"Other, more sophisticated, collectors of my ken use equalizers with many sliding controls to get the absolute best sound.

My philosophy was that, with my antique hearing, it didn’t make much difference."

He also reminded me of something many collectors have said to me :

"Also, I wanted my CDs to sound just like my 78s, so I didn’t attempt to remove surface noise; I just cleaned up the clicks."

[tinpanalley]

"Also, I wanted my CDs to sound just like my 78s, so I didn’t attempt to remove surface noise; I just cleaned up the clicks."[/indent]

That's how I handle my LPs and my 78s. I know there are certain people who think there's no point if you're not going to clean it perfectly, but that's how I want my records to sound when I listen to them in a car or on my media player. Somebody once said to me, "You WANT them to sound like crap?" To which i just thought, if that's what you think, what are you doing in a forum about records?