There seems to be great interest in the Decca Record Company and some readers have asked me write more about early equipment used in Decca to restore old recordings.
Up until 1971, the transfer and restoration of Decca’s 78’s was carried out in Reduction Room 1 at the West Hampstead Studios (Broadhurst Gardens). When this room was not being used for the balancing of 8 track recordings and mixing down to produce stereo master tapes; the room was given over to re-mastering archive material. The additional equipment installed in this room (better known as Pull-Off Room 1) for the transfer of these old recordings was a Garrard 301 turntable, Pultec equaliser units and a Pultec high and low pass filter.
During that year, the demand for more compilations of nostalgic material was rising fast. Decca had an enormous catalogue of recorded material going back many decades and the country was waking up to the talent of artists of yesteryear. The only way forward was to create a purpose built room with up to date equipment – a room that was devoted to restoring 78’s and early magnetic tape recordings. It was decided to create this room not within the recording studios complex at Broadhurst Gardens but in Decca House on the Albert Embankment.
As the engineer appointed and trained to operate this new room I initially worked alongside R&D engineer Bob Goodman and his team, designing the console and piecing together the equipment and spares I would need at Decca House. The guys at the studios made a superb console with a Dexion frame and wooden panels. The console incorporated a Neve mixer, Astronic and Pultec equilisers, a Klark Technik graphic equiliser and a Pultec high and low pass filter. By December 1971, the new room was complete with console, Lancaster speakers, Scully 280 and Revox A77 tape decks and EMT reverb plates. I later acquired an ancient BTR2 deck for the playback of tapes at 30ips and modified it to operate remotely from the console. The original Garrard 301 also came to Decca House. This deck had two arms one carrying an Ortofon cartridge, the second a Shure cartridge. The Shure had multiple styli of varying sizes which were essential in extracting the best sound from the records. We also had a second 301 which we used for the transfer of vinyl recordings at 33 and 45rpm. This deck carried a Decca cartridge.
Throughout the 1970’s this was the top of the range equipment used to transfer and restore old recordings. But it was not until the early 1980s when the British Library National Sound Archive recognised the need to preserve its vast store of recorded material; that led to them funding a research programme at Cambridge University to develop computer based programmes capable of restoring vintage recordings stored on ageing media. The first prototype was announced in 1987 – the CEDAR Computer. Later to become a company in its own right, Cedar now have well over 20 years of experience and success in the audio restoration and forensic markets around the world. Having restored old recorded material the hard way I can appreciate the ability and sophistication of Cedar equipment and it is a vital tool. At Lost Sounds our Cedar units are workhorses that are integral elements in cleaning up customers’ recordings without harming the required audio signal. These units are powerful tools that allow us to work in real time adjusting parameters as the signal is being processed to achieve optimum results.
Tags: Audio Restoration, Damaged Materials, Tapes, Vinyl