Re: ooops! (was 78s)

["G." <gigs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<quote Tim Rose>
Listening to that music forced me into buying both an E *and* an Eb
harmonica, to try to deal with the pitch variations.  I assume the
tracks were actually performed in B, but some of them were definitely
nearer to Bb, and (dammit!) some were annoyingly in-between.

When I asked him about it, he acknowleged that there was a lot of
variation in the "recording speed" of those early recordings, but it was
something that he didn't feel obliged to "fix".  He (and John R. T.)
were a lot more concerned about getting the sound as clearly and
accurately off the old and fragile recordings, than worrying about
making them "concert pitch".

- - --Tim Rose.
</quote>

I think thats the right attitude.
Its easy to fix the pitch issue after the album is cut, its impossible to fix
poor mixing after the event.

There is a free piece of software for PCs which plays CDs, it is primarily
intended for slowing down a section of music maintaining the frequency so you
can study a riff, lick or phrase.  But it has a number of features, one enabling
you to change the frequency (ie key).
The further you go from the original the more likely you begin to hit quality
"issues"... it starts to get sound artifacts the further you adjust it away from
the original since it does it on the fly.
The software I've found reliable is "slscdtr.exe" or "Slow CD".  It should
appear on a number of shareware/freeware softwar sites for PC computer.

Also its not the first time that I've recorded a track from an out of print
vinal (I have to borrow the record player) onto PC, and made a minor pitch
adjustment before committing it to CD so I can use it in my Stereo.
Therefore avoiding having to retune harmonicas by a 1/4 tone.

G.