Audio and sound restoration

Fandango Recording provides audio and sound restoration and enhancement from different audio sources. The most common audio sources are reel to reel tapes, cassettes, vinyl – 33”, 45” and 78”, mini tapes, minidisc, VHS tapes, phone answering machines and tapes, and many more. The following are some mp3's samples of audio restoration. The first two samples are from "A Passing Fancy" album - transfer from vinyl, audio restoration and remastering performed for the label Pacemaker Toronto, the third sample is from Eugene Smith - restoration and remastering released by the same label - and the fourth sample -Sugar foot stomp - is from a very old and almost destroyed vinyl/bachelite recorded in 1939 in Manitoba by Mr. Alan Parkin from Toronto and his band on 78”.

"A Passing Fancy" original and restored:

Eugene Smith- Toronto music icon with "Amy" - original and restored:

Alan Parkin - "Sugar Foot Stomp"- original from vinyl 1939 recorded in Manitoba, Canada, and restored:

The important question is to what extent can this process restore the freshness of a song? Are there any other advantages to this? There is no short answer. First, let's consider the example of an old tape: it's only going to get worse in time, and it's exhibiting a lot of noise and lack of details. Or take an old LP, a lot of crackles, scratches, clicks, thumps, and noise. Having them restored and burnt on a CD or on a digital archive is an advantage; the digital medium won’t degrade in time like an analog tape.

Fandango Recording has a lot of experience in sound restoration and remastering, as we worked with Pacemaker – a Toronto record label that are bringing to life old recording of bands from 60’ and 70’ from Toronto music scene and not only. We remastered many of their albums, like John Long Baldry- “Good to be alive”, Robbie Lane and the Disciples – “It’s Happening”, A Passing Fancy- “A Passing Fancy”, Chilliwak – “All over you” and “Riding High”, McKenna Mendelson Blues- “Mainline Blues”, Mainline – “Bump’n Grind Revue”, Peter Foldy – “Bondi Junction”, Paupers- “Ellis Island”, Jarvis Streets Revue - ”Mr. Oil Man”, The Gaiety Records Story- "Various", and others… You can buy or listen to them at www.canadiancds.com.

There is a difference between transfer and audio restoration; transferring from analog to digital does just that, maintaining the sound problems from the original source. When it comes to sound restoration, we are listening to the source and decide the best way to convert it, having in mind the processes required for restoration.

What exactly does restoration involves?

The sound restoration process deals with noise, crackles, scratches, clipping, hiss, hum and clicks removal, spectral repair, and advanced spectrogram restoration, and brings back some of the shine of the recording. If needed, warmth or harmonic enhancement will be done. The removal of the unwanted problems is done using RX Advanced Audio Restoration (Izotope), Sonnox Restoration suite, and Waves Restoration Bundle.

The next step is the harmonic enhancement of the material to get the best perception of the original sound. This is done through sophisticated hardware and software, and the result is quite spectacular. The harmonic enhancement is needed as the removal of noises, crackles, scratches, clicks, thumps does affect to a certain extent the audio part. EQ just doesn't do it in this case. Once the process is finished, the audio file is saved and prepared for delivery over internet, or memory sticks, or for burning on CD.

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