The Grammy Award for the Best Historical Album in 2009 has been awarded to Lance Ledbetter, Art Rosenbaum and Osiris Studio's Michael Graves for the box set, Art of Field Recording Volume I: Fifty Years of Traditional American Music.
During the course of the project, Graves worked with recordings made on a variety of formats including 1/4-inch tape, DAT, cassette, LP and flash recorder, many of which were compromised by noise: ground hums, tape hiss, and unidentified background sounds. It was his responsibility to take the 110 tracks, which would eventually be spread across four CDs, and produce a sonically cohesive album.
"As with any dust-to-digital project," Graves explained, "it's not my job to hide the origin of the source material. If I can make an old record sound like a new recording without damaging the original sound through over-processing, great. But more often than not, the goal is to minimize the extraneous noise as much as possible while maintaining the life of the original."
Graves uses a variety of CEDAR audio restoration tools, and for the Art Of Field Recording project he employed CEDAR's Auto Dehiss on many of the tracks.
"I wasn't trying to hide the fact that the sources were 1/4-inch tape or cassette. But with CEDAR's Auto Dehiss, I could minimize the tape hiss to an acceptable level without generating any artefacts. I don't mind a little bit of tape hiss, but these recordings span more than 50 years; it therefore wasn't uncommon to find a recording made last year sequenced next to a 45-year-old track. In such cases, that 'little bit of tape hiss' stands out even more after listening to a pristine track that was recorded digitally. The reduction in hiss achieved via CEDAR ultimately gives the listener a more enjoyable experience."
The award was presented at the 51st annual Grammy Awards ceremony, which took place on 8 February 2009 at the Los Angeles Staples Center.
CEDAR Audio Limited, 20 Home End, Fulbourn, Cambridge, CB21 5BS, United Kingdom. t: +44 1223 881771 f: +44 1223 881778 e: info@cedaraudio.com
Michael Graves Osiris Studio t: +1 404 992 9820 w: www.osirisstudio.com
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