news about TRACKWISE

AMERICAN MASTERS

Trackwise Engineer Richie Weigle had to use every trick available to restore Joan Baez's private 1/4" recordings from the early days of her career for one of the upcoming Episodes of PBS' "AMERICAN MASTERS" series.

Premieres Wednesday, October 14 at 8pm on THIRTEEN.

THE TENDER GAME

Trackwise inc. recently restored the soundtrack for “The Tender Game” (1958) a short by noted animators Faith and John Hubley featuring a rendition of the song “Tenderly” by Ella Fitzgerald and the Oscar Peterson Trio. (The link above has the unrestored version of the soundtrack!)

The work was done for the Museum of Modern Art.

Unusually, the best sound source was a double width push-pull optical track. This is a format that saw usage in the 1940’s and early nineteen fifties on re-recording stages because of it’s excellent sound reproduction capability. The track cannot be played back correctly on a modern projector or optical reproducer without deteriorating the sound as only half the track is being “Seen”. We at Trackwise were able to use our Westex film phonograph (circa 1939) to play back the film in its original format with stunning fidelity! Some very slight digital processing was used to reduce some noise “pumping” in the recording.

Trackwise continues to combine traditional techniques using some of the best analog equipment and the latest digital processing programs to bring older recordings back to life without over processing, and ruining the sound.