Imaging Voices: Optical Scanning Applied to

Recorded Sound Preservation and Access

Carl Haber Lawrence Berkeley National Lab

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Edison’s Invention

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In 1877 Edison was experimenting with methods to record telegraph impulses on paper discs. This gave him the idea of recording the continuous impulses of the voice permanently in a material.

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150 µm 400 µm

50 µm 1 mm

1878 foil

~1940 disc 75 µm

Formats • Early recording is dominated by mechanical (grooved) formats. • Grooves moved either side-to-side or vertically • The earliest recordings utilized diverse materials and

configurations , particularly in the experimental period.

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Contingency • Fortunately, much evidence of early sound

recording has been preserved in collections. – The sound carriers, the machines, the notes…

• Unfortunately many of early carriers are at risk and traditionally problematic or even unplayable – Carriers are delicate, damaged, playback systems

don’t, or may never have existed – More generally archives want to digitally preserve

their extensive collections - ASAP . 27-Feb-2013 CITRIS 5

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A Non-Invasive Restoration • Could we optically digitize a recording without contact

to the medium – like robotic text scanning? • Address concerns of the preservation, archival, and

research communities: – Preservation: Restore or stabilize delicate or damaged media – Access: Mass digitization of diverse media, automation – Assessment – Obsolete formats and legacy playback systems: generality

• Precision optical measurements are widely practiced in the physics and engineering research lab.

Calculate the motion of a virtual needle, apply optional restoration

SI NMNH 7

A Basic Optical Process High resolution optical probe…creates a series of depth/intensity profiles of the surface

C

Map is archived

These are merged into a surface map

Create audio waveform

20-80 mins

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2D Imaging for Lateral Grooves

• Require 1 pixel = ~ 1 micron on the disc surface • High resolution = narrow depth of field, 10 – 20 microns • Requires active auto-focus control • High speed cameras allow near “real-time” imaging • Extract groove information from high contrast edge transitions

surface

scratch

dust

groove bottom

160 µm

hCoaxial illumination

“IRENE”

3D Imaging: Confocal Microscope

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Time

0.05 mm

Vertical resolution ~50-100 nm

System Implementation

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SI NMNH

Analysis Software

11

The analysis package “PRISM” includes powerful tools and options for access to the data and image processing to remove defects and damage.

Zoomed in view Depth image, black is deepest Surface damage

Profile along red line

Overview of full data set

Analysis parameters and options

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Dust Removal

Dust particles appear WHITE because they are above the surface

Examples

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Broken shellac disc ~1930

“You will soon go to a ball or large gathering and meet a new friend. A sincere friend seeks to help you in matters of importance to you. Your troubles can be avoided by changing your attitude towards them….”

Cracked wax cylinder 1906, fortune teller Earliest surviving disc record 1881, AG Bell & CS Tainter “Trr, 1 2 3 4 5 6 Trr, Trr”

Contemporary lacquer cut disc

Applications and Projects • Beginning in 2003, this approach has been developed into

working systems, in collaboration with the Library of Congress • Tools to handle diverse materials and pilot studies

– May apply particularly to field collections and at risk items

• Tools to process large collections, workflow – Faster and robust hardware and software – Method and approach developed with/for Library of Congress – System recently installed at Northeast Document Conservation Center – Other installations are under discussion

• The history of a technology – Have now rendered playable examples of all the historic milestones in

the development of recorded sound (~pre-1895)

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Field/Transcription Collections

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Media Approx Years

Example Collections

How many? Example Challenges

Wax cylinder 1890-1940’s Native American

50,000 breakage delicate mold

Aluminum disc 1925-1935 Parry, Lomax, Harrington

10,000 tiny groove oxidation

Lacquer disc 1935-1965 Radio, Studio Many x 10K exudation flaking

Dictation belt 1947-1970’s Presidential Many x 10K tiny groove cracked

Field Cylinder Pilot Studies • Worked with 2 collections

– Have scanned 60 items from UCB Hearst Museum representing a survey of Native Californian materials (~1900-1914)

– Have scanned ~20 items of Kwakiutl material recorded by Franz Boas on Vancouver Island in 1930 (Indiana ATM, UW Burke Museum)

• Can we create improved access to these materials? • Measure and develop a project workflow • Correlate/synchronize with motion pictures (Boas filming)

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Boas #711

Overcut Cylinder

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711 Stylus version (blue) 3D version (green)

Since optical scanning is free from the real-time dynamic effects inherent in stylus playback certain types of distortion can be reduced

Phoebe Hearst Museum Pilot Digitization Study • 2011-2012: 60 cylinders (of 3000) transferred by Maryrose Barrios (UCB physics student) • 20/week, developed measurement and analysis parameters • Created database and posted results • Presented at 2012 Breath of Life

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Yurok

Yahi – Ishi Recordings

Central Sierra Miwok

“Wood Duck” Story

Gambling Song

Giant’s Song

Native American Field Recordings at the UCB Hearst Museum ~3000 cylinders by Prof. Alfred Kroeber and associates beginning ~1900

Stylus playback

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Broken Wax Cylinder

• Temporarily constrain pieces on the mandrel with plastic straps and (re-useable) putty, shift strap, scan in segments

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Jack London Dictation Cylinder (J L State Park)

December 2, 1915 Dear Max Ehrmann: Just a rush letter, ere I sail for Hawaii. I merely want to tell you that everything concerning California prisons in the Star Rover is true. Ed. Morell is a real man, and Ed. Morell is his real name. He had a fifty year sentence, and he spent five years of it in solitary, as I have described. Two years ago Jake Oppenheimer was executed in California for assault and battery. I can only repeat, that what I have described is true of California up to the year 1913. I do not know what has happened in California since that date. If you ever read a book of mine entitled The Road, in which I give some few of my experiences, you will notice that in the Erie County penitentiary at Buffalo, New York, I have slipped by without describing much of the worst that I found obtaining there. What I found there was unprintable, and almost unthinkable. I am still curious to know how my handling of the Christ situation in Jerusalem will strike you. . 15-Jan-2014 21 SI NMNH

Aluminum Discs • Aluminum discs were in use from mid 1920’s-30’s • Grooves were embossed in the soft metal, considered noisy and loud • Grooves were very shallow as compared with shellac or lacquer • They were meant to be played back with “fiber” stylus so as to not score

or damage the surface • Study done in collaboration with Milman Parry Collection of Oral

Literature at Harvard University

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Aluminum Disc Study

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Typi

cal g

roov

e de

pth*

4147 Stylus 3D Optical

(* of a commercial shellac 78 rpm or lacquer disc)

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Lacquer Transcription Discs

78 rpm nitrate on glass Label: Howard Hughes, Collier Award 1939 (Lakeland Mus.)

78 rpm acetate Theos Bernard, interview, 1930’s (UCB)

SI NMNH

78 rpm acetate on metal 1940’s studio test Mutt Carey and the NY’rs (LoC)

Introduced in the mid-1930’s as a replacement for aluminum. Much improved audio quality but susceptible to delamination, flaking, and chemical breakdown

Broken Disc Strategy

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Interactive Restoration Tools

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Plastic Dictation Belts • Dictation, telephone and radio monitoring 1940’s-1970’s

– US Presidential phone conversations • Groove is embossed, lateral modulation, shallow • Never meant as an archival medium, poor storage

SI NMNH

Production Scanning Tools Developed in collaboration with the Library of Congress / Culpeper

Disc data entry Links automatically to database and index file

Operator quality and comments entry

Minimal run commands and settings

Scan status, progress bar, and task queue

Image quality

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IRE #

Condition data

Warped?

in/out?

autoPOS’N

autoFOCUS

Image quality

Scan

RENE

New images?

Process

Resample

Results database

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Database for Production Scanning

Initial focus quality

Label shot

Focus control

Image analysis

Audio

IRE00412 The World Today 1942-05-94

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History of a Technology • 1895: Dickson Cylinder – film soundtrack • 1888-1895: Emile Berliner – Gramophone disc • 1887: Edison’s talking doll commercialization • 1881-1885: Volta Laboratory developments • 1877: Edison records and reproduces on foil • 1860: Edouard Leon Scott de Martinville

records sound on paper – Phonoautograph

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The Volta Laboratory • In 1880 Alexander Graham Bell established the Volta Laboratory at

1221 Connecticut Avenue, Washington, D.C., to conduct research on sound recording and other topics.

• He formed an association with chemist (and cousin) Chichester Bell and instrument builder Charles Sumner Tainter.

• The associates experimented with an astounding variety of materials and formats. They produced numerous patents before settling on the wax cylinder as a recording medium of choice.

• Most of the experimental materials and notes are now in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution.

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Wax on binder board: AG Bell speaks

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60 µm

“This record has been made by Alexander Graham Bell, in the presence of Dr. Chichester A. Bell, on the 15th of April, Eighteen hundred and eighty five, at the Volta Laboratory, 1221 Connecticut Ave, Washington, DC, in witness whereof, hear my voice, Alexander Graham Bell”

Graphophone (1881)

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“Trill, trill,…There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy. Trill. I am a graphophone and my father was a phonograph.” Recording of Melville Bell (AGB’s father), September, 1881 Bell modified an Edison tin foil machine to use wax instead. For patent rights It was sealed in a metal box and deposited at the Smithsonian.

The St. Louis Tinfoil • The earliest Edison recording yet restored. • It was recorded in June of 1878 as part of a public

demonstration of an early commercial machine. • The event was staged by journalist Thomas Mason. • The foil passed through a number of collectors and

was finally given to the “miSci” in Schenectady, NY. • The foil had been folded with 7 distinct creases.

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…click click

click 3s

Unidentified brass 24 s

Mary had a little lamb…

10 s

Laughter…. 9s Old Mother

Hubbard, went to the

cupboard…11s

More laughter…

Full filtered = remove extra frequencies

Full recording is 1 min, 10 seconds, consisting of 6 distinct sections

The Phonoautograph Edouard Leon Scott de Martinville 1853-60

• Literally, “sound self writer” • Scott was inspired by the demonstration of photographic

capture of images on paper. • His perceived application was stenography. • Yet he had the vision to record 2 simultaneous tracks in order

to provide a real time calibration of the hand cranked process. • 1st digitized (by FirstSounds) and restored in 2008

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"Au Clair de la Lune" ["By the Light of the Moon"] sung; “…the pitch is measured by the tuning fork of 500 simple vibrations per second which writes directly and simultaneously in interlinear space of the song” Léon Scott 9 April 1860

2008

ASA

(French Patent Office)

1860

Collaboration and Support Lawrence Berkeley National Lab

The Library of Congress The Smithsonian Institution

Univ. of Appl. Sciences, Fribourg, Switzerland Northeast Document Conservation Center

Earl Cornell, Peter Alyea, Carlene Stephens, Shari Stout, Ottar Johnsen

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Conclusions • Optical technology and processing can aid archives, museums,

and libraries in preserving and gaining digital access, non-invasively, to at risk materials, collections, and historic media.

• Approach is very general • Methods are in use in support of a variety of collections. • Access to this technology exists and is expanding. • For more information: http://irene.lbl.gov/

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