I am doing some restoration work for a client. She had a commercially produced CD of her performances done some time ago (1977). She has always thought something was wrong with it and wants me to get rid of the distortion if I can. I listened to the CD and yes there is some very subtle distortion on it. It could be a number of things including something in the recording chain or the way it was mastered. There are 24 spirituals on the CD that are played on the piano and I would like to do what I can for my client. I have tried all the usual "tricks" but was wondering if anyone had dealt with this and found a good solution. Thanks in advance.
The left channel seem normal the right channel has the bottoms of all the peaks cut off so the waveform looks like it has been sheared by hedge clippers. Not sure what that is from.
The company, Orion Records, went out of business in 1988. Here is some information
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_Records. The University of Hawaii supposedly has all the masters. I guess the company founder did not want to go "digital" so he went out of business. I cannot tell who mastered the CD or where it was transfered from analog to digital. I will keep on working on it.