Of All the Charlie Browns in the World, Mine is the Charlie Browniest

The United States Library of Congress voted to designate the Vince Guaraldi soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas a national audio treasure, including it among the twenty-five 2011 inductees to the National Recording Registry — America's sound heritage.

Trouble is, the Library did not have a copy of Charlie Brown among its holdings. So I gave them mine. Here's the story.

Since 2001, the Library of Congress has annually selected 25 sound recordings to be preserved in the Registry of "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" recodings. To give you an idea of the diversity among inductees, this year's group also included Prince's Purple Rain and a wax cylinder from an Edison Talking Doll. The press release made me curious: what exactly does the Library archive for any of the recordings and artifacts in the Registry?

In response to email, Library spokesman Cary O'Dell gave this explanation. "For each item selected for the Registry, we attempt to locate and acquire both the earliest and the best format. For example, if a work was originally issued on 78rpm, that is what we will attempt to acquire. Often as well we try to obtain a copy on CD (if one is available) for the ease of researchers." (Apparently we can count the US Government among those who believe the audio CD is a format of convenience, not significance.)

He continued. "Keep in mind that the Library of Congress already holds thousands of records and discs so many of the items named to the Registry we already have a copy of. When Purple Rain started to be discussed, I explored our holdings and found we did already have a vinyl LP. Though we have a digital copy of the Edison cylinder, the original remains in the historic archives of the Edison Labs in Menlo Park [NJ]."

Which brought us to the topic of Charlie Brown. "Another new title this year was A Charlie Brown Christmas. The [National Recording Preservation] Board has discussed it for several years with some members truly singing its praises and importance. This was the year it got enough votes. Surprisingly, we didn't have any holdings of that!" Mr O'Dell concluded, "The Concord Group has since been kind enough to donate a CD of the work to the Library and I am working to obtain an original vinyl."

This was an opportunity too good to pass up. My own vinyl copy of A Charlie Brown Christmas is in storage, having long ago been ephemeralized to 24-bit/96KHz weightless digital format for playback. So I offered to donate it to the Library for induction into the Registry. Mr. O'Dell immediately accepted; the government even paid shipping costs and sent a gracious acknowledgement letter (at right).

The work is currently undergoing a lengthy process of cataloging, curating and digital preservation before it can be counted among the Library's holdings. I'll let you know when the catalog number has been assigned so you can search for it. [Update 14-December: here's the link.]

I am proud that my humble LP is now the definitive audio copy of a beloved classic in the Library of Congress, preserved for posterity. Or, to paraphrase Linus: of all the Charlie Browns in the world, mine is the Charlie Browniest.

                Vinyl-to-Digital Restoration #2 (originally described 1-January-2012)              

Title: A Charlie Brown Christmas

Artist: Vince Guaraldi Trio
Genre: Jazz/Christmas
Year: 1965

There are two CD copies of A Charlie Brown Christmas somewhere in my house. But when it came time to install this title in my weightless digital Library, I decided to dub the old LP copy rather than ripping a CD. Like the homely Christmas tree selected by Charlie Brown, all the LP needed was a little love (and a few mastering steps in software) to make it shine. For more on Vince Guaraldi's music, please visit the Impressions of Vince website.

© 2012 Thomas G. Dennehy. All rights reserved.

A Xerox of a Poloroid of a Photo of a Painting

What format and bit rate should you choose for ephemeralizing your LPs?

While it may be popular, lossy compressed audio has its detractors. In an interview, Grammy-winning producer T. Bone Burnett likened its fidelity to the sonic equivalent of "a xerox of a poloroid of a photo of a painting."

[Image: low-res Beatles Sgt. Pepper album cover.]


Nonetheless, the 256 KBit/sec MP3 has become the de facto standard for purchasing and streaming music in the cloud.

Like WMA and AAC, MP3 is a lossy compressed format. (The three formats are interchangeable for the purpose of this discussion.) You can't uncompress an MP3 and get back the original audio. Some information is thrown away in the compression process to gain additional compaction over lossless compressed formats.

Lossless uncompressed formats incorporating linear pulse-code modulation (LPCM) capture a direct digital representation of an analog wave. "CD-quality" uses 16-bit samples taken at 44.1 KHz. The equivalent bit rate of 1411.2 KBit/sec transmits more than 5x the information in MP3 audio, with no loss due to compression. (See figure at right.)

Even a CD-quality copy introduces downsampling from the original. Most digital studio recordings are made with 24-bit samples taken at 96 KHz. The equivalent bit rate of 4608 KBit/sec transmits 18x the information in MP3 audio and more than 3x the information in CD audio.

It is possible to make 24-bit/96KHz recordings at home, 18x richer than a "good" MP3. Gigahertz computer clocks facilitate high sampling rates. Near-zero cost of storage makes compression unnecessary.  But is it worth generating and storing all those bits? Can anyone really hear the difference?

My Harman colleague Dr. Sean Olive, Director of Acoustic Research, is actively seeking a scientific answer to that latter question. My answer is simple: I don't care.

When it comes to information, more is always better. The digital transfer pipeline is software-driven. You may or may not be able to "hear" the difference, but your software tools can "see" the difference and work better when they have more to chew on. I'll use use the next couple posts to try to convince you to seek and preserve as many bits as possible when recording and processing, even if you ultimately choose a compressed format in which to store and enjoy your end products.


              Analog-to-Digital Restoration #8             

Title: Diamonds and Pearls
Artist: Prince & the New Power Generation
Genre: Soul and R&B
Year: 1991



Everything we've said regarding digital transfer of LPs applies identically to other analog source material. If you still have the equipment to play something, you can usher it into the digital future. I recently bought a like-new Denon DRS-810 at an estate sale for $25—a real find—to add to my recording station. My wife's equally like-new cassette copy of this Prince title is now ephemeralized.


© 2012 Thomas G. Dennehy. All rights reserved.