Voices from the past visit Hilltop (Photo by John Schreiber, The Daily Campus)

An SMU alumnus is developing a new technique to restore historic recordings of the early 20th century. Dr. Vitaliy Fadeyev, a class of 2000 graduate in the department of physics doctorate program, is developing the program with fellow researcher Dr. Carl Haber at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California.

Fadeyev presented his research and preliminary successes at a lecture on campus Monday night.

The restoration process is unlike any previous attempts at restoring old recordings because it does not require the recordings to be played. The microscopic grooves in the recordings are scanned using a digital microscope called a SmartScope. The SmartScope then builds a digital image of the grooves. Haber and Fadeyev had previously used the technology to track the subatomic particles set free in physics experiments.

After the digital images of the recordings were created, Fadeyev wrote a computer program that duplicates the movement of a record player stylus to create digital copies of the sound on the record.

Fadeyev said that he and Haber got the idea for the project when they heard a news story about old recordings that were damaged and in need of restoration and preservation.

“We played with this idea, but we didn’t know what to expect,” Fadeyev said.

He said once they realized what was possible with the technology, they began to study the mechanics of recording sound to help their restoration work.

When Fadeyev and Haber began their work, they went to a used record store and purchased a 78-rpm disc of The Weavers’ “Goodnight Irene.”

The original recording was full of static and was distorted from age and deterioration, but when the digital scan was used to play the song, the sound was clear and free of distortion.

The physicists then began building a machine for the SmartScope scans. They named the machine Image Reconstruct Erase Noise, Etc., or IRENE.

Fadeyev said IRENE’s name was a tribute to the song on which they first used their technology.

Since then, Fadeyev and Haber have restored old recordings of Thomas Edison, a previously unconfirmed recorded outtake of Elvis Presley’s “Jailhouse Rock” and other early 20th century recordings that had previously been too damaged to play.

Mark Holland, who works at a recording studio and restores recordings on a freelance basis, was at the lecture and described the technology as “magnificent.”

“This is fantastic because it’s a whole new means for getting the data.”

Holland predicted that this technology would make future remasterings of old recordings easier and create better quality recordings of songs available for future generations.

Physics Department Chair Dr. Fred Olness was very excited by the discovery.

“Most of the things we do are pure research; the applications are decades away. With this, there is an immediate application of the science.”

He also stressed the historical significance of their work.

“Hearing Edison speaking in his owns words is something that needs to be preserved.”

In addition to researching to make IRENE more efficient and produce higher quality scans, the pair have been contacted by the National Archives to help restore a very controversial recording.

During the motorcade when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, a Dallas police officer riding on a motorcycle in the procession had his radio on when the shots that killed Kennedy were fired. The radio traffic was being recorded on a Dictabelt, and the recording, known as Dictabelt No. 10, has been a highly debated piece of evidence in the case of Kennedy’s assassination.

There is debate over how many gunshots can be heard on the recording, but if Fadeyev and Haber’s method can be converted to restore the Dictabelt recording, there is a possibility that a restored version of the recording could shed more light on the matter.

Fadeyev said Dictabelt No. 10 is a “very noisy recording,” and even if his process can produce a clearer version of the radio traffic, much work would be needed to determine what is actually on the recording.

“It would be up to a forensic scientist to decide what is there; it is our job to get the sound,” Fadeyev said.