Chapter 3: Analogue

Introduction

This chapter will examine attitudes and methods toward the preservation of audio media in the pre-
digital era. Through an analysis of the perceived archival value of grooved media with the invention
of wax cylinders a picture is formed of their benefits and limitations which have shaped the
approach to their preservation. Covering questions of authenticity, context and originality during the
process of migration to magnetic tape as a method to preserve the fragile carriers, it culminates with
a case study focusing on the IRENE project. This innovative technology allows digitisation of fragile
and damaged grooved media without the need for physical contact or friction and represents a
cutting edge yet sympathetic approach to digitisation of analogue media.

Grooved Media

When Thomas Edison developed the technology necessary to record the human voice in 1877,
though initially thought to be a novelty, it signified the beginning of recorded sound. A medium
which today is culturally central 1. Beginning as a method to record spoken words on wax cylinders,
the medium advanced quickly to capture music and began the commercial music and entertainment
business. It also transcended its original purpose to become one half of audio-visual material.

This invention has had a profound effect on the media as we know it today and over time has shaped
how we see archives and what might constitute their collections. The availability of what became
portable recording technology led to an interest in the capture of oral history along with musical and
cultural recordings from diverse regions throughout the world. Despite the fragility of the first
recording media which could crumble after just one use, the concept of recorded sound was
immediately identified as having archival possibilities. 2

But more significant from a perspective of preservation is that while wondrous, because of the
mechanical process involved, the media on which the information is stored is necessarily fragile. As
the analogue recording process is essentially a soundwave being converted to an electrical signal
and reproduced in the form of grooves, the material into which it is etched needs to be malleable
enough to allow this. This continued as the medium evolved and changed where regardless of the
format, the process was essentially a groove being cut or moulded from a master into a material of
different composition, strength or shape depending on the method of playback intended and the
resources available. The result is that from a perspective of long term preservation, grooved media
are flawed by the characteristics necessary in their manufacture. In tandem with this, as playback is
achieved through the friction of a stylus in the grooves it makes for a format that is vulnerable in
both use and storage.

In addition to this, for the first time, unlike paper media, a technological intermediary was
introduced between the user and the media being accessed. If a user wished to listen to an Edison
wax cylinder, they needed a phonograph. Later if they had adopted the course groove disc format,
they would require a gramophone on which to play them. This specification of playback equipment
to carrier is a constant throughout the history of recorded sound and if anything has become a more
inviolable link as magnetic tape was commercially replaced by the compact disc and subsequently by
the digital file. This introduction of a third element between data and user has been widely
1
Alan Ward, A Manual of Sound Archive Administration (London: Gower Publishing, 1990),p.122.
2
Jonathan Sterne, The Audible Past (London: Duke University Press, 2003), p.288.
employed with commercially sold proprietary media and computer software today. This means for
the modern archivist that the safety of acquired materials is not assured in the same was as for
paper materials.

If audio and audio-visual materials are to be preserved and their information to be archivally
valuable, it must remain accessible and useable. Doing this while maintaining the carriers in their
original format involves keeping or at least having access to the playback equipment associated with
each carrier type. To this end, an archive will need to house and maintain equipment for as long as
the media is deemed valuable in its original state. However, a similar spectrum of vulnerabilities that
affect the carrier also compromise the longevity of playback equipment as the machines are as
reliant on and diminished by friction and the analogue properties of their components. Once
manufacturing has ceased, the availability of components becomes more difficult and maintenance
becomes an exercise of diminishing returns and increasing expense. Ultimately, instead of amassing
and maintaining a collection of equipment, migration to current format may be the pragmatic action
for many archives.

While the act of acquisition and placement within a collection remain a significant part of the
preservation of non-textual material, there are ongoing conservation requirements that need to be
carried out over time. Though a book can be placed on a shelf in a safe environment and be
reasonably expected to remain relatively unchanged, audio and audio-visual materials are not as
stable.

In the case of wax cylinders, in Ward’s book written in 1990, when concerns regarding their
conservation were being voiced, the strategy being recommended was to transfer the recording to
tape. However, at that time magnetic tape had an estimated lifespan of approximately thirty years 3.
So, while wax cylinders are subject to many types of degradation due to the constituents of their
material as well as simply becoming brittle with time, the solution put forward for the preservation
of their contents is a relatively temporary one. Equally, once the tape copy was made, it required
proper care and maintenance, the procurement and servicing of a playback device and monitoring to
know when the time comes to migrate it to either a new format or to transfer it to new magnetic
tape. This chain of migration necessarily involves the potential for loss of information as a transfer
takes place.

While a book that has been kept well for a hundred years remains ostensibly stable and certainly as
useable in a practical sense as it was when new, in the same period audio materials will have
undergone a total migration from one format to another and sometimes at the cost of losing the
original in its entirety. “The balance between the significance of the artefact and the significance of
its information content effectively determines whether the preservation activity is to focus on the
former or the latter. If the content is deemed to be the principal point of interest then it may be
appropriate-and perhaps even necessary- to transfer it into some other format or medium to ensure
its continued survival and accessibility.”4 In some cases, if the carrier is of particular artefactual
value then this might be prized over the information it contains.

While this might seem like fresh territory for the collection and preservation of information, one
wonders if it is not more a case of the need for intervention speeding up as mechanisation led to
new formats, faster reproduction and wider dispersal. In observing that books which have enjoyed

3
“Life expectancy: How long will magnetic media last?”, Council on Library and Information Resources,
accessed 20 June, 2017.
4
J.P. Feather ed., Managing Preservation for Libraries and Archives: current practice and future developments,
(UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2004), p.5.
normal use and environmental factors have typically degraded at a glacial pace compared to
mechanical media, it may appear that the problems of migration have no precedent. But it may
instead be that the thinking relating to the intrinsic value of originality in paper documents is not
appropriate when dealing with faster decaying audio formats. This same disparity in thought may be
seen today in comparisons between analogue and digital audio formats.

Some conflicts in thought might occur where there are questions over the preservation of the
carrier. If focusing on authenticity, arguments might be made for the importance of preservation of
the carrier, which presumably would involve it retaining its usability. This argument tends to be
based on thoughts of originality and that a contextual value lies in the carrier. But the reality is, that
in the case of wax cylinders, the more volatile grooved disc compounds, magnetic tape and even
compact discs, their degradation is both surprisingly speedy and assured. It seems that the longevity
of these formats has been overestimated.

It is a natural archival ideal to wish to preserve a significant document in its entirety. But with
analogue carriers it may be overly hopeful to preserve in their original form and allow the access
that gives them their archival value. This desire may be an attachment to the object that has its roots
in the ideas from generations who dealt solely with paper. Lesk, speaking about digital books
suggests that the “intervention of machinery between the actual object and the reader means that
the users are unlikely to become emotionally attached to the particular physical media, and thus the
reformatting of advanced technology should not produce the objections that accompany the
reformatting of books.”5

The accumulation and maintenance of antiquated playback equipment was the future that
Ritzenthaler thought could be avoided by re-recording older formats onto magnetic tape in 1983 and
it was certainly an appropriate approach for the time. 6 However, in 34 years a world of technological
change has occurred. Now we see that magnetic tape has a reliable lifespan of twenty years 7 rather
than the previously estimated thirty, and that magnetic tape as a primary carrier has been effectively
replaced by digital formats. Rather than seeing this as a question of whether the tape medium
should be preserved by continuous re-recording, let us examine the ways in which digital formats
are furthering the archival cause.

With the use of tape as a storage medium, physical space was necessary with the correct
environmental considerations to ensure the minimum deterioration. The tape itself was an expense
and an asset that was devalued as soon as it was used. Added to this was the need for playback and
recording equipment and its maintenance and storage. But this is only what was required for an
archive to house magnetic tape. If it is to be worth housing and preserving, it needs to be useable.
This means either transcripts or user copies being made and maintained along with the source copy
and quite possibly multiple machines available in a reading room to allow their use. This is a hugely
expensive and time-consuming process as identified by Paton 8 . Over all these factors is the necessity
for enough staff to maintain and provide the material. These factors make a very strong practical
argument for digitisation.

5
Michael Lesk, Preservation of New Technology, (USA: Commission on Preservation and Access, 1992), p.3.
6
Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler, Archives and Manuscripts: Conservation, (USA: Society of American Archivists, 1983),
p.46.
7
David Bearman, “Retention and Preservation”, in Preserving Our Heritage: Perspectives from antiquity to the
digital age, ed. Michele Valerie Cloonan (London: Facet Publishing, 2015), p.123.
8
Christopher Ann Paton, “Whispers in the Stacks: The Problem of Sound Recordings in Archives”, American
Archivist 53, Spring (1990): p.276.
If the same information is transferred from magnetic tape or directly from their analogue carrier to a
digital format, almost every physical aspect of the management of the material is reduced. The tapes
themselves no longer need to be maintained meaning that the space they occupy can be used for
other material or the cost associated with maintaining the correct environment can be reduced.
Further space is created along with the reclamation and reallocation of man hours and resources by
no longer keeping the playback equipment. This should increase space and staff resources in the
reading room as digital access copies can be freely and easily created for users. Depending on the
nature of the material, this may even mean that a visit to the archive is not necessary for users as
copies can be transmitted digitally, and inversely, with the inclusion and accessibility of digital
material through the archives website and social media, users will be encouraged to visit the archive
for further research.

IRENE

A profound illustration of the meeting point between obsolete formats and the most modern digital
technology can be seen in the “Image, Reconstruct, Erase Noise, Etc” [IRENE] programme pioneered
by senior scientist Dr. Carl Haber of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. By using digital optical
imaging software, delicate and damaged grooved media can be scanned and reconstructed allowing
a perfect reproduction of the content on the carrier to be created without having to play the
medium and risk further damage or total destruction.

As a medium dependant on the use of a stylus and the inherent friction involved as the needle
travels through the groove converting physical contours to sound waves, grooved media are a stark
example of “materials [that] contain[s] the seeds of their own destruction” 9 . Each time it is played,
there is a physical erosion the carrier. As technology improved this became much less but the
original test recordings made to foil could be destroyed just removing them from the machine with
reproduction being impossible because if its fragility 10 . As Alexander Graham Bell developed the
technology to use first, cardboard and then wax cylinders, a better cutting process became possible
along with improvement to carrier compounds 11.

But even as the evolution continued to flat grooved discs from brittle shellac 78’s up to the vinyl
resurgence today, friction has remained an essential part of analogue sound reproduction. Though a
physicist outside the area of audio preservation, Haber heard a broadcast about a collection of
recordings within the Library of Congress that were too fragile to play. He then realised that the
imaging device he had been using to measure silicone and able to image particles smaller than a
human hair could be used to image the surface of grooved media and then once a complete image
was obtained, convert it to a digital sound file, thereby avoiding the need for any damaging physical
contact with the carrier12. Manipulation of the captured images could even allow the reproduction of
data contained in damaged surfaces including those suffering from mould to which wax cylinders are
very vulnerable and detrimentally affected 13.

9
Ross Harvey & Martha R. Mahard, The Preservation Management Handbook: A 21st Century Guide for
Libraries, Archives, And Museums (UK: Rowman and Littlefield, 2014), p.68.
10
Alan Ward, A Manual of Sound Archive Administration (London: Gower Publishing, 1990),p.122.
11
Ibid.
12
“Berkeley Lab’s Carl Haber: A genius in our midst”, www.berkleyside.com, accessed 1 August, 2017,
http://www.berkeleyside.com/2013/12/16/carl-haber-get-just-one-idea-youre-feeling-pretty-good/
13
Alan Ward, A Manual of Sound Archive Administration (London: Gower Publishing, 1990),p.131.
As this technology deals with media based on their very structure rather than any proprietary
features that may have bound the carrier to a specific playback device, aside from the focused
preservation work it has now allowed, though not instant it can also be considered a universal
emulator that allows playback of obsolete media without the need to maintain obsolete machinery.
This can be seen in the fact that it has been successfully used to preserve wax cylinders, aluminium
transcription discs and even heavily delaminated lacquered instantaneous discs. This, despite the
huge structural difference between the lateral grooves in a wax cylinder and the waving horizontal
grooves on a flat disc14. The nature of the process means that it can facilitate the preservation of an
entire genre of carrier rather than being bound by the proprietary relationship between carriers and
players15.

The overlap between technology and human intervention comes where visually obscure grooves are
converted to an eye-readable format for reconstruction. Once the pieces have manually been
reconstructed, technology is reintroduced to emulate the original signal and finish the process. In
this way, technology is facilitating human intervention rather than cutting it out. By sacrificing the
automation and convenience of the technological intermediary that analogue formats rely on and
instead introducing a highly technological process but with active forensic human input, a huge
increase in preservation potential has been made and a release from proprietary data relationships
found.

Though within the public eye grooved media are most often today associated with music and high-
fidelity music systems, the material IRENE has been dealing with during its development are highly
archivally significant. Perhaps because as IRENE went from being one machine to being produced in
greater numbers to allow preservation to be carried out in more locations with trained specialists,
the types of recordings that are being presented for preservation first are the most delicate, quickest
deteriorating and are quite often unique.

Also, these types of carrier, once recording became a possibility were immediately seen as being
useful for archival purposes. The portability of the phonograph in particular allowed a whole new
approach to ethnomusicology and linguistics and it is the recordings from this period that IRENE is
now preserving16. Equally, the aluminium instantaneous disc was used widely by radio stations and
so surviving examples contain historically significant interviews and broadcasts that were made
during World War 217.

The original material discussed in the interview that inspired Haber was a collection of aboriginal
song recordings from around the world that musicologist and Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart
knew to exist in the Library of Congress 18. Deemed to be very valuable, unique and significant but
recorded to wax cylinders, they could not be played for fear of their destruction. IRENE allowed the
collection to be imaged and preserved along with the retention of the untouched wax cylinders. This

14
Alec Wilkinson, “A Voice from the Past”, The New Yorker, 19 May, 2014, Accessed 1 August, 2017,
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/05/19/a-voice-from-the-past
15
“Audio Preservation with IRENE”, Northeast Document Conservation Centre, Accessed 1 August, 2017.
https://www.nedcc.org/audio-preservation/irene
16
Alan Ward, A Manual of Sound Archive Administration (London: Gower Publishing, 1990),p.122.
17
“IRENE Tested on Aluminium Discs”, Northeast Document Conservation Centre, Accessed 1 August, 2017.
https://www.nedcc.org/audio-preservation/irene-blog/2014/05/09/aluminum-disc/
18
Alec Wilkinson, “A Voice from the Past”, The New Yorker, 19 May, 2014, Accessed 1 August, 2017,
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/05/19/a-voice-from-the-past
allows the ethical rule of “minimum intervention” in preservation to be observed that might,
without this technology, have been necessarily disregarded 19.

It has also been used to preserve at least partially some carriers that appeared to be beyond saving.
The lacquered disc is made of a hard core of aluminium or glass with a coating of lacquer onto which
the recording was made. This style of disc came into use for economic reasons in the 1930’s as an
alternative to shellac. Their period of usage straddles both sides of World War 2 with earlier
examples identifiable by their aluminium core which was replaced by glass as the aluminium became
necessary for the war effort20. This means that surviving examples hold recordings from a very
significant time. However, because of their construction they suffer very badly from delamination as
the chemicals react within the lacquer and the surface separates from the core 21. Though ultimately,
these discs are unsalvageable as even in safe storage their decomposition continues, in using IRENE a
better copy of what data remains is possible compared to the use of a stylus 22.

Fittingly, IRENE has also allowed access to two recordings that might otherwise have never been
heard. One, a wax cylinder kept in storage at the Smithsonian which contained a recording of
Alexander Graham Bell’s voice saying, “Hear my voice, Alexander Graham Bell” made in 1885 23.
Using Haber’s technology, it was the first time Bell’s voice had ever been heard. More remarkable
still has been the access gained to an entirely visual recording made by Édouard-Léon Scott de
Martinville in Paris in 1860, predating the phonograph by almost two decades.

Scott was a type setter and stenographer and built his phonautograph machine to make a visual
record of the voice onto paper blackened by smoke from an oil-lamp. The phonautograph was a
tympanic device which imitated the human ear with the vibrations of a diaphragm being translated
into the movement of a brush over the blackened paper creating a series of visual undulations 24.
However, Scott never intended the recording to be audibly played back but rather that it offered a
swift method of transcription with possible applications for use by the deaf. In fact, when Edison did
record speech, Scott declared it to be without useful application as it did not produce a written
record25.

The capability that IRENE shows in being able to capture visual information and convert it from visual
to audio data seems to represent the closest meeting point yet achieved between digital and
analogue technologies as the digital audio product is analogous to the visual digital material
captured. The success of IRENE also illustrates the importance of interdisciplinary participation when
it comes to preservation. If the story of Scott’s phonautograph illustrates a lesson for today it is that
as a type-setter and stenographer, he may have been too focused on the written word to see the
possibilities that lay in audio reproduction rather than visual.

19
“American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works: Code of Ethics and Guidelines for
Practice” in Preserving Our Heritage: Perspectives from antiquity to the digital age, ed. Michele Valerie
Cloonan (London: Facet Publishing, 2015), p.545.
20
Stephanie A. Hall, “Preserving Sound Recordings”, The American Folklife Centre at the Library of Congress,
15 May, 2015, http://www.loc.gov/folklife/sos/preserve1.html
21
Alan Ward, A Manual of Sound Archive Administration (London: Gower Publishing, 1990),p.150.
22
“A Hefty Challenge for IRENE: Working with Delaminating Lacquer Discs”, Northeast Document Conservation
Centre, Accessed 1 August, 2017. https://www.nedcc.org/audio-preservation/irene-
blog/2014/08/12/delaminating/
23
Alec Wilkinson, “A Voice from the Past”, The New Yorker, 19 May, 2014, Accessed 1 August, 2017,
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/05/19/a-voice-from-the-past
24
Jonathan Sterne, The Audible Past (London: Duke University Press, 2003), p.35.
25
Jody Rosen, “Researchers Play Tune Recorded Before Edison”, The New Yorker, 27 March, 2008, Accessed 1
August, 2017, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/arts/27soun.html?hp
Equally, Haber’s work with IRENE is an exemplary illustration of the most desirable approaches to all
types of preservation where highly effective action leaves no negative effects on the artefact. This
allows future generations the opportunity to supersede the efforts being made at present. In
discussion of a collection of Woody Guthrie recordings that IRENE will now process, held in storage
for years without the possibility of migration, the Executive Director of the Northeast Document
Conservation Center Bill Veillette stated “It’s ironic that as we put more time between us and the
history we are exploring, technology allows us to learn more than if we had acted earlier.” 26

Conclusion

In this chapter, we have seen how the factors that made grooved media useful and useable are also
the factors that compromise their longevity. The friction created by a stylus during playback erodes
the carrier with each play therefore grooved media of archival importance have historically been
both valuable in their rarity and complex to preserve. While magnetic tape has been used to migrate
deteriorating grooved carriers to a more modern format, it was often at the cost of damage or loss
of the source. Through considered application of digital technology, the IRENE programme allows
fragile and damaged grooved carriers to be digitised without the need for friction. This is a
favourable meeting point for digital technology that allows non-automated human intervention
facilitating the preservation of analogue media without any risk of loss.

26
“Berkeley Lab’s Carl Haber: A genius in our midst”, www.berkleyside.com, accessed 1 August, 2017,
http://www.berkeleyside.com/2013/12/16/carl-haber-get-just-one-idea-youre-feeling-pretty-good/