Audio Salvage Podcast: The Chirpin’ Crickets in Stereo – 2024 Mix

Project History:

In 2022 I began de-mixing and cleaning all the individual tracks for this stellar classic.  During the past year I set the project aside due to the Rollercoaster Records release of the same title, because, even though Chris Hopkins and I don’t quite see eye-to-eye, I have a deep respect for John (Beecher) and it would have been extremely rude to offer a product for free while his label was trying to sell theirs to a very select market.  After we moved the studio at the beginning of ’24, I felt as if these mixes still had a place and should be heard, due in part the the vastly different approaches that my small team took towards the process, versus how Mr. Hopkins engineered his for the Rollercoaster Records label.

The Master Tapes – A Brief History:

The historians have given us a vast amount of history surrounding the sessions. But there’s much that most have never considered from a technical standpoint.  Holly fans have been at a disadvantage for years regarding the sound quality of this collection of songs, without even realizing it. These were the earlier days of analog technology. We’re talking about (mostly) monophonic tape machines, no studio multi-tracking or mixing capabilities. If Buddy Holly needed to double-track his voice or add more instrumentation, it required overdubbing from one tape machine patched into another tape machine.  When the tracks were completed, producers then made safety copies. The label seldom used the master tapes to compile albums for their artists. They were given a copy. Consider this: Almost every track on this album contained at least one overdub. That’s one analog generation bumped down to two. Then the 2nd generation master is bumped down yet again. That’s 3 generations, lost. With every copy made and used to compile LP’s/Singles, most Holly fans didn’t hear the music until it was already at least 4 or 5 generations down the line, with 2 or 3 generations spent on production, alone, before it even left the studio in Clovis.  That’s a lot of tape hiss, folks.

What We’ve Done:

Using AI de-mixing technology, we’ve reduced the hiss, greatly.  Not only have we separated and cleaned each individual track (vocals, drums, bass, etc), we have also stemmed the original studio effects (Sound-On-Sound, Echo, Reverb) and remixed those into the stereo spectrum for a very rich, natural sounding end-product. We felt it was important to allow those important elements to shine through, instead of what some labels have done, which was to add modern (2024) digital effects and additional reverb/echo/SOS onto the finished master.

What This Project Isn’t:

This is not, in any way, similar to the approach Rollercoaster Records took to their “Chirpin Crickets” releases.  Theirs seems to have a larger amount of artifacts that remained embedded into the mix, as well as being somewhat overly compressed and “murky” sounding, due to additional effects applied during the mastering process.  Also, the mastering process itself was approached very differently. Mr. Hopkins seems to prefer boosting the midrange, while ours favors a balance that allows for the lower and higher frequencies to shine through, predominate highs on the cymbals and rich basslines that needed to be heard.

Enjoy!

Remixed By David Orwig – ASP Studios, Honey Brook, PA

Mastered by Mike Quinn at SoundGate Labs, South Heidelberg, PA.

Downloads (MP3 & FLAC – Banded)