IRENE (''Image, Reconstruct, Erase Noise, Etc.'') is a

digital imaging Digital imaging or digital image acquisition is the creation of a digital representation of the visual characteristics of an object, such as a physical scene or the interior structure of an object. The term is often assumed to imply or include ...

technology designed to recover

analog audio Analog recording is a technique used for the recording of analog signals which, among many possibilities, allows analog audio for later playback. Analog audio recording began with mechanical systems such as the phonautograph and phonograph. L ...

stored on fragile or deteriorating

phonograph cylinder Phonograph cylinders are the earliest commercial medium for recording and reproducing sound. Commonly known simply as "records" in their era of greatest popularity (c. 1896–1916), these hollow cylindrical objects have an audio recording engra ...

s, records, and other grooved audio media. It is in use by several archives and preservation institutions in the United States seeking to preserve and digitize historical audio.

History

The technology was developed at

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States Department of Energy National Labs, United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, t ...

Carl Haber Carl Haber is an American physicist. He is best known for his work in audio preservation. In 2013 he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. Career Haber attended Columbia University for his B.A., M.Phil, and Ph.D. Since 1986, he has worked for the L ...

and Vitaliy Fadeyev and was announced in a publication of the ''

Journal of the Audio Engineering Society The Audio Engineering Society (AES) is a professional body for engineers, scientists, other individuals with an interest or involvement in the professional audio industry. The membership largely comprises engineers developing devices or products ...

'' in 2003.Vitaliy Fadeyev and Carl Haber, ''Reconstruction of Mechanically Recorded Sound by Image Processing''. ''Journal of the Audio Engineering Society'', 2003.
PDF
It grew out of Haber's research in

particle physics Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) an ...

; in the 1990s, he had worked on Higgs boson detection experiments, and realized that the cameras he was using to set the detectors could also be used for detailed imaging of grooved audio recordings. The name IRENE is a

backronym A backronym is an acronym formed from an already existing word by expanding its letters into the words of a phrase. Backronyms may be invented with either serious or humorous intent, or they may be a type of false etymology or folk etymology. The ...

of the phrase "Image, Reconstruct, Erase Noise, Etc.", and was chosen because the first audio recovered by the system was a recording of the song "

Goodnight, Irene "Goodnight, Irene" or "Irene, Goodnight," is a 20th-century American folk standard, written in time, first recorded by American blues musician Huddie 'Lead Belly' Ledbetter in 1933. A version recorded by the Weavers was a #1 hit in 1950. The ...

" by

The Weavers The Weavers were an American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City originally consisting of Lee Hays, Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, and Fred Hellerman. Founded in 1948, the group sang traditional folk songs fro ...

.The Machine That's Saving the History of Recorded Sound
''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'', June 13, 2014. By 2005, Haber and Fadeyev had developed two-dimensional and three-dimensional machines, capable of recovering audio from vertically-cut and laterally-cut grooved media. Soon after, Haber and Fadeyev were contacted by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

, which began operating its own machine in 2006. In 2013, Haber was awarded a

MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 indi ...

to continue development of the system. , IRENE machines are operated by three institutions – Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Library of Congress, and the Northeast Document Conservation Center.Ghostly Voices From Thomas Edison’s Dolls Can Now Be Heard
''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', May 4, 2015.

Design and operation

The IRENE system uses a high-powered

confocal microscope Confocal microscopy, most frequently confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) or laser confocal scanning microscopy (LCSM), is an optical imaging technique for increasing optical resolution and contrast of a micrograph by means of using a sp ...

that follows the groove path as the disc or cylinder (i.e.

) rotates underneath it, thereby obtaining detailed images of the audio information. Depending on whether the groove is cut laterally, vertically, or in a V-shape, the system may make use of tracking lasers or different lighting strategies to make the groove visible to the camera. The resulting images are then processed with software that converts the movement of the groove into a digital audio file. An advantage of the system over traditional stylus playback is that it is contactless, and so avoids damaging the audio carrier or wearing out the groove during playback. It also allows for the reconstruction of already broken or damaged media such as cracked cylinders or delaminating lacquer discs, which cannot be played with a stylus. Media played on machines which are no longer produced can also be recovered. Many skips or damaged areas can be reconstituted by IRENE without the noises that would be created by stylus playback. However, it can also result in the reproduction of more noise, as imperfections in the groove are also more finely captured than with a stylus.

Uses

The IRENE system has been used to recover audio such as: *The earliest recovered audio (1860), of

Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville (; 25 April 1817 – 26 April 1879) was a French printer, bookseller and inventor. He invented the earliest known sound recording device, the phonautograph, which was patented in France on 25 March 1858 . ...

singing "

Au clair de la lune "" (, ) is a French folk song of the 18th century. Its composer and lyricist are unknown. Its simple melody () is commonly taught to beginners learning an instrument. Lyrics The song appears as early as 1820 i''Le Voiture Verseés'' with on ...

" *

Volta Laboratory The Volta Laboratory (also known as the Alexander Graham Bell Laboratory, the Bell Carriage House and the Bell Laboratory) and the Volta Bureau were created in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. by Alexander Graham Bell.(19/20th-century scientist an ...

recordings from the 1880s, including an 1885 recording of Alexander Graham Bell's voice *A set of cylinders for talking dolls issued by the

Edison Company The Edison Manufacturing Company, originally registered as the United Edison Manufacturing Company and often known as simply the Edison Company, was organized by inventor and entrepreneur Thomas Edison and incorporated in New York City in May 188 ...

in 1890 *

Wax cylinder Waxes are a diverse class of organic compounds that are lipophilic, malleable solids near ambient temperatures. They include higher alkanes and lipids, typically with melting points above about 40 °C (104 °F), melting to give low ...

recordings from 1914–1916, documenting more than 78

Indigenous languages of the Americas Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large numbe ...

, including some that are no longer spoken. They include the only known recordings of Ishi, the last survivor of the

Yahi people The Yana were a group of Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans indigenous to Northern California in the central Sierra Nevada, on the western side of the range. Their lands, prior to encroachment by white settlers, bordered ...

. These were collected by anthropologist

A.L. Kroeber Alfred Louis Kroeber (June 11, 1876 – October 5, 1960) was an American Cultural anthropology, cultural anthropologist. He received his PhD under Franz Boas at Columbia University in 1901, the first doctorate in anthropology awarded by Columbia. ...

and

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

Edward Sapir Edward Sapir (; January 26, 1884 – February 4, 1939) was an American Jewish anthropologist-linguist, who is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the development of the discipline of linguistics in the United States. Sap ...

, and are held by the

Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology The Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology (formerly the Robert H. Lowie Museum of Anthropology) is an anthropology museum located in Berkeley, California, on the University of California, Berkeley, campus. History Founded in 1901 under the pa ...

(formerly the anthropology museum of

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

) *Transcription discs from the

Woody Guthrie Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (; July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) was an American singer-songwriter, one of the most significant figures in American folk music. His work focused on themes of American socialism and anti-fascism. He has inspired ...

Foundation *A transcription disc containing rare recordings of the

Stanley Brothers The Stanley Brothers were an American bluegrass duo of singer-songwriters and musicians, made up of brothers Carter Stanley (August 27, 1925 – December 1, 1966) and Ralph Stanley (February 25, 1927 – June 23, 2016). Ralph and Carter perfo ...

*Disc recordings from the

Woodberry Poetry Room The George Edward Woodberry Poetry Room is a special collections room of the library system at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Overview Named for literary critic and poet George Edward Woodberry, the Woodberry Poetry Room was fou ...

at Harvard University, of poets (including

T.S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National B ...

Marianne Moore Marianne Craig Moore (November 15, 1887 – February 5, 1972) was an American modernist poet, critic, translator, and editor. Her poetry is noted for formal innovation, precise diction, irony, and wit. Early life Moore was born in Kirkwood ...

, Robert Frost,

Muriel Rukeyser Muriel Rukeyser (December 15, 1913 – February 12, 1980) was an American poet and political activist, best known for her poems about equality, feminism, social justice, and Judaism. Kenneth Rexroth said that she was the greatest poet of her "e ...

, Ezra Pound, and

Sylvia Plath Sylvia Plath (; October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, ''The ...

) reading their own poemsAt Harvard, Technology Resurrects Long-Silent Voices Of Poets

WBUR WBUR-FM (90.9 FM) is a public radio station located in Boston, Massachusetts, owned by Boston University. It is the largest of three NPR member stations in Boston, along with WGBH and WUMB-FM and produces several nationally distributed progra ...

, November 28, 2014.

References

{{reflist

External links

IRENE website
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories American inventions Audio engineering Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage Digital preservation Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Library of Congress

History

Design and operation

Uses

See also

References

External links