"Talking Books" are an important resource for people who are blind or who have severely impaired vision. But if they are to be most enjoyable, the audio contained on them must be as intelligible as possible, and completely free from unwanted noises or distractions.
CEDAR's Managing Director, Gordon Reid explains, "Before visiting the RBS I had no idea how high the quality of their studios needed to be. Their engineers impressed upon that, when you read the printed page, you do not see the print itself, you receive the information that it contains. The same should be true of a Talking Book. The listener should be almost unaware of the individual words being read, and hear only the "book", not the recording that carries it. This places great demands on the digital audio system creating the recordings."
Together with David Wickert of ProDisc Systems, Reid demonstrated a range of CEDAR's noise reduction systems at the RBS in September 1998, and the Society subsequently purchased two CEDAR DHX dehissers. These will be installed in the RBS's new digital "Talking Book" studios in Enfield, New South Wales.
The Society has also signed a contract for the installation of a Digital Audio Production and Storage System. Brian Marett is the Audio Engineer project managing the installation. He says, "The Audio Production and Storage System has been selected for its ability to be flexible and to do the job we require efficiently without being difficult to operate. It is a very intuitive device and easy to operate effectively. We have chosen the CEDAR DHX units for exactly the same reasons."
"The RBS analogue master tape archive contains well over 100,000 hours of Talking Book recordings. To reformat these to digital masters and clean them up as we go means the CEDAR DHX units will be hard at work for a long time to come!"
The CEDAR DHX dehissers were supplied by ProDisc Systems in cooperation with Fairlight ESP.