Difference between revisions of "CC-Zero-Project"

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(Relocations in January 2022)
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=== Relocations in January 2022 ===  
 
=== Relocations in January 2022 ===  
* 10'000 grammophone records were purchased from a shop in Zurich. We received a complete collection from Latin America and South America in alphabetical order from an inheritance.  
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* 10'000 grammophone records were purchased from a shop in Zurich. We received a complete collection from Latin- and South America in alphabetical order from an inheritance.
  
 
== Inspection ==
 
== Inspection ==

Revision as of 11:42, 10 January 2022

The CC-Zero-Project is an ambitious project that collects musicological worth protecting analogue and digital sound recordings. Our goal is the free availability of public domain related content like music, sound or voice recordings.

Background

After my activities as an entrepreneur between 1988 and 1998 in the film- and music industry, I have founded after the millenium an Internet Radio Service to broadcast parts of my music collection which I built up since 1977. The focus was on the purchase of rarities that are significant in musicology. The collection contains today 2'000 phonograph cylinders, 45'000 78 rpm gramophone records, 25'000 vinyl discs, 15'000 compact discs and 500 laserdiscs. After long time spending to discuss with the collecting societies to create a contract for amateur broadcasters, the next step was to set up the Swiss Internet Radio Association. In 2009 I founded with a friend (expert of copyright law) the Public Domain Project, today a music archive and online library with 35'000 gramophone records. I left the Swiss Foundation Public Domain in the end of 2019.

Collection Overview

The main part of the collection is classical music between the baroque era and the 21st century in their variety of musical forms: chamber-, dance-, orchestral music, performing arts, piano pieces, sacred and secular vocal music. The 2nd largest part is jazz and swing music. During my business activities in the 1990s in the Middle East and West Africa I have started to collect rare ethnical vocal recordings and folk music. In the 2000s I began systematically to buy the earliest sound recordings, mainly phonograph cylinders of Edison and Pathé. My collection of phonograph cylinders was classified by Memoriav in 2016 as particularly valuable and therefore worth protecting. I found all kinds of oddities on record fairs and flea markets in Australia, Canada, England and the United States. My attempt to export a custom-made salon horn to Europe for an Edison Triumph phonograph failed due to local airline regulations in Amarillo, Texas.

Last Larger Collection Expansions

Relocations in April 2020

  • The special assorted collection contains 18'0000 Choral-, Orchestral- and piano works in "excellent" quality. It means the recordings are not often played. Many are rarely to find.

Relocations in January 2022

  • 10'000 grammophone records were purchased from a shop in Zurich. We received a complete collection from Latin- and South America in alphabetical order from an inheritance.

Inspection

The CC-Zero-Project is continuing the idea behind the Public Domain Project in 2009. Do not waste time and money in the inventory and cataloging. It's a learning by doing concept:

  • Inspection of material to digitize that could be in the public domain
  • Enter the information from the record inside a database (we are planning our own Wikidata instance)
  • Cleaning the record with a RCM (Record Cleaning Machine)
  • Selection of the correct equalizer setting of the 78 rpm grammophone record
  • Digitization of the record
  • Reduce the metadata information fields to a minimum
  • Check the copyright status
  • Upload the audio file (24-Bit, 192 kHz, FLAC) to Wikimedia Commons good documented with references

Digitization and Continous Workflow

I have been specializing in the digitization and rightsclearing of historical audio documents for eleven years. The processes and procedures have been continuously improved through my daily work. It is very difficult to find sponsors and at the same time to provide a continous workflow of high-quality digitized audio files with error-free metadata fields, well-documented informations about the 78 rpm records and finally the rightsclearing with irrefutable evidence that the recording is actually in the public domain.

Equalizing

The CC-Zero-Project is using three different phono preamplifiers. This means that the audio signals can be processed in the best possible quality by taking the correct equalizer setting. Acoustic and electrical recordings before 1925 had no cutting characteristics. Smaller labels only began to standardize their recordings in the mid-of the 1930s. Before the introduction of the RIAA equalization in 1955 there was no standardization. There was wild growth.

Metrics and Reports