I have listened to parts of several of your renditions, but can't honestly say that I find them improved, compared with the commercial releases.
An issue such as the correction of pitch/tempo requires far more sophisticated software than a free download like Audacity, for decent results. I regularly use it, myself, to alter the speed (but not pitch) of dance music to bring it to a particular tempo (where the original is already within a few percent of what I require). With a decent, modern recording of normal dynamic & frequency range, it is immediately obvious that the correction process has radically altered the fidelity of the original (and not for the better) - and the trade off is having a piece which is usable, rather than not. Exactly the same distortions will be introduced by processing material of lower initial fidelity, but the result can only have less fidelity - never more.
In fact, this is an objection to almost any processing of this kind. There is nothing, really, that can be done to add back what isn't there. You can change the overall dynamic range, you can alter the relative volume of different frequency ranges (but again, Audacity's tools are crude), but you can't remove distortion, or add missing information. The original recordings of the Golden Age (and before) are fundamentally compromised, and for me, I would rather hear 100% of what we have, than less than 100% - you can only take away, you can't add anything.
The record companies have access to far more sophisticated tools than most of us, and it is a shame that more isn't done to render the very best possible versions of material for commercial release. But given that there is so much of musical value that isn't available commercially at all, I suppose we should be grateful for what we can get. Speaking as a collector (in a modest way), I'd far rather pay more my music, knowing the a proportion of the money was going to fund a wider reissue/restoration programme, than I would continue to buy the music at the rock-bottom prices at which it is readily available from US-based mail order businesses. But that's another issue.
An issue such as the correction of pitch/tempo requires far more sophisticated software than a free download like Audacity, for decent results. I regularly use it, myself, to alter the speed (but not pitch) of dance music to bring it to a particular tempo (where the original is already within a few percent of what I require). With a decent, modern recording of normal dynamic & frequency range, it is immediately obvious that the correction process has radically altered the fidelity of the original (and not for the better) - and the trade off is having a piece which is usable, rather than not. Exactly the same distortions will be introduced by processing material of lower initial fidelity, but the result can only have less fidelity - never more.
In fact, this is an objection to almost any processing of this kind. There is nothing, really, that can be done to add back what isn't there. You can change the overall dynamic range, you can alter the relative volume of different frequency ranges (but again, Audacity's tools are crude), but you can't remove distortion, or add missing information. The original recordings of the Golden Age (and before) are fundamentally compromised, and for me, I would rather hear 100% of what we have, than less than 100% - you can only take away, you can't add anything.
The record companies have access to far more sophisticated tools than most of us, and it is a shame that more isn't done to render the very best possible versions of material for commercial release. But given that there is so much of musical value that isn't available commercially at all, I suppose we should be grateful for what we can get. Speaking as a collector (in a modest way), I'd far rather pay more my music, knowing the a proportion of the money was going to fund a wider reissue/restoration programme, than I would continue to buy the music at the rock-bottom prices at which it is readily available from US-based mail order businesses. But that's another issue.
