SOME OF THE MOST cherished reissues of recent years have benefitted from restoration at Airshow, including the Grammy winning collections "The Anthology of American Folk Music" and "Screamin' and Hollerin' the Blues: the Worlds of Charley Patton." Audio restoration - the nuanced, detailed application of noise reduction processes, click and pop removal, and distortion reduction - contributes clarity to releases of archival and historic material.
        In 2003, Airshow created the Restoration Center, a suite of services to assist cultural heritage institutions and record labels to digitize analog audio archives and make them accessible electronically. Digitization services, available in Boulder and Takoma Park, include real-time transfer from cassette, disc, any open-reel tape format and PCM and DAT Digital sources. After digital conversion, files can be post-processed to enhance listenability for scholars or to a commercial standard for use in exhibits or release.
        Digitization services include creation of preservation master files and access derivative files at lesser resolution, including 16/44 and compressed MP3 formats.
        Separate quality control services, relying on our well-developed mastering QC processes, are also available to insure the accuracy and completeness of files digitized elsewhere.
        Recent clients of the Restoration Center in Boulder include the Adirondack Museum, University Of Colorado Music Library, University of Wyoming American Heritage Center, Dine College and the Navajo Nation in Tsaile, AZ, Naropa University in Boulder, and the National Maritime Museum in San Francisco. Airshow is a preferred vendor of digitization services to the University of Michigan. Members of Lyrasis, the national library consortium, are eligible for preferred pricing for selected services in the Restoration Center.
        To establish the most effective workflow and accurate budget for a large-scale digitization project, we strongly recommend a pilot end-to-end effort involving a small selection of tapes, or a sonic examination of a sample of the recordings.
        Institutions contemplating the acquisition of a collection benefit from a fixed price "discovery day," where Airshow engineers examine and playback "mystery media." We furnish basic technical data including tape track format, speed and length, and sonic and physical condition - the information needed to plan and budget for digitization.
        Archivists are welcome to send or bring a box of media and participate in the discovery.