# Restoring Soundtracks of Old Movies?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/restoring-soundtracks-of-old-movies/371082>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [September 1, 2006, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/restoring-soundtracks-of-old-movies/371082 "2006-09-01T15:57:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\
**Post date:** [September 1, 2006, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/restoring-soundtracks-of-old-movies/371082/1 "2006-09-01T15:57:16Z")

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My question is prompted by watching some old movies on TCM: movies made before 1950 frequently have very noisey soundtracks and voices are difficult to understand. I understand that the old “seleno phone” modulated light soundtracks were superceded by magnetic sountracks in the 1950’s. What do they do when making a duplicate print? Can old optical soundtracks be cleaned up? I understand that removing a constant frequency noise 9like 60 hz hum) is pretty easy-but what about the pops and static on these old sound tracks. i was watching the old Bogart flick (“THE MALTESE FALCON”)-some of the dialoguwe is just about gone. ☹

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**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\
**Post date:** [September 1, 2006, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/restoring-soundtracks-of-old-movies/371082/2 "2006-09-01T23:58:32Z")

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Most Hollywood soundtracks from the late 1930s onward are preserved as three separate elements: dialogue, music, and sound effects.

Today it’s fairly easy (if time consuming) to eliminate “pops” and other artifacts from movie soundtracks, using a graphical representation of the soundtrack as a sound wave, where the artifacts are visible anomalies, and can be digitally erased.

I’ve seen _The Maltese Falcon_ several times over the years, and the soundtrack has always sounded healthy to me. If the image looks fine, so should the soundtrack sound fine: the nitrate masters were made at the same time.