Ellen and producer Ross Wylde were interviewed this week on Minnesota Public Radio’s Minnesota Now program. They talk about the process behind bringing Ellen’s archive of music back to life, and Ross’ careful use of AI to clean up the age-damaged tapes by removing pops and hisses and improving the sound quality without diminishing the quality of Ellen’s performance itself. We know that many folks look askance at the use of AI for anything creative, but we feel that the technology can be used with care and restraint for specific tasks like audio restoration. As Ross says in the interview:
"I think a lot of the time, it's easy to overuse AI to turn old recordings and footage into something that they were never meant to be and to make them look and sound too polished. And I would try to refrain from doing that. There's a balance there of making them sound good, but still authentic and soulful."
Ellen and Ross also drop a bit of news about our future music releases: Ellen’s second album, her followup to Go Round Sounds, Vol. 1, should be released in about a month! (We’ll let you guess what the title might be.) In addition, we’ve got a new single due out this week—”Golden Apples of the Sun,” which Ellen learned from her friend, folk legend Dave Van Ronk.
You can hear the interview on MPR’s website, or listen by clicking the embedded audio below. Our thanks to MPR’s Nina Moini and Ngoc Bui.
