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The following is a brief look at the Diamond Cut Productions Audio Restoration Tools Product Development Timeline - - -
Mid 1993 -
While frustratingly removing clicks from an Edison record using just a computer and a mouse whilst drinking too much wine and beer, Rick Carlson and Craig Maier wrote the first few lines of code in an attempt to perform this process automatically. Although very crude at the beginning, this particular algorithm (the Impulse Filter) eventually developed into its present level of sophistication occupying about 500 K of compiled code. Several of those original lines and thinking are still in the present day code. Rick had stored those original lines of code under the filename of dcart.exe ultimately giving rise to the name "Diamond Cut audio restoration tools."
Late 1993 -
Having heard about Diamond Cut through the grapevine, Bruce Talbot, executive producer for the Smithsonian Collection of Recordings contacted us and inquired if they would be willing to apply their "de-clicking" process to a particularly bad recording of "Darn That Dream." This restoration was released on the American Songbook Series on a CD entitled "James Van Heusen." which was copyrighted in 1994 as release number RD 048-18 / A 23955.
Early 1994 -
Having been satisfied with their work on the "James Van Heusen" CD, Bruce Talbot Again contacted Diamond Cut to do some work on a release in the American Songbook Series, which was to be called "Richard Whiting." On it, they restored a "basket case" copy of a Rudy Vallee rendition of "Honey." In the liner notes for the CD it says "The only source available for "Honey" was a 78-rpm disc in very poor condition. The sound quality has been greatly improved by Craig Maier and Rick Carlson of Diamond Cut Productions, using their DC-Art system of sound restoration." This CD is also copyrighted in 1994 but under the release number of RD048-22 / A 24571.
Mid 1994 -
While recuperating from surgery and being extremely bored, Craig decided to restore an entire artist's output of Edison Lateral Cut records which Rick and Craig had earlier transferred to digital audiotape as part of the Edison Lateral Cut Disc archival project. The artist was Ernest V. Stoneman (and his Dixie Mountaineers). He used their DC-Art program to remove all extraneous clicks, pops, and hiss from the originals. Ultimately, Diamond Cut Productions sold the Master digital tape to County Records which released and copyrighted the CD in 1996 on County release number CD-3510.
Late 1994 -
Diamond Cut Productions decided that it was time to release another in its series of mostly Unreleased Edison Lateral Cut recordings. They choose "The California Ramblers" as the subject of the release. They also decided to use no additional analog processing equipment other than their DC-Art program to restore the recording. De-clicking, de-popping, de-hissing, de-rumbling and minor equalization were all performed via their computer algorithms. Thus was their first release which included only two analog steps, that of the mastering back in the late 1920's and that of the transfer to digital tape in the late 1980's and early 1990's. This CD is entitled "The California Ramblers - - - Edison Laterals 2" and was released under number DCP-301D and copyrighted in late 1994. This CD is still available from Diamond Cut Productions, Inc. and other venues throughout the world.
Early 1995 -
Diamond Cut Productions decided to expand their business from the production of CD's to the manufacture of audio restoration software products. They decided that since the program had been quite useful to in their CD business, it might also be useful to many other people with audio collections in need of restoration. The first public release took about 7 months to smooth out the bumps in the program that they had learned to work around. Making a commercial software product is much different than writing one for oneself as they were soon to find out!
April 21st 1995 -
Diamond Cut Productions sent out the initial Beta version of DC-Art to some potential customers identified as QA 1.1. They worked on de-bugging this software for the next few months. If you have an original copy of QA 1.1, it may be an antique! (Antique software - - - what's this world coming to??)
July 1996 -
Version 1.0 was officially released at a meeting of "Record Research" held at the Maier Rockaway Township residence. The first copies were sold at the end of the meeting during which the program had been demonstrated to a small group of about 15 people.
September 4th 1997 -
A distributorship agreement is signed between Diamond Cut Productions, Inc. and Tracer Technologies, Inc. in order to facilitate the worldwide marketing and distribution of the DC-Art product line.
December 1997 -
Version 2.0 of DC-Art featuring, among other things, real time Preview was introduced into the market.
September 1998 -
Version 3.0 of DC-Art, otherwise known as Diamond Cut 32 was introduced into the market with novel features such as the Virtual Valve Amplifier.
August 1999 -
Version 4.0 otherwise known as Live and Millennium was introduced. This brought with it a new level of performance and features in the audio restoration and enhancement software market. Feature like Live feed through mode, and 24-bit/96KHz support have changed the landscape in this area of endeavor.
December 1999 -
Established German distributorship of the Live and Millennium program through Digital Broadcast Systems GmbH (dBS). The products can be seen in the German language at www.diamondcut.de
August 2001 -
Updated Live and Millennium to version 4.8 with bug fixes and the addition of a high resolution VU Meter. Also, the frequency resolution of the spectrum analyzer was greatly enhanced.
February 2001 -
Released the code for Enhance/MP3, a low cost product used for improving the sound quality of MP3 audio files. Diamond Cut Productions Inc. and Tracer Technologies form a new Partnership called Enhanced Audio Inc., whose purpose is to market and distribute the world’s best audio enhancement, restoration, and analysis tools.
June 2002 -
Released Live Five to Beta
May 2004 -
Released Live Six to Beta
December 2004 -
Introduced the VVA (Virtual Valve Amplifier) VST Plugin
January 13 2005 -
Introduced the AFDF (Adaptive Frequency Domain Filter) VST Plugin
August 2006 -
Released DC Audio Mentor to the Public
keywords: Diamond Cut History, Diamond Cut Product Development Timeline, Diamond Cut Product Sequence
Mid 1993 -
While frustratingly removing clicks from an Edison record using just a computer and a mouse whilst drinking too much wine and beer, Rick Carlson and Craig Maier wrote the first few lines of code in an attempt to perform this process automatically. Although very crude at the beginning, this particular algorithm (the Impulse Filter) eventually developed into its present level of sophistication occupying about 500 K of compiled code. Several of those original lines and thinking are still in the present day code. Rick had stored those original lines of code under the filename of dcart.exe ultimately giving rise to the name "Diamond Cut audio restoration tools."
Late 1993 -
Having heard about Diamond Cut through the grapevine, Bruce Talbot, executive producer for the Smithsonian Collection of Recordings contacted us and inquired if they would be willing to apply their "de-clicking" process to a particularly bad recording of "Darn That Dream." This restoration was released on the American Songbook Series on a CD entitled "James Van Heusen." which was copyrighted in 1994 as release number RD 048-18 / A 23955.
Early 1994 -
Having been satisfied with their work on the "James Van Heusen" CD, Bruce Talbot Again contacted Diamond Cut to do some work on a release in the American Songbook Series, which was to be called "Richard Whiting." On it, they restored a "basket case" copy of a Rudy Vallee rendition of "Honey." In the liner notes for the CD it says "The only source available for "Honey" was a 78-rpm disc in very poor condition. The sound quality has been greatly improved by Craig Maier and Rick Carlson of Diamond Cut Productions, using their DC-Art system of sound restoration." This CD is also copyrighted in 1994 but under the release number of RD048-22 / A 24571.
Mid 1994 -
While recuperating from surgery and being extremely bored, Craig decided to restore an entire artist's output of Edison Lateral Cut records which Rick and Craig had earlier transferred to digital audiotape as part of the Edison Lateral Cut Disc archival project. The artist was Ernest V. Stoneman (and his Dixie Mountaineers). He used their DC-Art program to remove all extraneous clicks, pops, and hiss from the originals. Ultimately, Diamond Cut Productions sold the Master digital tape to County Records which released and copyrighted the CD in 1996 on County release number CD-3510.
Late 1994 -
Diamond Cut Productions decided that it was time to release another in its series of mostly Unreleased Edison Lateral Cut recordings. They choose "The California Ramblers" as the subject of the release. They also decided to use no additional analog processing equipment other than their DC-Art program to restore the recording. De-clicking, de-popping, de-hissing, de-rumbling and minor equalization were all performed via their computer algorithms. Thus was their first release which included only two analog steps, that of the mastering back in the late 1920's and that of the transfer to digital tape in the late 1980's and early 1990's. This CD is entitled "The California Ramblers - - - Edison Laterals 2" and was released under number DCP-301D and copyrighted in late 1994. This CD is still available from Diamond Cut Productions, Inc. and other venues throughout the world.
Early 1995 -
Diamond Cut Productions decided to expand their business from the production of CD's to the manufacture of audio restoration software products. They decided that since the program had been quite useful to in their CD business, it might also be useful to many other people with audio collections in need of restoration. The first public release took about 7 months to smooth out the bumps in the program that they had learned to work around. Making a commercial software product is much different than writing one for oneself as they were soon to find out!
April 21st 1995 -
Diamond Cut Productions sent out the initial Beta version of DC-Art to some potential customers identified as QA 1.1. They worked on de-bugging this software for the next few months. If you have an original copy of QA 1.1, it may be an antique! (Antique software - - - what's this world coming to??)
July 1996 -
Version 1.0 was officially released at a meeting of "Record Research" held at the Maier Rockaway Township residence. The first copies were sold at the end of the meeting during which the program had been demonstrated to a small group of about 15 people.
September 4th 1997 -
A distributorship agreement is signed between Diamond Cut Productions, Inc. and Tracer Technologies, Inc. in order to facilitate the worldwide marketing and distribution of the DC-Art product line.
December 1997 -
Version 2.0 of DC-Art featuring, among other things, real time Preview was introduced into the market.
September 1998 -
Version 3.0 of DC-Art, otherwise known as Diamond Cut 32 was introduced into the market with novel features such as the Virtual Valve Amplifier.
August 1999 -
Version 4.0 otherwise known as Live and Millennium was introduced. This brought with it a new level of performance and features in the audio restoration and enhancement software market. Feature like Live feed through mode, and 24-bit/96KHz support have changed the landscape in this area of endeavor.
December 1999 -
Established German distributorship of the Live and Millennium program through Digital Broadcast Systems GmbH (dBS). The products can be seen in the German language at www.diamondcut.de
August 2001 -
Updated Live and Millennium to version 4.8 with bug fixes and the addition of a high resolution VU Meter. Also, the frequency resolution of the spectrum analyzer was greatly enhanced.
February 2001 -
Released the code for Enhance/MP3, a low cost product used for improving the sound quality of MP3 audio files. Diamond Cut Productions Inc. and Tracer Technologies form a new Partnership called Enhanced Audio Inc., whose purpose is to market and distribute the world’s best audio enhancement, restoration, and analysis tools.
June 2002 -
Released Live Five to Beta
May 2004 -
Released Live Six to Beta
December 2004 -
Introduced the VVA (Virtual Valve Amplifier) VST Plugin
January 13 2005 -
Introduced the AFDF (Adaptive Frequency Domain Filter) VST Plugin
August 2006 -
Released DC Audio Mentor to the Public
keywords: Diamond Cut History, Diamond Cut Product Development Timeline, Diamond Cut Product Sequence
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