The tune setter

For music afficionados, Moloy Ghosh is the man who uses special technology that restores old LPs (long play) and records dating as far back as the twenties, that were otherwise lost in time

By Farida Khanzada
When the going gets tough, the tough get going. This is exactly what Moloy Ghosh, who worked as a marketing executive for 11 years with a multinational did. Finding himself at the crossroads of his life at the age of 42, when a debilitating disease, Hepatitis B struck him in 2008, taking a toll on his health, Ghosh instead of wallowing in self pity, decided to turn his life around, and sought solace in music.
Weaned on a daily dose of Rabindrasangeet, Ghosh whose formative years were spent in Kolkata, started singing at the age of three. With a keen ear for music, he participated in several school and college functions. When he shifted to Delhi after acquiring an electrical engineering degree from Manipur, little did he realise that his passion for music would provide succour later on in life. After losing his job, to sustain him and his family, he initially started tutoring young minds in Rabindrasangeet and Kabyageeti. “I wanted to listen to some of the songs sung by the legendary Krishna Chatterjee whose name is synonymous with Kabyageeti. Although, I had three to four LPs of the singer with me ( my dad’s collection), I scoured for more, only to realise that there were no CDs (compact discs) of the singer, as Kabyageeti was a fading art, no longer popular among music lovers. When I could not find any technician who could convert my LPs into CDs, I decided to do it myself. With this initiative, I was on my way to launch a whole new career,” says Ghosh, who also worked for a short while with a BPO.
Ghosh, on the suggestion of his wife Chandrani, a classical singer herself, started a simple workstation on his computer and record player to carry out complex audio restoration process. He started converting LPs to CDs after digitisation and also enhanced the audio quality by editing out any ‘hissing’ noise on the CD. “To digitise an album (be it LP/EP(extended play)/ cassette) on the whole depends on the full play time of the records/cassettes in normal speed and then, it takes me another 15-20 minutes to remaster it. To redesign the cover, a replica of the original records or cassettes, it takes me another 30 minutes,” explains Ghosh, adding, “The first LP that I digitised professionally was an album of the Italian singer Vicco Toriani for my first customer who had read about my service in a small pamphlet that I had pasted outside a sweet shop. Later, I digitised the LP of Krishna Chatterjee, a singer whose work that I had longed to listen and teach my students,” says Ghosh.
His collection includes rare records of Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Ustad Mohammad Hussain Khan, Ustad Faiz Khan, Bismillah Khan, Abdul Karim Khan, Professor Jnanendra Prasad Goswami, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Begum Akhtar (known as Akhtaribai during pre-independence) among others. Ghosh who has been in the business for the past four years, has digitised over 1000 LPs and equal number of cassettes in Hindi, Bangla and English songs. “I have also digitised Carnatic songs. Since, the entire digitisation process is done on software, the basic version of which I had procured from the US. I adapted it to suit the requirements of our songs,” explains Ghosh.
While, hurdles did dodge his footsteps initially, the master technician found support from unexpected quarters. “I had written to the then Secretary of Ministry of Culture, Government Of India, Jawhar Sircar informing him about my work. His encouragement motivated me to explore new techniques that has helped me in my project. Later, after Sircar’s retirement, when he worked as a CEO with Prasar Bharti, I met him and because of his recommendation, I will be working with All India Radio this year on a contract basis. I will be in charge of remastering the existing recordings that have been digitised from spools by their technicians, and providing a more finished product,” he says.
In the year ahead, Ghosh has set his sights on digitising various music archives across the country like Sangeet Natak Academy, New Delhi, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, besides commercial recordings that are available in various download versions and private cassette recordings.