Michael Coleman’s recordings shaped the sound of Irish traditional music in the 20th century, but early recording technology left them frozen in their original format. A century later, Colman Connolly, a world-champion Irish accompanist, set out to change that.

Connolly set out to restore and remix early 20th-century recordings of Irish fiddler Michael Coleman. The original tracks, captured on fragile 78 rpm discs, had significant audio issues, including background hiss, pitch fluctuations, and tightly blended instruments, making it nearly impossible to isolate and work with the individual instruments of Coleman’s compositions. 

After initial attempts with other separation tools produced excessive bleed between the fiddle and piano, Connolly’s advisor connected him with AudioShake. AudioShake’s best-in-class stem separation tools allowed Connolly to isolate high-quality stems of the strings, guitar, and piano stems layered within the century-old. With stems in hand, Connolly carefully restored Coleman’s original fiddle recordings and built new piano accompaniments around them. 

Connolly’s completed thesis includes 15 restored and remixed tracks of Coleman’s work, demonstrating how advanced AI audio separation can unlock archival recordings for new creative possibilities.