Digital noise reduction can effectively free music from the shortcomings of its recording medium, uncovering details which were once masked by noise. At present, the CD is by far the most popular digital storage medium with a projected lifespan of between 40 and 100 years. This should assure that playback hardware is available for both for a long time. The drawback of the CD is that it is a 16-bit medium only. Therefore, anything longer than 16 bits must be removed.
Straight truncation introduces unwanted artifacts such as distortion and noise modulation.
This effectively smoothes out the sound. Unfortunately broad-band noise is introduced into the system and effectively degrades its performance. The National Library's Recorded Sound Studio is a world-class facility. It accommodates the full range of musical styles, recording media and technologies from the entire history of recorded sound. The only master tape that had survived was found in the Randy Bachman archival fonds .