Steamboat Willie, one of the earliest cartoons with synchronized sound, has recently entered the public domain. The cartoon’s soundtrack has an interesting quality when listened to on YouTube – it sounds distorted due to flutter, an unstable playback or recording speed. The author explores this flutter distortion and attempts to find a solution to reduce it. They use a high-quality source from the Internet Archive to analyze the soundtrack and find a frequency fluctuation of 15 Hz. They develop a software tool to correct the flutter using a digital varispeed technique. Examples of corrected sound clips are provided.
https://www.windytan.com/2024/01/smoother-sailing-steamboat-willie-flutter.html