Digitise This

Digitisation 3 - Per Ardua ad Astra

2009-02-19T13:43:00.000-08:00

Well here we are - pure 80s stadium, dinosaur, supergroup rock. As my tweet @kevinmulryne while I was Digitising This, this has to be the funniest music I have heard. It's laugh-out-loud stuff - go and listen first to Voice of America. Also, of course fantastic and wonderful music to take you back to what you were doing circa. 1985.

Once again @GaryJDay managed to guess the artist via a few Twitter clues - it is, of course, Asia - rock royalty from a variety of sources. The original line-up appears to be out on tour this year - Steve Howe fresh from touring with Yes - without Jon Anderson and cut short because of the problem with Chris Squire's leg...

The line-up on this album is John Wetton, Geoff Downes, Carl Palmer and Mandy Meyer:

I actually remember being interested in Asia because of the Yes connection - the original guitarist for Asia was Steve Howe, long-time Yes legend. Also, of course, Geoff Downes played keyboards with Yes in the Trevor Horn period on Drama. The rest of the story can be found on Wikipedia - no need to repeat it here!

Another draw for me, of course, was the artwork by Roger Dean - most famous for his Yes album covers.

I never got into ELP, featuring Carl Palmer on drums but his no-nonsense style certainly fits the bill here.

Digitisation was uneventful (thankfully) apart from picking up the dog barking part of the way through...

Digitisation number 2 - royalty

2009-02-10T13:25:00.000-08:00

I held a quick competition on Twitter to see if anyone could guess the identity of this album.

Here were the clues:

Band from Coventry
Lead singer left to be a presenter on the young MTV
Second 'difficult' album.

@GaryJDay got it right!

I felt I should follow this band when they came out with the hit, 'Love and Pride', as I lived near Coventry and my favourite radio station at the time. Mercia Sound, were promoting them. I also entered and won a competition on Mercia Sound around this time and received a vinyl promo copy of a 'Bangles' album...

Anyway, listening to this now, I really rather like it - especially 'Alone Without You' - the biggest single and 'Sugar Candy Mountain Buddhas'.

Oh yes, just getting the links from YouTube reminded of the King trademark - spray painted Dr. Martin's boots!

The digitising process appeared to be going well until I played the files back. It turns out that the four-track tape deck also mixes in sounds through its integrated microphone - even though it is switched off! So at the beginning of the first track you can hear my telephone ringing! I couldn't be bothered to do it again...it's like history of the process I suppose.

I also got the process for making the MP3s sorted and transferred a couple of tracks to iTunes.

On to the next!!

First digitisation - what happened?

2009-01-29T11:46:00.000-08:00

Well, just getting back in here, finally after hectic few days.

The Cult - Love Removal Machine.

As I said below, what a way to start. I stuck my headphones on and the volume turned out to be HIGH! That's how I'd recommend listening to this track. It's a great, dirty, no-technology, raw noise and I love it! It took me right back to my teenage years - my friends listening to The Smiths in a darkened room (nothing against The Smiths - they were great) and me rockin' out to this on my Boots Audio tape player.

Here's the back of the 'cassingle':

I seem to remember that The Cult started off as more of a Goth band but I could be wrong. LRMachine is certainly not Goth stuff - just straight ahead rock, complete with squiggly guitar solo, wailing vocals and obligatory tempo change near the end. This was after 'She Sells Sanctuary' - which is why I bought this one. Interestingly and a bit of a sell-out maybe, if you look closely this was produced by Rick Rubin... Def Jam and all that.

Trivia - The Cult used to drink with the fans in the pub after gigs.

Now, I'm not going to risk legal action by uploading any of the digitised music so instead here's a link to this track on You Tube. Brilliant 80s video action! Check out those mullets!

The digitising was 'interesting'. It turns out that if you keep cassettes in hot places (i.e. sunlight) and then cold places (i.e. the loft) they go a bit odd - not really a surprise. This one worked as far as the end of track 2 and then started to squeal - the casing of the tape itself. So I stopped it and gave up.

The proof that I did Digitise This is here:

Audacity actually coped really well combined with the decent tape player.

Great stuff - I wonder what will be next out of the old cardboard box?

What a way to start!

2009-01-23T06:54:00.000-08:00

First out of the box is:

A 'cassingle' - what a great 80s concept!

Disaster #2

2009-01-21T05:38:00.000-08:00

This is what the Alba machine did to the head cleaner tape...

So I really, really needed another solution. Up to the loft again and look what I found:

It's a Fostex multitrack! I now remember I bought this for recording my class when I was a primary teacher. After a bit of experimenting with big to little audio connectors, settings on the multitrack etc. I managed to rig up something which worked and fed audio through to the computer.

We have lift off!!

It's here!

2009-01-21T04:34:00.000-08:00

The tape head cleaner has arrived:

Just off to crack it open and see if it makes any difference at all! Have a look at the instructions and think of me... Oh, and I didn't find any speakers... :-(

Twiddles thumbs...

2009-01-20T05:52:00.000-08:00

Well, no sign of the tape head cleaner yet.

In the meantime I have checked that Audacity is picking something up from the cassette recorder - and it is! I recorded a bit of radio and watched the graph thing on audacity dance up and down a bit.

Trouble is I only have one audio lead so I can only listen to the Audacity output via earphones - not great for assessing volume levels etc.!

So up into the loft I go again to see what I can find in the old kit box. Maybe some ancient speakers?

Disaster #1

2009-01-18T12:00:00.000-08:00

Well...I tried out a cassette in the tape player. As I suspected might happen, it started to unravel it and chew it up. Thankfully it wasn't one of the project tapes but annoying nonetheless.

So I'm afraid there is a bit of a hiatus while I order a cassette player head cleaning kit from ebay.

I'll let you know when it arrives.

WMDs

2009-01-17T13:03:00.000-08:00

OK so here's the equipment...

Audacity free audio editor - the essential software.
A Belkin audio lead - good quality. I hope.
A trusty Alba radio/CD/Cassette player (actually not at all trustworthy as you will see).
A Compaq Pressario PC (getting rather old now).

Welcome to Digitise This

2009-01-14T15:38:00.001-08:00

Hello and welcome along!

What's this all about?

In your late 30s?
Listened to music in the 1980s?
Got loads of cassette tapes in a box in the attic?
Wonder what they sound like now?

Well, you're rather like me then...

Digitise This - The Project:

When I bought cassette tapes in the 1980s, unfortunately I had:

very little money
questionable musical taste

Now, in 2009 I have:

very little money
not much memory of my musical taste in the 1980's

So the idea is to dust off the box of tapes which I have not listened to for almost 20 years and digitise them onto my computer using only the equipment I already have in the house and/or can download from the web for free.

So, first task is to assemble my weapons of mass digitisation.

to be continued...