I was talking to a mate a while back about throwing out all my old tapes. This might’ve changed my mind.
The Alesis TapeLink USB is a dual-well cassette deck designed to digitally archive audio. The device allows users to transfer cassette recordings onto a hard disk, flash memory, CD or iPod.
Connection to a computer is provided via USB, with support for 16-bit, 44.1 kHz CD-quality recordings. Two different dubbing modes support either normal or high-speed dubbing. The deck also features full auto-stop capability to keep irreplacable old tapes from breaking. It works with metal or CrO2 tapes and features on-board LEDs for visual reference to sound levels.
The device comes bundled with three different apps to assist in archiving: SoundSoap Standalone Edition (SE) for reduction of background noises such as room noise and electrical hum; Audacity, a lean, clean, excellent piece of audio-editing software; and EZ Tape Converter to assist with transfers.
TapeLink USB is compatible with Mac OS X and carries an estimated street price of £140.
Ok, if you’ve not read this post have a look through it. But what’s happening has to be seen to be believed.
A few intrepid YouTubers are stripping the vocal tracks out of well known songs and feeding them into Songsmith.
The resulting music is bad, but in a purposeful, ironic way. Adding another jarring layer, they then sync these musical amalgamations with the original song’s music video.
The Police “Roxane”
Radiohead “Creep”
Survivor “Eye of the Tiger”
Billy Idol “White Wedding”
I can’t embed this video because of copyright content claim by Universal Music Group but check out Nirvana – In Bloom (Microsoft Songsmith Remix). It’s really something else altogether.
