A Scanner, a Calculator, an Atari, and a Hard Drive Walk into a Karaoke Bar…

Music Technology
A Scanner, a Calculator, an Atari, and a Hard Drive Walk into a Karaoke Bar…

…and after several rounds of zinc whiskers, take to the stage for a rousing if slightly off-key rendition of The Animals’ 1964 version of The House of The Rising Sun. From Vimeo user PURETUNE, who writes:

For this video i recorded each instrument separately with a decent stereo mic and i also used a mixer to adjust the audio levels. i would like to point out that absolutely no sampling or audio effects were used.

instruments

a. HP Scanjet 3P, Adaptec SCSI card and a computer powered by Ubuntu v9.10 OS as the Vocals. (hey, the scanner is old)
b. Atari 800XL with an EiCO Oscilloscope as the Organ
c. Texas instrument Ti-99/4A with a Tektronix Oscilloscope as the Guitar
d. Hard-drive powered by a PiC16F84A microcontroller as the bass drum and cymbal

i would like to give a shoutout to James Houston who (i think) was the first person to use multiple legacy computer equipment in conjunction to make a song. Be sure to take the time to view his YouTube video “Big ideas: Don’t get any – Radiohead cover by James Houston”.

[Thanks, Dale!]

Update: It has been brought to my attention that a TI-99 is not a calculator (at least not in the common sense of the word) but an early home computer. Woops! Sorry, folks.

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I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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