What about my 8 track tapes?

Todds Spleen's picture
Submitted by Todds Spleen on Wed, 04/02/2008 - 8:25am. ::

An "ethereal" 10 second clip of a woman singing a French folk song has been played for the first time in 150 years.

The recording of "Au Clair de la Lune", recorded in 1860, is thought to be the oldest known recorded human voice. A phonograph of Thomas Edison singing a children's song in 1877 was previously thought to be the oldest record. The new "phonautograph", created by etching soot-covered paper, has now been played by US scientists using a "virtual stylus" to read the lines. "When I first heard the recording as you hear it ... it was magical, so ethereal," audio historian David Giovannoni, who found the recording, told AP. "The fact is it's recorded in smoke. The voice is coming out from behind this screen of aural smoke."

via Auntie Beeb

The article has a link to the audio

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Royalties?
Reggie's picture
Submitted by Reggie on Wed, 04/02/2008 - 9:18am.

Pretty kewl. They could have removed more "virtual" noise. But that adds to the authenticity, right? Did they bother to play it backwards to find the REAL message?!? The crappy performance was originally dismissed as follows: (translated from French)"Don't worry dude, nobody's ever going to hear this shit man!"

Fact is, there are probably vast opportunities to reproduce unintended audio recordings from the distant past. The passionate moaning of Dinosaurs humping, for example, captured in a soft river bed by the vibrating needles of a floating pine branch. Take that, banana- loving Bible- thumpers!!

The really exciting stuff will be the discovery of a preserved cache of Right Said Fred Compact Discs 50,000 years from now.


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The entire interview is
morganbatchava's picture
Submitted by morganbatchava on Thu, 04/03/2008 - 8:43am.

The entire interview is pretty interesting. A few years ago the class I was taking took a trip to Indiana State University (that's the one in Bloomington, IN right? I always get the two Bloomington schools confused) to see their music restorations collection. They spoke about some of the issues with trying to preserve deteriorating materials, and converting music to more hardy files. It was interesting how much work goes into such things.


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