Like many things in life, the whirrs and noises of old computers that were formerly annoying now inspire a nostalgic sense of retro glee -- the bleating of a fax modem, the blatting of a large-format dot-matrix printer. It's this sort of nostalgia that inspires some users to
make them sing, like a YouTuber going by the handle of bd594 who orchestrated a collection of outdated gear to emit the soulful strings of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. It starts with an HP ScanJet 3C playing the part of Freddie Mercury, then an Atari 800XL makes the organ sounds, TI-99/4a handles guitar duties, and a selection of other archaic goodies make visual and aural appearances. While the scanner did need to be recorded four separate times for all the "vocal" tracks, nothing was pitch-corrected, meaning your old scanner is officially more talented than three quarters of the Weekly Top 40. See for yourself after the break.
[Via
Boing Boing]
posted April 21st 2009 7:56AM
Wow.
It remind me of NES or gameboy music. The one area reminded me of team rocket's dungeon them specifically :P
Skynet Boy Band!
"Big Ideas: Don't get any - Radiohead cover by James Houston" (Youtube)
is about 5x better IMO - more rhythm and cooler
[html]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmfHHLfbjNQ&feature=player_embedded[/html]
I, for one, welcome our new robot..... entertainers...?
This is an absolute masterpiece!
Really impressive!
I look forward to the next video.
pure and utter awesomeness
I saw something similar to this the other day, except it was playing Radiohead - Nude. Cool stuff.
Made. Of Win.
skynet will kill us all... with music apprently
pretty cool!!
Pretty good rendition of the Rhapsody I guess.
But if you want a proper decent tune done just on printers check out 'Printer Jam' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is-HVxmUELQ
The big difference being that this was done directly on printers and other electrical gear that wasn't designed to be used as instruments, whereas that was done using samples of printer noises mixed with electronic instruments.
It might sound a bit better musically but it's just not as cool...
i want one.
EPIC!
Cool!!!! Almost as cool as: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmfHHLfbjNQ&feature=player_embedded
I'm speechless. I can't even come up with a smart-assed remark for how cool this is.
Not to flame or anything, but not only is this not very original, it's been done quite better here. http://www.vimeo.com/1109226?pg=embed&sec=1109226
Yeah, much better imo.
Great! Now he can use it to serenade his.... oh, never mind.
his motherboard?
Mouth full of AWESOME!!!
TI-99/4a was my first computer! All hail hunt the wumpus!
THIS is music.
Must have needed an excuse to keep the old stuff, so he showed how to make beautiful music with it all.
It bought a little tear to my eyes watching the vid. All those once great pieces of tech whom were once hailed as "the cutting edge in technology" (in their time), now reduced to nothing more than a circus freak show act.
*sniff*
:'(
Right, I heard the found themselves via youtube. Or ebay, or something.
Complex. Then again I so badly wanted that timing-impeded scanner to be used a a one-time cymbal instead during some parts of the "piece". Maybe with the next talent upgrade...
TI-99 how I miss thee.
That video just plain out makes me Happy.
Epic fail.
Sure the amount of time, money, and work that went into this is impressive but there's absolutely no timing to this.
So what we have is a terrible cacophony of sound that sometimes sounds like Bohemian Rhapsody.
I kind of agree with you, but it still has some amount of awesomeness.
I have to agree with Epic Fail.
If you're going to make music with machines, pay attention to the actual rhythm of the song. Just because you at some point played all the notes and they were sometimes on beat doesn't at all mean its good. The hardware version of Radiohead's Nude is WAY better and actually deserves a win.
I could kick my father for throwing out the Atari 400, the Atari 800XL and Laser 128 I had now. How am I supposed to take over the musical world now? Foiled again.
Epic.
Fucking.
Win.
Judge 1. "I dunno dog....-sigh- ...I was diggin the the retro, but the whole thing was just kinda pitchy for me. Nice try."
Judge 2. "3 Words- You used machines and made it your own. Now that's ARTISTRY!"
Judge 3. "You know I've been a fan and your such a beautiful person and that beauty is shown when you shine. You, you.. ..you...."
Judge 4. "This is what I've been saying all season, -You Have To Pick the Right Scanner-. Unfortunately, the HP is far to big for you. I'm sorry. I just don't get it."
---OK, sorry, my Bose QC2's ran out of juice last time my wife had Idol on.....(Kumar FTW!)
fucking awesome if you ask me, which you didn't but whatever:)
Interestingly, the song (1975) actually predates most of the hardware.
this post is full of awesome and win
this is better
http://www.vimeo.com/1109226
This guy has too much time on his hands...
...in the best way possible!
I remember "making music" with my Sinclair ZX81 and a radio. Ahh... those were the days.
Great effort. Although had a MIDI controller been used to control the devices, the timing would have been much more accurate. But for the time invested, this is a great job.