Researchers Restore the First Recording of Computer-Generated Music (bbc.co.uk)

BoxRec writes: Alan Turing was part of a team who created the earliest known recording of music produced by a computer. It starts with a few bars of God Save the Queen, a snippet of Baa Baa Black Sheep and then Glenn Miller's swing hit In The Mood. The recording was captured by the BBC in the Autumn of 1951 on a 12-inch (30.5cm) acetate disc. But when Professor Jack Copeland of the University of Canterbury in Christchurch and composer Jason Long discovered the disc, the audio on the disc had been distorted. In a blog post for the British Library, Copeland and Long said it "gave at best only a rough impression of how the computer sounded." BBC News reports: "By analyzing the recording, Copeland and Long realized it was playing at the wrong speed, possibly as a result of the recorder's turntable running too quickly as the acetate was cut. As they knew the notes the computer was actually capable of playing, the pair were able to calculate exactly by how much the recording needed to be speeded up in order to exactly match the sound made by the Ferranti Mark 1. They also removed extraneous noise from the recording -- though not the engineer's voice. 'It was a beautiful moment when we first heard the true sound of Turing's computer,' Copeland and Long wrote. Now anyone can hear it in all its somewhat ramshackle glory."

Comments

Shame it doesn't mention the engineers name

[Viol8]

She sounds like she's enjoying herself. and has a lovely voice. Who says woman are kept out of computing by men? They were some of the early pioneers.

Re:Shame it doesn't mention the engineers name

[Psychotria]

She sounds like she's enjoying herself. and has a lovely voice. Who says woman are kept out of computing by men? They were some of the early pioneers.

They did mention her name... Nemone Metaxas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemone)

Re:Shame it doesn't mention the engineers name

[Opportunist]

I have no idea where that notion comes from, I don't know anyone who keeps women out of computing. They are not very numerous, yes, but my guess would be that they're over at the biology, medicine, architecture and pharmatech fields where you have a lot of women and a decreasing number of male students.

Guess what: People study what they're interested in. Who would have thought.

Re:Shame it doesn't mention the engineers name

[NotAPK]

Nemone was born in 1973 and this recording was made in 1951.

Re:Shame it doesn't mention the engineers name

[Calydor]

Not at all! ... But she's going to.

Re:Shame it doesn't mention the engineers name

[TheRaven64]

I don't know anyone who keeps women out of computing

I do. One of my colleagues ran a masterclass for 16-year-old children to study some computer science. The first year he ran it, he got over 90% boys. He asked the schools why this was and heard, from multiple teachers 'girls can't code'. The second year he said that the schools could send up to two students, but they had to send at least one girl if they sent anyone. Almost all of the schools still managed to send two students and there was no drop in quality.

Another of my students, on receiving her offer to study computer science here, was told by one of her teachers 'oh, you probably weren't one of the best applicants, just one of the best girls' (as the person who reviewed her application, I can confirm that this was not the case).

Do you honestly think that this kind of stated opinion from authority figures has no impact on teenage boys and girls?

Re:Shame it doesn't mention the engineers name

[goose-incarnated]

Why are the people most likely to complain about "SJW" also the most likely to drag up this sort of topic at every available opportunity?>

--
I started watching "Tropes Versus Women in Video Games" recently due to the persistent lies about fraud. It's terrific!

Why are you complaining? With your sig you bring up this sort of topic in every post you make. That's more than slightly hypocritical.

Re:Shame it doesn't mention the engineers name

[Opportunist]

Maybe unlike men, women noticed that there's way more money to be made in medicine, pharmacy and biotech?

Since it must have been before I studied IT, when was it around the same number of women and men that studied information technology?

Sounds pretty good

[JaredOfEuropa]

I was expecting a simple sine wave or harsh square wave sound, but the sound is surprisingly pleasant. It sounds like someone practising the cello.

Re:Sounds pretty good

[jellomizer]

Computers at the time used many analog parts. The Cello sound is because of the burst of power to create the note causing an attack sound. Similarly how the string is pulled a bit further by the bow until its tension outstrips the friction from the bow and starts to vibrate. combined with the sawtooth wave which is similar to a string instrument or a brass horn.

Re:Sounds pretty good

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because it was recorded on an acetate disc. If it were an mp3, it would sound as harsh as you expected.

Re:Sounds pretty good

[serviscope_minor]

I was expecting a simple sine wave or harsh square wave sound, but the sound is surprisingly pleasant

Indeed it is! I did a stream rip and looked at the waveforms. Nothing especially obvious springs to mind. There's probably a deep analoge hack using valves now long lost to the midsts of time to make a digitally controlled oscillator with 1 pentode, 3 condensors and a bit of string.

Re:Sounds pretty good

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, computers back then were all vacuum tube. This gives the bits a warmer sound.

Not Well Tempered

[grumling]

Interesting how out of tune many of the notes sound. I wonder if that's due to not having fine enough control over the oscillator or because the programmer didn't understand tempering?