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Compiled from our Director's personal archives for our MP3@25 online exhibition celebrating 25 years of compressed digital audio: museumofportablesound.com/mp3/
Note the intentional misspellings, incomplete titles, and inconsistent punctuation of the file names. These were tactics used by MP3 pirates in the days of Napster to avoid detection by copyright holders while still being able to communicate a file's contents to the intended audience of downloaders.
Compiled from our Director's personal archives for our MP3@25 online exhibition celebrating 25 years of compressed digital audio: museumofportablesound.com/mp3/
Star Wars® Episode I: The Phantom Menace CommTech™ Reader
Hasbro & Lucasfilm (1999)
Hasbro and Lucasfilm's attempt to create their own portable sound format on the back of the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Multiple "samples" of dialogue & sound effects from the film were encoded onto RFID chips included with action figures ("CommTech™ Chips", which also acted as display stands for the figures and contained a hole so they could be threaded onto a keychain for mass portability) that could only be played by tapping them against the massive CommTech™ reader seen here (its design based on the "Jedi Comlink" walkie talkie used by Qui-Gon Jinn [Liam Neeson] in the film, which was a kit-bashed women's shaving razor). Buttons on the reader could be used to load samples from chips and play them back so that some sounds were always available.
Altho a more advanced version was prototyped, lack of interest in the format led Hasbro to cancel the CommTech™ format (known as CommTalk™ in some countries due to trademark disputes); we think it may have had something to do with the fact that every male character's voice sounded as if their lines were being read by the same unenthusiastic & unskilled vocal actor not even attempting to change the timbre of his voice to match that of the original actors, but that's just a theory.
Funtime Gifts Ltd. FU3050
Kidbrooke, London (Year unknown, acquired 2021)
Includes 4 distinct voices. Operates on 1 x 23A battery (included). Demonstration video on Instagram: www.instagram.com/p/CVcs5pwM1tg/
Funtime Gifts Ltd. FU3050
Kidbrooke, London (Year unknown, acquired 2021)
Includes 4 distinct voices. Operates on 1 x 23A battery (included). Demonstration video on Instagram: www.instagram.com/p/CVcs5pwM1tg/
Testing our (small but very capable) 20ch live recording rig. The Audio Interface pictured is the Motu Traveler which offers 20ch in & 22ch out. This photograph shows a set up I used to record 16 phantom powered microphones through a combination of different formats. The first four mic inputs are the Travelers own on-board mic press. Fallowing that are four RME mic-pres connected to the Travelers 1/4" line inputs. Last, are 8 Focusrite mic-pres terminated via ADAT. The nice thing about the Focusrite is that it offers dynamics on all 8 channels and it's come in handy too!
Cupertino, CA, US
2010
Mostly dead battery, otherwise Mint in Package including earbuds + iPod Shuffle Cable
Funtime Gifts Ltd. FU3050
Kidbrooke, London (Year unknown, acquired 2021)
Includes 4 distinct voices. Operates on 1 x 23A battery (included). Demonstration video on Instagram: www.instagram.com/p/CVcs5pwM1tg/
Seattle, WA, US
2007
Good; Needs new battery but fully functional when plugged in by USB.
Includes Wi-Fi and FM radio tuner.
Chatsworth, California, U.S.
15 September 1998
The Second MP3 Player in the World, the Diamond Rio PMP300 (Sept 1998) was the first commercially successful MP3 player after South Korea’s MPMan (March 1998). The Rio was the device that provoked the first of the RIAA’s lawsuits trying to kill MP3s (they lost bc their suit was based on their misunderstanding that the Rio was a recording device).
Even after nearly 25 years, our Rio PMP300 still plays the (mostly terrible) digital audio still on its built-in 32MB of storage space (since it runs on a single AA battery, not a lithium ion cell like iPods do).
www.internetnews.com/it-management/court-oks-diamond-rio-...
Seattle, WA, US
2007
Good; Needs new battery but fully functional when plugged in by USB.
Includes FM radio tuner.