5. Sampling the full pop song

"As a SalesForce DevOp by day, I am passionate about authenticity.  I always bring my authentic self to work, and in my (admittedly limited) free time, I enjoy spending my six figure salary on only the most authentic of retro audio equipment.  My aim has always been to produce authentic sounds that authentically represent the golden era of the Atari ST."

-- Marrowfat/The Nutmeg Mine

From the very beginning of our project, Marrowfat expressed his passion for authenticity.  For him, sampling a full pop song provided an opportunity to cement a legacy amongst the greats of the Atari ST demoscene.  He made clear that his intention was to grab this opportunity with both hands, without compromise.

In early project meetings, Marrowfat insisted upon us adopting the infamous "three Geoffs doctrine" of audio recording authenticity.  This approach takes its name from Geoffs Barrow of Portishead (who famously pressed his own vinyl records to enable live "scratching" during recording sessions), Farina of Karate (who famously undertook a PhD in jazz guitar prior to forming an obscure post-rock band), and Beatles engineer Emerick of EMI (who, during the 1967 recording of the Revolver LP, famously launched John Lennon into space in order to achieve the "reedy" vocal sound heard on Tomorrow Never Knows).  Stiffler's Mom and I were at first intimidated by such commitment to the cause; we soon learnt to respect it, albeit begrudgingly.

Marrowfat began by identifying an appropriate source recording of Scatman's World.  To maintain optimum alignment to the sampling practices of early Atari demosceners, he opted for a 30 year-old VHS recording from late night MTV Europe, helpfully inherited some years earlier from an eccentric uncle.  For the VHS playback, Marrowfat purchased a Durabrand AD214BD VCR VHS Video Cassette Recorder Player w/ Remote (1985) at a cost of £491, which he expertly connected to his modern flatscreen plasma television via a modern gold plated RCA composite audio/video cable (£15).

The next step was to design a means of capturing sounds from the television.  To do so, Marrowfat purchased a Generic Beige 1980s Microphone w/ Button (£21), which he carefully positioned directly beneath its internal speakers.  Yet this was only half the battle won - to complete the recording task, he also acquired a JC Penney Four Speaker/Two Tape Boom Box (1986) at the cost of £701.  This device boasts twin audio cassette decks and, crucially, a "high speed dubbing" mode for efficient inter-deck transfer.  This rig allowed Marrowfat both to record audio directly from VHS to cassette, and then to attain authentic, 1990s-style analogue deprecation by undertaking ten iterative cycles of high speed dubbing using two cassettes (£4 each).  

The final recording boasts a rich tapestry of natural hisses and frequency losses, adding significantly to its analogue charm.  The schematic below illustrates Marrowfat's recording set-up for the capture.

Figure 1: Schematic of Marrowfat's analogue-to-analogue recording rig

At this point, Marrowfat now possessed an authentically terrible analogue-to-analogue physical recording of our target full pop song.  The second stage was to convert this to a digital format via sampling, so that it could be included in our intro.

To do this, Marrowfat first purchased the STOS Maestro Cartridge (1989) (£89), primarily attracted by its scarcity and therefore inflated price-point.  To save space on his De La Espada Orson Desk (£6112), a Banana Yellow Limited "Sports Edition" Sony Walkman (1984) (£1299) was then scooped following a particularly fractious online auction.  Marrowfat hooked this to the Maestro cartridge using another brand new gold plated phono lead (£34.99).  For the sampling itself, Marrowfat bought two Atari STMFs (a "first machine" and a back-up) specifically for the task, at a cost of £350 each.  Finally, immediately prior to sampling he acquired his fifteenth (or perhaps sixteenth) Atari Falcon 030 (£9000), just in case this became necessary.

Figure 2: Schematic of Marrowfat's analogue-to-digital sampling rig

Marrowfat's significant investment of expertise, time, and (mainly) money paid rich dividends.  The result was spectacular: a full unabridged pop song, captured in authentically dire quality and in a format ready for immediate inclusion into our demo.  The next step was to begin to plan some suitable visuals that could do Scatman and Marrowfat justice...