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I recorded this on Christmas Day, 1985 using my Sony TC-D5M cassette recorder with my Sony ECM-939 LT electret condenser microphone. It was recorded at my parents home in Martinez, California and features my grandmother, my mother, father, and myself.

Part 1

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Part 2

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Here is a recording of Richard Lyons and myself on the first Thanksgiving I celebrated after my parents and grandparents passed away. It features the sounds of kitchen appliances, pots, pans, and it takes place at my parents home in Martinez, California. Richard’s wit and my obsessive compulsiveness show throughout. I used my Superscope C-104 cassette recorder and a RadioShack condenser microphone capsule for recording. You may have noticed I categorized this as a “Family Tape” as Richard was pretty much like a brother and a member of Negativland, as well.

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Here is a recording of my family on Christmas 1981 at my home in Martinez, California. I can’t remember how this was recorded, but most likely I used my Superscope C-104 monaural cassette recorder. For this presentation, the cassette tape was played on my Sony TC-D5M stereo  recorder, with Dolby noise reduction switched off, producing left and right monaural sound. The audio was captured into my computer with VSTHost. Normally, I will choose either left or right (not both channels) and create a mono .wav file, if I know the tape is monaural. This tape has quite good audio on both left and right with no audible phasing effects from the TC-D5M (maybe I have a tin ear) so I left the recording in stereo. If you prefer, you can fade down one side for true monaural sound. I did a little editing and level adjustment  with Adobe Audition, and then created an Mp3 at  320 Kbps with RazorLame.

As I mentioned previously in the post “Guess What, I’m Still Here!” this recording has my mother trying out a new popcorn popper, specifically a Wear-Ever Popcorn Pumper. Pictured below is the same unit from 1981. It does still work quite well! If you’re lucky, I will try to make a video of the Popcorn Pumper in action.

Popcorn Pumper Off/On

Wear-Ever Popcorn Pumper

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This is a video I made today on February 20th. 2018, showing the Wear-Ever Popcorn Pumper my mother used in 1981. It still works perfectly today. This post was originally from December 17, 2013.

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Here is home video from Thanksgiving 1988 featuring my mother, grandmother, and my grandmother’s cat, Gretchen. This was at my grandmother’s home in Santa Rosa, California and recorded using my second 8-millimeter camcorder, a Sony CCD-V220.

Direct mp4 download or play: Teasing Big butt and Buddy 1988
Here is some leftover footage from the 8 millimeter videotape labelled “Easter 1987, April 19, Santa Rosa.”  This happened February 1988. The “teasing” was not successful as Buddy the cat just rolled her eyes and yawned repeatedly.

Direct Mp4 download or play: Easter 1987
Here is another happy, lazy afternoon at my grandmother’s home in Santa Rosa, California. It’s Easter Sunday, April 19th which ironically is also Richard Lyons’ birthday. I can’t quite remember, but I think he may have actually been married to a woman at this time. I could be wrong, can’t remember. As I mentioned in my post “Birthday 1988,” there would be more from “The Egg People” in another post and this is it! “The Egg People” were created by my mother, a day or so earlier and they represent my mother, my father, my grandmother, and myself. They show up at the beginning and then later on at about 20:28, as I knock each “egg person” off the back of a chair. It seems to me this could have been the order that each member of my family including myself ceases to exist. It didn’t work out that way, but all “egg persons” were knocked off the chair so my time must be near. I do understand, this is ridiculous, however.
I used my Sony CCD-V110 camcorder for the video. At two points in the video an external inexpensive electret condenser microphone (same as the ones I’ve experimented with more recently) was used and powered by plugin phantom power supplied by the camcorder.The sound quality is slightly different and the two places where this happens are at 22:15 to 25:31 and 38:42 to the end. The sound is monophonic for the entire video and recorded on a single AFM (Audio Frequency Modulation) track on 8-millimeter video tape. The video quality is similar to VHS with less than 300 lines of horizontal resolution.

Direct mp4 download or play:  Birthday 1988 – Part 1

Direct mp4 download or play:  Birthday 1988 – Part 2
Here is the home video of my 34th birthday, April 3rd, 1988. It was recorded at my grandmother’s home in Santa Rosa, California on my Sony CCD-V220 8 millimeter video camcorder. Near the end of Part 2 one of “The Egg People” is shown. My mother made these likenesses sometime in the early to mid 1980s. Three of them exist today. They are my mother, myself, and my father. The “egg person” of my grandmother shown in the video was broken and lost years ago. Just for fun I’m showing Egg Mother and Egg “Bear” Weatherman. There will be more about “The Egg People” in another post.

A couple of The Egg People

Egg Mother

Egg “Bear” Weatherman

Direct mp4 download or play: Home Video November 22nd, 1988
This is the first video recorded on my Sony-CCD-V220 8 millimeter camcorder with stereo sound.

Direct mp4 download or play: Testing Stereo Separation & New Hand Blender
Here is some video from spring or summer of 1991. This is from one of the recordings I made after my mother died, while my grandmother was still living. Things were much more subdued after my mother passed away, so I tried to “liven things up” with these and other ridiculous, dumb videos. Eventually, I’ll post the entire video, but I must worn you, there are long stretches of the camera aimed at flowers in my grandmother’s backyard. Hopefully, the first part demonstrates the camcorder (Sony CCD-V220) actually records stereo sound.

Direct mp4 download or play:  Thanksgiving 1987 – Part 1

Direct mp4 download or play: Thanksgiving 1987 – Part 2
Here is home video from Thanksgiving 1987 featuring my grandmother, mother, father and my grandmother’s cat, Gretchen. The location was my grandmother’s home in Santa Rosa, California. It was recorded using my first 8-millimeter camcorder, a Sony CCD-V110.

Direct mp4 download or play: My First Home Video
I’m quite sure this is the first video recording of my family. There is no date stamp on the tape, but this would have been 1986 or ’87. The Styrofoam packaging from the box of my new Sony CCD-V110 8 millimeter camcorder is visible on the sofa next to my mother. Also, the box appears briefly as I’m panning. My mother, father and two cats Big Butt (fluffy white long fur), and Baby Doll which I refer to as Tabatha Stinkaton or Stinkington.
This camcorder recorded in regular 8 millimeter video and mono AFM (audio frequency modulation) also known as Hi-Fi. The built-in microphone was very sensitive, especially to higher frequencies and had a slightly “tinny” quality. It picked up a lot of noise from the camcorder, as well. There’s an external microphone jack and using an external microphone improved the sound quality quite a bit. Also, I figured out how to connect the output of an audio mixer to the microphone jack without causing overloaded distorted sound. If I’m  remembering right, the microphone jack had plug-in-power present (a low voltage, usually a couple of volts to power electret condenser microphones), which needed to be blocked with a capacitor.
The last part of this video features briefly using an external microphone, the display of my police scanner and the tuning indicator of my RadioShack shortwave receiver. The sound was of the scanner and several other radio tuners and possibly TV audio, plus some digital delay echo. This audio was mixed to mono and connected to the camcorder.

Sony CCD-V110 8 mllimeter camcorder

Bearcat 300 police scanner

Realistic DX-302  receiver

Hre’s a link explaining how “Hi-Fi” sound works in video recorders:

Sencore Tech Tips – How VCR Hi-Fi Stereo Works

Direct mp4 download or play:  Raccoons – July 25th, 1989
Here is another recording I made with my Sony CCD – V220 Camcorder.  This happened in my backyard in Martinez, California and features a family of raccoons. Be sure to check  “April 16, 1989” for more about how I’m capturing 8 millimeter videotapes.

Direct mp4 download or play:  April 16th, 1989
Finally, I decided to try to capture one of my many 8 millimeter videotapes from the 1980s. For years (most of the time living in Seattle) I thought the camcorder the original recordings were made on was not working. I discovered just today only the camera part isn’t working. The video recorder/player is totally okay. This video is one of the last recordings of my mother before being diagnosed with breast cancer. She passed away less than a year later in March of 1990. The video shows what she liked doing best, working in the yard. We had a big back yard (an acre) consisting of a steep hillside with Monterey Pine trees in Martinez, California. Also, it shows my mother’s beloved cats Big Butt, Buddy, Spot, and Tabatha Stinkaton. Guess what names I chose! Back then, the weather in California was much more seasonal with ample rainfall. There was always a lot of fairly lush green grasses and wildflowers in our yard each spring.

On a more technical note, I was trying out a different microphone on the camcorder, probably a Sony ECM939LT. The camcorder is a Sony CCD – V220 “Video 8 Pro.” This camera not only has AFM (audio frequency modulation) audio recording, but it could also record in digital PCM stereo audio onto a separate track on the 8 millimeter cassette. In fact, it has analog VU meters just like on the Sony TC-D5M audio cassette recorder. I figured the digital audio would likely fail, due to tape deterioration. It didn’t! It played and captured properly and so this recording has a similar quality to some of the ambient recordings I’ve made while living in Seattle. The video capture was performed with the 8 millimeter camcorder connected all analog (yellow cable video, white cable left channel audio, red cable right channel audio)  into the analog line in on a digital Sony DCR-HC1000 Handycam. The video is converted to digital in the Handycam and sent to the computer via firewire. I found a great free DV video capture program called Scenalyzer. Then the video, which split into four parts went into Corel VideoStudio X9, where the parts joined seamlessly, and rendered into one file, nearly 6 gigabytes in size. I imported the edited file into Adobe Audition where the audio and video are separated in the multi-track view. The DV video file format and PCM audio with an extension of .AVI is totally compatible with Adobe Audition. While working in Adobe Audition, a low cut below 40 hertz was applied to cut wind noise and bumping of the microphone. A little amplification was added to sweeten it up just a bit. The peak audio level on the loudest sounds was brought up to -.35Db. This new file was exported from Adobe Audition which made another almost 6 gigabyte DV file with the improved audio. Then, I used Handbrake to make a high quality mp4 file (high profile, slow render, strict 640 x 480-4 x3 frame size, 256 Kbps AAC audio) for the internet. In addition, the Mp4 file was ran through Video Container Changer to make the Flash video file for the regular WordPress Flash player. Of course, now I include “Direct mp4 download or play” options. Sorry for being long winded about the details, but I won’t do this again for more 8 millimeter videotapes I hope to have up before the end of the year. A final note, I no longer have Richard Lyons to help me with grammar and punctuation. So I’ll be checking and/or correcting this text in the coming days or weeks.

Big Butt

Buddy

Spot

Tabatha Stinkaton

Sony CCD V220 8 millimeter camcorder

Direct Mp3 download or play:  Christmas 1979 – Part 1

Direct Mp3 download or play:  Christmas 1979 – Part 2
Finally, I located the original recording from the first Negativland record featuring my grandmother saying “This is Negativland,” etc. On part 1, go to 30:04 to hear just that part. There’s another 30 minutes or more of this recording to come. I’ll add it here to this post in the next few days. I wanted to get at least part of the recording posted before the end of Thanksgiving Day 2016. Have a laugh! Enjoy.
I just added Part 2, today on November 27th, 2016.

Direct mp4 download or play:  Birthday – April 3rd, 1987 – Part 1

Part 1

Direct mp4 download or play:  Birthday – April 3rd, 1987 – Part 2

Part 2

Here is video recorded at my grandmother’s house in Santa Rosa, California, on my thirty-third birthday in 1987. It features banter between myself, my grandmother, my mother, and my father. Starting around 12:05 on the count, part 1, I am in the video, with my birthday cake. We make wishes, and I cut the cake. Later my mother  sings “Happy Birthday.” At about 03:08 on the count, part 2, my mother begins to perform “California, Here I Come,” which is heard on my other post “California.” At about 08:15 on the count, part 2, you can see I’ve connected an external, tiny condenser microphone to the camera. It has a deeper, less distorted sound, in my opinion. The external microphone is picking up the hum of the refrigerator.

The camera was a Sony CCD-V110 8MM camcorder.

Direct mp3 download or play: Part 1

Part 1

Direct mp3 download or play: Part 2

Part 2

Be sure to check my other posts in “Family Tapes” if you enjoyed this one. This recording was done using the same setup as in “Thanksgiving 1984.”

I spent a few days trying to make the sound louder and clearer without adding distortion. I used “envelope” in Adobe Audition to manually affect the audio level. What do you think? I may have done too much or not. In addition, I added reverberation on the last moment of sound at the end of each part. Enjoy!

Here are a couple of recordings featuring my mother, my grandmother, my father, and friends. These are older, most likely from the mid 1970s. The sound quality is poorer as well. Part 1 sounds considerably better, (in my opinion) partly because I think it was originally recorded on my Roberts open reel full-track mono recorder. Part 2 may have been recorded on my Norelco 1530 cassette recorder. I’m really unsure about the microphones, but the Sony F-98 dynamic comes to mind. The sound quality changes a lot at about -3:07 on the counter, (Part 1) when I’m with friends (the Williams family of 180G fame) from high school.  I may have been recording on a different machine, a vintage Voice of Music open reel, possibly from the 1950s. It has a particularily “tinny” quality, probably because of an impedance mismatch on the mike input. The fidelity is reduced further, due to rerecording any open reel recordings to cassette, most likely on the Norelco cassette recorder, which was mono and had no noise reduction. If the original open reel tapes are located, they will be posted here.
I must say my behavior on these tapes is quite juvenile and somewhat embarrassing, especially when I ask my grandmother to read song lyrics and liner notes from my Mothers of Invention album, “Uncle Meat.” With that in mind, I hope the dumbness of it all makes you laugh. I must be humble, and remind myself, “The importance of all other persons is staggering.”

Direct mp3 download or play:  Mr. and Mrs. Lober, My Mother and Grandmother, Williams Family – Part 1

Part 1

Direct mp3 download or play:  water heater-head in curlers-whistling – Part 2

Part 2

Direct mp3 download or play: Easter 1984

At the last moment, I noticed there was a recording mislabeled “Mothers Day 1984,” which actually turned out to be  Easter of 1984. So for your enjoyment, here is my family celebrating Easter at my home in Martinez, California on April 22nd, 1984.

Direct mp3 download or play: Thanksgiving 1982 – Part 1

Part 1

Direct mp3 download or play: Thanksgiving 1982 – Part 2

Part 2

This was recorded on Thanksgiving Day at my Grandmother’s house in Santa Rosa, California. I don’t remember how I recorded this session, but I think I used my Technics cassette recorder with two separate microphones. I can’t even remember what type of microphones were used! I’m usually pretty good at remembering or  having notes in with the cassette tape. One mic was likely stationary and another was handheld. Occasionally, I moved the stationary mic to other locations.

 I played the tape on my Sony TC-D5M cassette recorder (with Dolby B switched on) and captured the audio on my new Mackie USB recording interface. I understand capturing and recording sound this way, and in theory, should have better quality. Members of Negativland and Leo Laporte (The Tech Guy) have suggested the use of an external recording interface for years. In the computer I set up, the free recording software is called VSTHost. The noise level reading with the levels set for recording were nearly -90 db according to the indicator on VSTHost. When I pressed play on the TC-D5M, and before any sound played on the tape, the noise level rose to about -55 db.  The free LoudMax limiter was set to -.4 db on both threshold and output. I had to bring up the input on VSTHost  +6db  in order to match the output of the Mackie when its red overload (OL) indicator was just barely beginning to flicker. I used white noise to set the level, and the recording quality was set to DVD audio (16 bit, 48 kilohertz). I know 24 bit is an option, but I do not believe the difference in quality would have been noticeable. I know some of you may disagree. The MP3 audio  here on the site was made using the latest LAME  (and Razorlame frontend open source encoding) encoder at 192 kilobits per second, stereo (not joint stereo and not variable bit rate). One item that may be a problem, is that when the MP3 was made, (and probably most of my other posts with MP3 audio) the sampling frequency was left at 48 kilohertz, rather than changing it to 44.1 kilohertz. I’ve never had any problems playing these files. Let me know if any of you have trouble playing my MP3 audio. I hope you enjoy this, and as always, be sure to check out “The Willsaphone Stupid Show” and “Weatherman Shows: Over The Edge Radio.”

Technics M245x Cassette Recorder

Mackie USB Recording Interface

VSTHost Setup in Computer

Direct mp3 download or play:  Christmas 1988 Part 1

Direct mp3 download or play:  Christmas 1988 Part 2

On this tape, I was more familiar with setting record level my Sony cassette recorder. By 1988, I’ve had the TC-D5M for more than three years, and I realized the record level could be set considerably higher. With the excellent built-in limiter, I was able to run the recording volume quite high without much distortion.  The tape was Maxell XL II CrO2 on a c90 cassette and Dolby B was functioning on the recorder.  Converting the audio to digital was done using the same technique as in “Thanksgiving 1984.” Even after more than twenty years, the TC-D5M works like new, and the Dolby noise reduction on this tape is still seems to “track” properly and reduce tape hiss without reducing high frequency response.
On a more somber note, this is possibly the last recording of my family before they started having health problems. However, I do have numerous other recordings and some video from as early as the late 1960s  through 1989. I will probably be posting some of those recordings here, as long as I am able to do so. If you are new to my site and maybe find this interesting, be sure to check my other posts in the category “Family Tapes” and “The Willsaphone Stupid Show” on the main Negativland section.