Big Ideas: Don't get any -- by James Houston
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- Опубликовано: 26 окт 2024
- Video by James Houston
I stream creative projects like this most weekdays LIVE from my studio on Twitch:
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Radiohead held an online contest to remix "Nude" from their album - "In Rainbows" This was quite a difficult task for everybody that entered, as Nude is in 6/8 timing, and 63bpm. Most music that's played in clubs is around 120bpm and usually 4/4 timing. It's pretty difficult to seamlessly mix a waltz beat into a DJ set.
This resulted in lots of generic entries consisting of a typical 4/4 beat, but with arbitrary clips from "Nude" thrown in so that they qualified for the contest.
Thom Yorke joked at the ridiculousness of it in an interview for NPR radio, hinting that they set the competition to find out how people would approach such a challenging task.
I decided to take the piss a bit, as the contest seemed to be in that spirit.
Based on the lyric (and alternate title) "Big Ideas: Don't get any" I grouped together a collection of old redundant hardware, and placed them in a situation where they're trying their best to do something that they're not exactly designed to do, and not quite getting there.
It doesn't sound great, as it's not supposed to.
Sinclair ZX Spectrum - Guitars (rhythm & lead)
Epson LX-81 Dot Matrix Printer - Drums
HP Scanjet 3c - Bass Guitar
Hard Drive array - Act as a collection of bad speakers - Vocals & FX
Thanks to Afrotech and Dr Roland Shregle (ganjatron)
15 years later the scanner baseline still lives rent-free in my head
Same, man
I had that exact hp scanjet when I was a kid, I always thought it sounded like an orchestra warming up. This is pure art.
Just watched with my girlfriend and I remembered the first time I watched 16 y/ago.
it's been over 10 years and this is still objectively the coolest thing ive ever seen on the internet. thank you james.
My words :)
Couldn't agree more. Still find myself coming back to it after all these years.
So true. I think about this like it’s one of my own memories. Hard to believe it’s been around this long.
It's so beautiful it actually made me cry a couple of times. Goosebump inducing work of art
Bro! I agree 100% with this comment I have been coming here to watch this video sooo many times I like it better than the OG version
To this day this cover still feels so unique and special to me
Same here
3:24 That incredible groan of the scanner bass has lived in my head for 15 years now as one of the greatest note changes I've ever heard.
Yep. Still the best Radiohead cover, even compared to the 16 year old British girl with the perfect voice for it and her producer dad, STILL the best Radiohead cover of all. They all reach, but this one adds.
+JeredtheShy To give her some credit, her name is "heylee richman," and anyone interested in great Radiohead covers should check her channel out!
She's Canadian mate
I would go as far as to say this is the best cover song for any band EVER.
She's an emotionless robot
I know the one you're talking about ;)
14 years and counting -- it blows my mind to this day. It is beautiful, tragic, hopeless and inspiring. If I had to choose a single human experience to leave behind for some future advanced species that were to find it a billion years from now, it would be this performance.
Nearly 9 years ago, I fell in love with an HP ScanJet, an Epson DotMatrix printer, and an array of busted hard drives. I'm glad to know she's still there when I need her
"It doesn't sound great, as it's not supposed to."
Man, I'd play this at my funeral.
***** Ppl usually don't like to have shitty music played at their funerals.
I agree. I first found this on Hackaday when it first was posted. I keep coming back to it, going on 11 years now
@@Breakfast_and_Bullets Same here me. But the idea of playing this at a funeral could be spun to have some sort of philosophical meaning.. in a way like outdated technology being put to rest after one last use in a way they weren't originally meant for
the last time i heard this was when my dad showed it to me years ago, as of now I'm 14 and he found it yesterday as of posting this
This is one of those things I just come back to every now and then, and I'm blown away every time.
Well said!
8 years. How time flies...
haha exactly. I listened to this when it came out when I was at uni and I come back for a fix once a year!
Same. Damn, was it 8 years ago...
same thing, dude. Even more often than once a year
i saw this a few years ago, i finally came back. still amazes me.
There aren't many videos where I've come back consistently over the last 11 years to watch them again and again, but this is foremost among them.
Glad to see this hasn't been swept up and discarded. It's genuinely a work of art and i still have no idea how the hell they made all the equipment do that.
Jim is a clever lad
"It doesn't sound great, as it's not supposed to"
Me listening to this a few times a month for more than a decade : It's perfect
I'd like to see an entire version of OK Computer in this style of being played by defunct technology, it would be quite fitting and eerie.
I support this soooo much!
It would be great
I'd call it OK Calculator if TVOTR hadn't already beat us to it.
Oh jfc, I would fund this so hard.
based
I remember seeing this back when you posted on Vimeo almost 8 years ago and this still blows me away. This definitely ranks as one of my all time favorites. Thank you.
Wow. This is beautiful. I love your description of how the machines are doing their best to do something they're not meant to do, but not getting there. If Thom were a piece of hardware, those hard drives would be it. Very much like Radiohead. The perfect record of 834 5-star ratings is well deserved.
I got into music hardware, published a book about it, and I can trace it all back to this video. Still coming back to it: That scanner motor is the best bass sound, it's positively hypnotic.
What's the title of your book?
This version of this song is one of the most profoundly beautiful things I have ever heard. It gives me chills and makes me happy for the future of music every time I hear it.
I watched this when you first posted it 12 years ago and it still gets stuck in my head every other month.
fuck, same.
I realize that I've never commented on this video until now. It's odd.
Anyway, I've discovered this remix only last year (or was it 2 years ago? With this pandemic, I think I've lost track of time a bit...) when a snippet of the video was integrated in a documentary about Radiohead aired by the TV channel Arte, a great TV channel from my country (I'm from France). Instantly, I really loved it.
And still, after all the times I've listened to it in full, I can't help but thinking that this is the most Radiohead-esque reimagining of a Radiohead song, hands down. The hardware used, the way it's used, how Thom's voice is distorted, everything on it has the same strangeness (with a bit of absurdity) that a Radiohead song or music video has. It's eerie, it's weird, but it's really catchy and addictive because of this same strangeness.
So, yeah, I think that in the grander scheme of Radiohead canon, the place this remix has is pretty well-deserved, after all these years. Truly a great work of art.
Sometimes I forget this exists and then I get to remember and watch it again and it's like a little treat
I still like to come back to where it all started for me. Thanks for the inspiration.
This is one of those times where you don't even need to hear the others to know this was the best one
The vocals are creepy in this. It's so fucking creative and amazing
greetings from 2024
i still look at this masterpiece and cry
best radiohead - nude cover ever
This is one of the best remixes I have ever heard. Even though this video is six years old, I love it even more than I used to. This shows that old eletronics are never useless, they just haven't been discovered yet, like people.
I had that exact hp scanjet when I was a kid, I always thought it sounded like an orchestra warming up. This is pure art.
Woah. I just realised you gave me credit! Awesome!
This is amazing, amazing, amaaaaaazing! Really James, I have no words to describe it, I'm crying here! I just want to gather every object in my house and free their souls to music, haha! Not even Wouter van Veldhoven got me this bliss!
I saw this a really long time ago on ectoplasmosis. Like, before tumblr existed, and steampunk wasn't done to death and exploited by Justin Beiber...
>.>
Anyway....
I keep coming back to this video every now and then. It's just simply beautiful. I love what you've done. The concept, the execution, the visuals - amazing. Thank you so much for bringing this into existence. :)
I'm thankful for this cover. I return to it at least a couple of times every year. Ever thought of doing something similar again, or was it the perfect time, perfect song, once in a lifetime kind of thing?
Like a lot of the other comments here, I'm really glad this is still here. Thank you for making something beautiful
14 years ago this video introduced me to the work of Radiohead.
This cover has stirred me for over a decade. It is easily in my all time top 20 songs
All those old things that were once new, struggling to keep it together, maybe for one last time.
I guess this is the internet so there are a lot of us, but this is a brilliant piece of sentimental nerd anthropomorphism which had me holding back tears by the end of it.
An excellent short film, worthy of much praise.
Never ever has something hit me on such personal level. I empathize with all those machines, they are me.
Can't believe this is the first time I've seen this. I just saw the old hard drives on your stream. Beautiful!
Had this video saved on my hard drive since 2009 (the irony, I know!)
Stumbled upon that file just now and went to see if the video was still up.
*GASP* It IS!
Which is nice, because this is the only way our future machine overlords would know how our "m.u.s.i.c." (?) sounded like.
full on. amazing. this moved me to my very core. thank you so much. I've viewed it tens of times already. thank you.
This is a truly beautiful and unexpected work of art. I actually started to tear up.
I always felt that there was a story of all this equipment being saved from rubbish and dusty shelves, obsolete from their prime. And they were all put into a room slowly looking at each other wondering what their purpose was as each new piece was collected out of their useful context and then weirdly connected. They were programmed not towrk as they had, but work in ways that were unfamiliar. Then, suddenly, they all played at once and realized that - all so different, were making something beautiful together. They were relvant again, but far from what they known what relevance was. And in their final minute, they all take a bow for this new sound they had pulled from the ethers of someones imagination and love.
13 years ago, I met this masterpiece.
Still one of the coolest shit on youtube.
Thank you man !
I dont know how much time has passed since the last time i saw this video but dang, I can't believe how cool it is. Thank you so much for this amazing song cover.
Still one of my favorite videos on the entire Internet.
Same here. Even after all these years.
Same here after 5 years
Fuck I have listened to this a lot over the years
Brilliant stuff for driving on a rainy day.
Thanks for the effort.
Прекрасность этого видео зашкаливает за грань, оно гениально
Прикольно, откуда осциллограф берет сигнал, если на его входе ничего нет?
***** мда... ты бы для начала узнал как работает сабж. а на основании ВХОДНЫХ данных - можно выдать звук на, допустим, ручками впаянный динамик. В видео не сказано же что девайсы НЕ переделывались .... наоборот ... где ты видел в продаже HDD заводского загнутия головок с открытым кожухом? ....
3 чела невнимательны (написавший и 2-е лайконувших(ся) =)
before i pressed play i read all the comments and i was shocked. Not only on youtube but on Vimeo.. hundreds of viewers were mezmorized with grace by your video. And after watching it i have became one of those viewes. AMAZING PROJECT!!!
This is really something special, thanks so much for sharing this project!
It sounds absolutely terrific. I'm not even a fan of Radiohead, not familiar with the song in question, but I love the way you get the sounds out of these instruments. I remember, years ago, printing out spreadsheets on an old dot-matrix printer, thinking that if I got the space between the lines right, I could get them to play tunes... and you've gone and beaten me hollow there! Love the hard drive array too.
that's the proof that those old pieces of tecnology history have a soul...
Oh my; this is absolutely beautiful. The song alone is great, but to recreate it using such primitive machines! I love all of this video, even the beginning. I've given a lot of five stars out, but this one really deserves it.
This is actually beautiful.
Time is funny. I'm a deeply sentimental person and I've spent most of the day looking through old pictures and files from ages ago. I just found an email I sent to a friend on June 20, 2008 with a link to this video and I got choked up while I listened to it. I'm so glad that it's as amazing as I remembered it.
Almost better than the original song. How can we’ve not have had more scanner basslines?
This cover was a core part of my personality 10+ years ago. But I totally forgot how to find it again or who made it until now. I'm so glad I found it again.
Really hope Thom has seen this
can't believe this is my firsty time hearing this1 Astonishing piece of work
I prefer this than the original
It's rare to see original art of this caliber on RUclips. It's a beautiful song and video.
Never has a bunch of hard drives made me some so close to tears.
They make me cry in frustration all the time.
This is really awesome.. not only the music reproduction, and the usage of several old tech (which I'm shure gave tons of work), but also the photography, and the idea as a whole.
Hoping to see more videos like that in the future...
please make more of this
Absolutely, and completely breathtaking! You-whoever you are-have seamlessly bound the right and the left brain, which prior to having seen this, I thought not possible. It is a genuine work of brilliance. I am very curious as to how you had access (possibly, even ownership) to all these wonderfully modern antiques! Anyhow, pristinely done. Bravo!!!
Yep. There's a voice coil in each of the hard drives. This is just fed by an amp.
Did you win?
The amount of times I've listened to this awesome piece. I was actually frantically trying to find it in my iTunes folder and couldn't after searching every album track list. Props to you
I wasn't even existed when these electronics did (I think), but this is just the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life. Thanks.
Randomly remembered this cover and it still hits me so hard it's perfect
Superb. Deep respect
I discovered this a few days ago. Each time I listen to it, it causes an inexplicably strong emotional reaction. Thank you this is beautiful.
Is it weird that even though three of these devices were never meant to make any kind of deliberate noise at all, let alone tuneful sounds, I'm most surprised/impressed by getting 2 - 3 simultaneous pure tones out of a rubber key speccy without using arpegs?
I mean, it's presumably possible using custom programming as the speaker output is just a flip-flop toggle under CPU interrupt control, but it still represents greater-than-usual effort :)
The interrupt on a Speccy is fixed at 50Hz. Not fast enough to do polyphony. What some great music writers did, was use the CPU's main 3 pairs of registers. Set each with a period, decrement each one every cycle, and when one reaches zero, flip the speaker. That gives you 3-note polyphony. Of course there's very little else the machine can then do at the same time. An early Speccy attempt at in-game music was Jet Set Willy, Matthew Smith basically just did a short BEEP for a fraction of a second, then run the main game loop for a turn. Hence the blippy breaky-up sound.
The Speccy only did rather ugly sounding square waves. That melody doesn't sound like a Spectrum. The 128 models had a Yamaha sound chip, but not the standard 48 model there. Unless he'd filtered it, it just sounds too NICE to be a Spectrum! Too clean.
Also a shame the other devices weren't controlled off a Speccy. You could get it to control a printer if you wanted, though programming that AND 3-note sound would be a bugger.
Printers don't require a particularly high data rate though, maybe a few hundred baud or a couple thousand for graphics.
I'm familiar enough with most computer music chip (or in this case, the lack of) capabilities, but I'm well impressed at that bit of hacking with the CPU registers and all. Like you say, given how few the Z80 had it would be difficult to do anything else at the same time other than incrementing the PC... but, maybe they used a particular memory address or something instead? If it was a single byte then you'd still have 255 pitches to choose from, albeit rather oddly spaced over a good 8 octaves, and might be able to run the timing loop at a relatively low frequency. Still wouldn't be very clean though as the chord would effectively be overdriven by 300% owing to the 1-bit "sampling" of a notional 3-bit master waveform the toggle pattern represents.
I have actually seen plain speccys outputting sampled sounds and the like before, in rather poor quality of course. I think they would in that case have used a sort of PWM type technique as seen with some PC speaker drivers, ie exploiting the built in damping/filtering effects of the speakers own physical mass by using very high frequency modulation of an ultrasonic 1-bit carrier to stimulate a lower frequency waveform with a greater bit depth. Again, very CPU and interrupt intensive (the windows 3.1 version tended to cause the machine to lock up for the entire playback duration, including the mouse pointer), so if you could even display anything at all on the screen at the same time, let alone an attractive picture or any motion graphics, it'd be a genius piece of programming.
(I'm also very familiar with the YM chip, having grown up with an ST... Can spot some yamaha arps at 1000 paces, and that's definitely not what we have here. Nor the much cruder but closely related one-channel arps of Manic Miner et al...;)
I actually e-mailed the author of this video a couple years back and I was told that the sound was provided by a 128k spectrum, but a rubber key one was used in the video because it was more recognizable
Very nicely done. Thank you for this. Awesome sound, and the visuals are beautiful.
Doesn't sound great?! This sounds awesome to me!
Had this video saved for so long. Just poppin in to say great work, thanks for all the good time spent listening to this.
Probably listened to this more than I did the original song
AMazing, I found this video while looking nfor what external HDD is the best. I found a ranking and at the bottom there was this video embeded. Me being a huge radiohead fan clicked instantly and I knew it was going to be awesome as soon as I watched that vintage tube TV. Amazing cover! Straight to my covers playlist.
Part of Thom's joke was that this song was pretty much considered impossible to remix (somewhat due to the tempo). Makes this even more impressive :)
This blew my mind - thank you James
Seems to really suit the song, or Radiohead in general maybe. I like it though - those tired old devices have a soul :D
This really made my day. It sent chills through my entire body to hear his voice come through those hard drives, like some creepy ass violin.
goddammit you beautiful bastard, this is amazing
This video makes me shiver everytime I see it, from the firt one until today. You're a total genius :D
It really doesn't sound great, but for some reason this tune is mesmerizing, starting with that "bass".
I remember watching a video explaining the technology behind encoding sound as data... apparently there's a certain point where the resolution can't/doesn't need to be any higher, because any sound can be made with those limited combinations of numbers.. I can't help but think of that while I hear a very 'gradiented' melody crushed into 'pixels' that still manage to perfectly reproduce the picture.. and then you realize everything's kind of the same, the buzzing of the motors that make the scanner move aren't so different from buzzing some tightly-bound hair across the strings of a bass, or just passing air over vocal cords. Like it's all the same idea showing up in different forms.
Not only is there the beauty inherent in giving dying and discarded machines a voice, and a nostalgia for when these were all top of the line devices, there's now a nostalgia added on for when you first watched this video.
How the fuck are those hard drives singing? Like, I can literally hear the lyrics. Holy shit.
+Viddy Think about what a speaker is. It's some coil of wire, some magnets, and something percussive to vibrate. Modern hard drives contain all the same exact elements, just in a form intended for...well, not acting as a speaker.
Modern HDDs use what's known as a voice coil module (VCM) to drive the actuator (the thing that's reading and writing information off of the platters). This VCM is sandwiched between two magnets, which amplify the current flowing through the coil. Speakers do the same thing, except when they receive current it drives some magnets up and down the coil, pushing the mesh back and forth (this is what creates the sound).
In this video, James just hooked directly into the VCM of the drives, and fed them the lyrics from an output device (like a computer or MP3 player). However to make it audible you really need to also pass it through an amplifier, which was likely done. The sound you're hearing for the vocals is actually caused by the actuator vibrating back and forth. It's pretty impressive.
I've done similar things, but using sine waves. They can be pretty effective speakers if you give them the right sounds to work with.
i can't get over the brilliance of this video. it's like each piece of equipment has its own character and like the description says they're trying so hard to do something they're not quite made to do. i would've loved to see radiohead especially thom's reaction to watching this video.
Limmy got me here
this is making into my playlist of some of the best video art I've seen on this site
Especially this moment at 3:25!!!
cant stop watching this. one of the best covers i have ever heard or seen hands down
Better than the original IMO :)
Why is that everything to come out of GSA is just so darn good? :P
Hats off to you, this is a piece of brilliance.
OOOŁŁŁ MONIUSZKO FLOWWW
Xd
This. This gives me the chills every single time. After all these years, still one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard.
It takes huge talent to do this. One of the coolest videos I've seen on the website. 5 and favorited.
still one of the best vids in whole RUclips, it's just amazing how all that gear work together to create such a beautiful song.
thanks for this all-time favorite,
greetings from Germany :)
Once again I'm back here. And once again this video makes me so, so happy.
This is fantastic... I love the way it just works. I love the old-fashioned equipment, I love the good feeling it gives. thanks a lot for this, for improving my night-shift big time!
I always come back to this one, it really is beautiful
It's 2022 and I still love it.
This is so wunderbar! thank your for all your time and love in this Work! it grows with every time
That was simply amazing. It definitely made the hair stand up on the back of my neck as I listened to it. Bravo for resurrecting old machinery and making a masterpiece with it. I am a big fan of chip tune and nanoloop machines. I had no idea that it could be done with these kinds of machines.