audio

Techmoan's 45-minute retrospective on Sony's MiniDisc, covering the first and last machines, ATRAC, MD-LP, Net-MD and HiMD. It argues the format deserves more credit than its US failure narrative suggests.

A tour of the historic WLW transmitter facility in Mason, Ohio, recorded at Hamvention 2013. It shows the surviving equipment from the 500,000 watt AM era, when WLW was the only US station at that power, and explains the history.

Technology Connections gives a deeply researched history of RCA's CED video disc system, a capacitance-based format that took over a decade to reach market. Part one covers its development and strange technology.

Ahoy's documentary traces tracker music from early Amiga software like SoundMonitor and Soundtracker through the demoscene, Protracker, and PC trackers such as Screamtracker and FastTracker. It covers the sound, culture and history of 16-bit module music.

Tantacrul's 76-minute deep dive into the history of western music notation and the many proposed replacements, such as piano rolls, colored notes and the jubilate. He explains why none have displaced the current system.

Part one of Look Mum No Computer's series on buying a whole church pipe organ, covering how it was removed from its home. The series goes on to restoring it and rewiring it for MIDI.

Tantacrul walks through how the MuseScore 4 team was built and how design decisions were made for the overhaul of a huge legacy notation app. It covers playback and engraving quality improvements.

The first part of a four-part Channel 4 (UK) documentary series presented by Howard Goodall, this episode covers melody and why tunes affect us so deeply. It explains how melody works in Western music with historical background and music theory.

A Pitchfork TV documentary following Dan Deacon in Montana as he finishes his album Bromst. It shows the experimentation behind it, including pieces written for MIDI-driven player pianos.

A clip from the documentary American Tongues about the isolated Tangier Island, Virginia, whose dialect is among the most unusual in the US. It is often said to resemble speech from centuries ago.

A short Great Big Story piece on the Ocracoke Brogue, or Hoi Toider dialect, spoken on North Carolina's Outer Banks, which developed through centuries of isolation and traces back to the 1600s.