Comment by jgrahamc
1 year ago
For a while it was possible to pay Elwood Edwards to record a short message (https://web.archive.org/web/20080613203307/http://www.makinw...). In 2002, I had him record "Mail classified by POPFile" for my POPFile machine learning email classifier (https://getpopfile.org).
You can listen to it here: https://soundcloud.com/john-graham-cumming/mail-classified-b...
I paid $30 for that. And him saying "Use the source, Luke!"
This is beautiful. I wish I knew this eons ago!
Ok. I’m glad I clicked those. I know it’s his voice. But still worth hearing.
hes got a great voice! thanks for sharing
Ooh. I found the original email from him.
So, now I can upload "Use the source, Luke!" (https://soundcloud.com/john-graham-cumming/use-the-source-lu...) and "You've got mail, John!" (https://soundcloud.com/john-graham-cumming/youve-got-mail-jo...).
What a cool piece of internet history. (And awesome that he was a good sport)
JGC, you seem to be one of those people that always has a finger in many little internet trivia things.
I'd be bold to say, almost like a Forrest Gump of the internet.
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His voice sounds a bit higher pitched than the famous 90s recordings. I wonder if that's a product of the original recording equipment or format used to store it, or something like that.
The fundamental pitch sounds similar but the tonal quality is different. The infamous "You've Got Mail" is probably lower bit depth and sample rate which lead to crunchier and darker sound qualities respectively. It also sounds like the AOL soundbite was recorded with him very close to a dynamic mic with a healthy dose of proximity effect which would explain the omnipresent low frequency.
The ars article on this suggests it was simply recorded on his personal cassette recorder:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/11/the-voice-of-america...
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