Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Tech Tuesday - Migrating Data

It has bothered me for a while that I had valuable audio information that I needed to preserve.  All of this information was currently on audio cassettes.  How many cassette players are still around?

First I downloaded Audacity and borrowed my grandson's boombox.  Since I am not a sound engineer, I wasn't sure what adjustments to make to clean up the sound.  Next I purchased a different software program but my Windows upgrade made it unusable before I got around to using it.

I spoke with band personnel in both the US Army Band and our local High School band but couldn't get any recommendations.  My dilemma increased.

This is what I wanted to preserve:  my parents recordings of family gatherings in the 1940s ( the voices of my parents, aunts, uncles and cousins.), a 2002 concert of my great-grandfathers music from Norway in honor of his 150th birthday, a letter from my mother and her sisters during their cruise in 1973, and my daughter Laura's senior concert on clarinet in 1989.

 
 Finally I went searching online for a company doing this work.  I found a company that appeared to meet my needs and checked out their reviews.  I e-mailed the company to be sure they could do what I needed.  When the answer was positive, I took a deep breath, boxed up my cassettes and sent them off!  It took longer than expected but I received my CDs back last week as promised along with the original cassettes.  I am thrilled with the results and will be making copies to share with my eight siblings and twenty one first cousins who will here their ancestors voices once again!

7 comments:

  1. What is the name of this company? I also have things that could be transcribed and I imagine others do as well.

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    1. The company I used is Southtree and their website is southtree.com. They also do video.

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  2. Glad you were lucky and they didn't lose your tapes. My friend had a terrible experience with Southtree. Southtree lost one of their tapes. You can read about it and a dozen other one star complaints on Yelp. Plus they have 38 Better Business Bureau complaints. To everyone -- please do your homework before sending out your precious memories.

    -Tabitha

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  3. Tabitha, I saw the comments on Yelp today after this blog was published. I read those comments with awe that I had such a different experience. It appears that all the comments are dated between Oct 2012 and Jan 2013. Several also mentioned Groupon. Perhaps they were overwhelmed with orders. I sent in my tapes in early November and within a week received an email confirming their delivery. In December I got a phone call and an email letting me know that they were behind and asking if I really needed delivery for Christmas. Since I had not made any Christmas promises I said I was OK with the delay. About Jan 10 by phone that my cds were ready and were being shipped. I was also offered a discount for any inconvenience. I am happy with the service I received but you are right we should all do our homework.

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  6. What a wonderful treasure, Donna. I'm so glad that the conversion worked out and you are happy with the results. I agree that sometimes the Groupon sales can overwhelm a small company, but it's good to keep up on the reviews. Congrats!

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