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TMBG Needs a New Dial-A-Song Machine 126

Posted by jamie from the hello.-hello?-hello. dept.
Ashileedo writes "Thought this was interesting. They Might Be Giants is down to their last Dial-A-Song machine, a Record-A-Call 675 circa 1983. For those who don't know, They Might Be Giants has a phone number you can call and listen to various recordings they've done" ...which is an American institution, in continual operation since the 1980s. (718)387-6962. "They're open to computer-based answering machines that can handle multiple files easily. Read more about it at theymightbegiants.com." They appeal to "the more technically minded fold out there -- if you know of any over the counter kick ass computer based answering machines that can handle multiple files easily, we're all ears!"
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TMBG Needs a New Dial-A-Song Machine More

TMBG Needs a New Dial-A-Song Machine

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  • Re:Found a possible toolkit (Score:4)

    by SquadBoy ( 167263 ) on Monday November 13, 2000 @12:45PM (#626545) Homepage Journal
    Could something like this [freshmeat.net] work to build it. I can't wait to get home and play with it. I'm serious here lets build it, install it and give it to them. These boys used the term "geek rock" over 5 years ago this alone makes them worthy of our time and effort.
  • They should talk to the Woz, he might be able to help, after all he built a dial a joke machine back in the 70's www.woz.org

  • Um, I'm curious as to why the above comment is flamebait. Are the moderators now offended at the idea that someone might cat a file into their dsp device? Or was it somehow implied that any enterprising band (such as They Might Be Giants) would only use Microsoft solutions, as anything costing less and being more useful would not appeal to a band with such means? Or was the attempt at humor in the above post just way too fucking far over the moderators heads?


    Slow moving marsupials and the women that love them
  • Genius is a strong word... especially for a pop music artist.
  • This is a possible project for some (including myself) who have looked for a way to give something back to the free software movement.

    I personally have looked for an area that needs attention, (i.e. I don't want to write yet another text editor, etc). I don't know of any answering machine type software for Linux.

    If anyone is truly interested in a project to do this, or knows of one that is already going, let me know.

  • I wonder if this is the first actual slashdotted phone number?
  • Please say you'll do that to me...

    Damn, you just got me hot!
  • You seem to start to apologize then go right back to kicking yourself in the ass.

    I like TMBG, lots of people do. You don't. Lots of people don't. Why can't you accept the simple fact that you don't like their music, instead of saying it is crappy. Disliking != crap.

    Promote free memes!
  • DTMF detection isn't THAT hard to do,

    Reliable DTMF detection is harder than you think. There is a TelCo test tape available for this purpose. From what I've heard, most DTMF decoders have difficulty with the test tape.

  • This reminded me of an old joke line from the early 80s in the Orange County, CA area called Zygot, and I wondered if they were still around. I found this page [go.com], which documents a whole slew of the old joke lines, and has a lot of the old material on-line.

    If anyone has fond memories of the old dial-a-joke recordings, you might find them here.


    --

  • Dial-A-Song was /. long before /. existed. My best friend had a shirt in eigth grade (~8 years ago) with the words "Always Free/Always Busy" and the phone number (no, I'm not enough of a fan to remember it).
  • Dial-a-song, Dial-a-song;
    Our dial-a-song won't work for long;
    Served us well, don't get me wrong;
    I like pong, Dial-a-song.

    Slashdot man, Slashdot man;
    Killing dial-a-song is his plan;
    Posting our number like so much spam;
    Bastardly man, Slashdot man;

    That's all I feel like beating out.

    Tell me what makes you so afraid
    Of all those people you say you hate

  • Ummm, if you read www.theymightbegiants.com [theymightbegiants.com] down to the bottom of the page, you'll see that TMBG has tried and had reliability problems with computerized answering systems. Remember, these guys don't want a hack, they want something that can take slashdot sized loads and is easy to keep up:
    Yes, after months of pure frustration with our computer based system, John and John have returned to the analog scene of the phone machine, and although the songs don't change as frequently, they are fresh fresh fresh and now we have a two song policy so you get more songs with every call.
    I think the point is they want simple, effective, and reliable. No fancy voice-navigated nested menuing solutions required, just something that will work for literaly decades without dieing.

  • Re:Not free (as in beer or speach) (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Hmmm... I seem to remember that the macintosh 660AV that was packaged with that stupid apple modem the ummm... Goeport came with answering machine software that could do outgoing only and multiple recordings... you could have a menu for different mail boxes and those had their own outgoing message... Or maybe that was some extra software we bought... It was so very long ago... And seeing as how the ebay bids are pretty low $10-$50 this could work out well...
  • They are also one of the first bands to release an MP3 only album.
    (TMBG to Release MP3 Album) [slashdot.org]
    Sold through emusic.com, you could only obtain this album in MP3 format. No physical form of the album was released. So while they may not agree with the way Napster uses MP3's, they certainly aren't against the format itself.
    (Long Tall Weekend) [emusic.com]
  • They are also one of the first bands to release an MP3 only album.
    (TMBG to Release MP3 Album) [slashdot.org]
    Sold through emusic.com, you could only obtain this album in MP3 format. No physical form of the album was released. So while they may not agree with the way Napster uses MP3's, they certainly aren't against the format itself.
    (Long Tall Weekend) [emusic.com]
  • Actually, it's "Triangle Man, Triangle Man, Triangle man hates Particle Man. They have a fight, Triangle Wins. Triangle Man."

  • Re:Why help them, they haven't helped us? (Score:3)

    by Rader ( 40041 ) on Monday November 13, 2000 @01:43PM (#626564) Homepage
    Glad to see someone on slashdot got that right.

    TMBG & The Offspring are a couple of the few better-known bands that have done a great job moving to the internet EARLY.

    maybe TMBG wouldn't mind about Napster so much, if they would do a few things that The Offspring do: such as merchandise, tour dates (and maybe tour!) etc. Of course, maybe TMBG could start selling Napster t-shirts like The Offspring did! What a great sense of humor!

    Rader

  • BTW which $10 voice modems off ebay do you like the best?

    It's hard to find one which does everything correctly; especially one which is able to distinguish voice, fax and data calls AND has class 2 fax capabilities. I got a Hayes Accura 33.6 which is supposed to be one of the better ones for this but haven't tried to distinguish all 3 types of calls yet. I did have it doing voice and fax correctly. But when vgetty initializes the modem, it times out while trying to detect its type, and then takes a guess (correctly) that it's a Rockwell. So that's sortof lame. And I went round and round with isapnp with this modem, before finally getting it to settle on a fairly odd IO-interrupt combination (didn't want it on the standard serial port settings, because I wanted to be able to use both serial ports at the same time as the modem). A hardware-configurable modem which lets me put it on IRQ5 or something would be better.
  • I saw a TMBG T-Shirt:

    Dial-A-Song:
    (718) 387-6962

    Always free. Always busy.
  • For those of you interested in more info about dial-a-song, there was a story about it on This American Life [thislife.org] back in 1998. Here [thislife.org] is the direct Real Audio link.

    Talks about how TMBG had to change the songs around in order to prevent the answering machine from stop recording. (The answering machine stopped after it dedected a certain tone.)

    They could also tell what songs are good and not so good by seeing how long people would listen before hanging up.

    It's in the "second act". A good listen.

  • Shouldn't this be an "Ask Slashdot" article?

  • The current Dial-a-Song is running on a crappy answering machine. In the liner notes for the album "Then", They describe how the sound of their music changed when they started Dial-a-Song, because they realized that certain sounds did not carry well over the phone lines: base and high pitch noises cause distortion, etc. Because of this, They began authoring music that would sound good over a phone line from their answering machine. At first, They had to do this by trial an error (TMBG is mostly an experimental band, anyways), but eventually They developed a sound out of it.

    So, no, TMBG doesn't need powerful equipment backing this. They never have before and they don't need it now.

  • They're your only friend, they're not your only friend, but they're a little glowing, but really they're not actually your friend, but they are...

  • Try emusic.com [emusic.com] for no less than nine albums of theirs in MP3 format. Not free, but not horribly expensive either ($8.99 USD). The coolest thing about emusic is their subscription service, which for as little as $10 a month you can download all you want. I have it and it's great. Oh, and the URL for the TMBG page on emusic is he re. [emusic.com]

  • Re:Why help them, they haven't helped us? (Score:5)

    by rjh ( 40933 ) <rjh@sixdemonbag.org> on Monday November 13, 2000 @12:46PM (#626572)
    TMBG is a great band. But, they have publically decried Napster and P2P in general. Why should we help them with something that is run 1980's technology?

    1. They aren't anti-Napster, nor anti-P2P. What they are against is the dilution of their own online community. When people download TMBG MP3s from Napster, they miss out on the large online community of TMBG fans, which TMBG has put a lot of effort into building. TMBG has little problem with fans sharing songs; TMBG has a big problem with Napster building their online community at the cost of TMBG's online community.

    2. Why should we help them out? Because we're geeks. Because we like fixing problems. Because we think that maybe, just maybe, the world would be a better place if things worked right. There's an old axiom about courtesy--you aren't courteous to other people because they're superior people, but because you are. The same applies to helping others.
  • TMBG is to nerds what the Grateful Dead was to ... well, deadheads :) They are also one of the few big acts who have embraced MP3s as a distribution mechanism (I've bought 2 of their albums online). They sing songs about robots and Belgian painters. In my mind, they are perfect Slashdot material!!

    P.S. they do not wear big suits.
  • ThinkGeek.com has a cool system where the music when you're on hold is played from an mp3 machine and a webpage is dynamically generated telling what songs are playing and what's up next, etc. I believe that the perl script they wrote to do this is released under the GPL.

    Sometimes you by Force overwhelmed are.
  • Nah, a voicemail system is not what is needed, unless they still want to be able to get quality tracks like 13. :)

    I have a project at work that I worked on in my spare time and is now in production. It's an automated attendant that uses Dialogic hardware. Unfortunately, it runs on NT because the Linux API was only recently released. But the app runs for months at a time, no stability problems. It is monitored by a Linux box that sends an page to my cellphone if the system goes down (it monitors a heartbeat, retrieved from the NT system via HTTP, with Apache running on the NT system).

    My point is that I'm fairly qualified to design and program a system that plays music.

    However, the problem with the slightly older Dialogic hardware is that the sound files it can play are all Dialogic ADPCM (6Khz or 8Khz sampling). Use CoolEdit to turn a decent soundfile into a Dialogic vox file. The quality is pretty bad.

    The other issue is the number of phone lines needed for a system like this. For more than 20 lines, it may be far better to get T1 or ISDN PRI voice service. This means other Dialogic hardware that can accept T1 or PRI directly. I'm also a PBX and telecomm expert, I work with phone companies and design stuff and all that.

    BTW, the automated attendant pulls data from Lotus Notes and provides a directory, validates extensions, and uses PBX digital integration (Voicebridge cards) to do all kinds of cool stuff to the PBX. If anyone wants some code, reply to this. I check.

  • Not free (as in beer or speach) (Score:4)

    by Sawbones ( 176430 ) on Monday November 13, 2000 @12:46PM (#626576)
    And in runs on WinTel machines but, but Call Center [v3inc.com] might work. Heck, most "digital answering machine" software would do, wouldn't it? Granted, it couldn't play differing files and you'd want to set it to not record.

    Dunno, but a possibilty.

    Debba-da-dong-dong-da-dee-da-debba-debba-debba-d a-dong-dong -da-dee-da-d ebba-D world destruction, Over and ovature, N do I need apostrophie, T need this torture :)
  • hey, wow, i'm posting...

    yes, they get it, they've had it, and they will keep making it...

    dial-a-song has been around since the first album was out. also they've released two albums i believe in mp3 format only. they're purchaseable somewhere probably linked on the website. also dial-a-song is available linked through their website as a listenable experience online as well as by the phone. there ya go.
  • I remember that. It was run by Brian W. Feedback, who also ran a comment line called "Feedback". I used to call comment lines a lot back then. You'd call up one line an listen to a looped tape of the comments of a bunch of other callers. Then you could call up an answering machine and leave your own comment. Then your comment might make it into the following week's tape.

    Comment lines were awesome. They were like BBS's for people without computers. Hell, I even used them when I did have a computer (and one of those fancy 300 baud modems). There were a bunch of them in Southern California -- Feedback, Observatory, Phun Phone, etc. I don't know if they caught on in other parts of the country/world.

  • Dont the giants know that giving out free music over phone lines shakes our fragile society to it's core?

    Cellphones fry your brain, but pagers tickle your groinal region. [lostbrain.com]
    tcd004

  • I've been looking for uses of TellMe's VoiceXML stuff for a while, and now I have found it. It has superb audio quality for over-the-phone content, plus it can handle as many files as you want to stream, and it takes VOICE commands, no more dialing what song you want! Anyhow, I've already submitted this solution to them, and now its just a game of waiting and seeing what they think. I think its great, because it goes onto a 1800 number, its FREE, and can handle any number of simultaneous calls you would need. PLUS, you don't have to have the phone lines dedicated for a dial-a-song machine, you don't have to worry about equipment upkeep, and you don't have to worry about your last machine dying. Can't get any better. At any rate, hope they go that route, it's a good service.


    Tellme can be found here [tellme.com]

    Jay Kramer
  • TMBG is a great band. But, they have publically decried Napster and P2P in general. Why should we help them with something that is run 1980's technology? It seems to me that they are just trying to boost their online image with this sort of stunt.

    Well, I was going to reply more thoughtfully, but it looks like others have beaten me to it. What I would like to point out is that TMBG does not resort to "stunts" in order to boost its online image. What they have done is given a free concert in Irving Plaza, which was broadcast live on the Internet via EMusic.com [emusic.com], simply to plug their latest album, "Long Tall Weekend", which was, mind you, entirely in MP3 format. TMBG has quite an online image. If they wanted to boost it, they'd do it, and they'd do it well.

    /* Steve */

  • Re:I just listened... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Meet Rich Stallman
    GNU's famous programmer
    Wipe him off and shake his hand
    Appreciate the man
  • TMBG are being supported by long distance telephone companies. This is a plot to get you to use long distance voice telecommunications! We see through their ruse!!

    They have a mentality that people want to listen to music with a phone stuck to their heads. Boo! BOOO!! I say! Let this Dial-A-Song machine go the way of the Go-Bots, Strawberry Shortcake, the Snorks and everything else evil in the 80s!

    =steve
  • You';re older than you've ever been, and now you're even older. And now you're even older. And now you're even older. You're older than you've ever been and now you're even older. And now you're older still.

    Time... Is marching on!
    And Time... Is still marching on!!!

    Jackass. You fucked it up. Karma WHore


    Mod Me Down.
    Ignore the submission guidelines.
  • I wonder how it handles 200,000 people trying to call it? It would be sad if the /. effect broke their last machine!

    I haven't heard of it before, so my immediate urge was to dial the numbers. The only thing that stopped me was the fact that I am at work, and the call is long distance. Others might not be so hesitant.

    Hmm, I could use the free 2 minute call on TellMe.com...

    OK! Here goes. Lets hope it still works...1800555TELL . . ."phone booth" . . .7183876962. . .login. . .commercial. . .connect

    oops BUSY!

    "redial" . . ."redial" . . ."redial"

    hmm, must be a serial connection...I am getting tired of yelling "redial" into my speakerphone.

    Hopefully the increased usage for the next month while all of the /.ers satisfy their curiosity won't kill the machine.

  • Is this what they want? http://www.etronics.com/product.asp?stk_code=rechr 100b

  • Maybe something like Fax On Demand (Score:3)

    by eap ( 91469 ) on Monday November 13, 2000 @01:16PM (#626588) Journal
    In the place I used to work, we had one of those fax on demand phone systems. Users could call in, press a few buttons, and have a fax sent to themselves.

    I don't see how having music streamed over the phone line would be any harder. It would probably be easier.

    On a related topic, I have been wanting to create an answering device running off a PC with a voice/CID modem which I can program to ring/not ring, play a certian message, or reroute calls based on time of call and caller ID data.

    Basically, I'd like certain people to always be able to get in touch with me, but I don't want to leave my ringer on and get woken up at 6AM by some bozo trying to dial the Paper Warehouse.

    Can anyone tell me if this would be possible with inexpensive hardware and a PC running Linux?
  • $10 voice modem ain't gonna sell many albums

    That would be relevant if you werent listening to MP3s via the $0.02 tinny-speaker via the copper phonelines. I dont think HI-FI/quality output is necessary when the weakest link in the system is definatley out of there control...

  • Go back to doing what you do best, and /. the dial-a-song <a href="http://www.dialasong.com">website</a>. No adds, no nothing. Just hit the target.

    Now get to work!
    "What do I care, if life ain't fair,
    If you look at me real sore.
    I've paid my dues and you should too,
  • Talk about Life imitating Humor...

    I chuckled at this post, then went to look at my Segfault Slashbox. The newest item: Answering Machine Subjected to DDoS Attacks [segfault.org].

    ---
  • I really should have hit preview.... dialasong [dialasong.com]


    "What do I care, if life ain't fair,
    If you look at me real sore.
    I've paid my dues and you should too,

  • great (Score:4)

    by wishus ( 174405 ) on Monday November 13, 2000 @01:45PM (#626594) Journal
    great.. now the /. effect will take out their last machine.

    good thinking!
    ---
  • Tell Me [tellme.com] has a product called Studio [tellme.com] that might do the trick. You are given an extension. Users call 800-555-Tell and say "Extensions" and then your extension, like "12345". It uses VoiceXML and is very cool. TMBG might get too much usage to qualify for the free version though.
    T. Bradley Dean
  • "Girl took me to meet her mom, her head exploded like an atom bomb"

    LOL, what the hell am i listening to now?

    "Drink drink drink
    in a monkey suit"

    weird english people

  • They do stream (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You can listen to any of their songs on mp3: www.tmbg.com
  • Did a really good job with the Malcom in the Middle theme song...WE HAVE GOT TO HELP THESE GUYS OUT! THEY ARE THE SH|!
  • They've "got it" since a little after many /. readers were first eating solid foods. :)
    --
    These are *MY* opinions.
  • To quoteth They Might Be Giants, "You're older then you ever were, and now your'e even older. And now your even older, and now your even older."
    You know, after reading this, your older then you ever were. And now your even older.
    Rock 'n Roll, Not Pop 'n Soul
  • Basically, it's to get people to start moderating up people for being intelligent, and not ocus so much on modding down people, when modding people down really doesn't get anything done. It's alot easier to go about amplifying the signal around here, instead of trying to turn down the noise. * syringe alone created more noise than any 5 people together produced signal. Once I got to the point where I was posting at a defaul of 0, there is no good reason for me to be modded down, even when I post a huge rant about anally raping someone's mother with a bucher knife.


    Mod Me Down.
    Ignore the submission guidelines.
  • I used to listen to this line all the time, then I went away to college. Why did that stop me? It costs a lot to call from here in Illinois, but back in Brooklyn it's a local phone call.

    Shouts to Bklyn!


  • Its the second! How soon we forget the duck quacking on NDB's 1-800 number!!

    siri

  • they might be giants already are a big merchandise + touring band.
    look at their website for tshirts, shot glasses, cds, videos, etc..
    The only band I personally know of (with a record contract) that tours more is the Bouncing Souls
  • What would particle man do?

  • *beep beep beep beep beep beep...* (Score:4)

    by krog ( 25663 ) on Monday November 13, 2000 @12:37PM (#626606) Homepage
    the website [theymightbegiants.com] is fine, but the phone number is Slashdotted!

  • dial-a-song costs (Score:5)

    by john_heidemann ( 104993 ) on Monday November 13, 2000 @12:38PM (#626607) Homepage
    You forgot the slogan of dial-a-song: "It's free if you call from work"
  • This American Life [thislife.org] did a good piece [thislife.org] about their Dial-a-Song, too. Host Ira Glass and team seem to be good friends and huge fans. Count on Public Radio to cover the important stuff!
  • TMBG actually GET it?
    They're giving their music away? Sure, it's over the phone, but still.. It's not a 967 number..

    Would they be willing to stream over the net, using a Linux box with free mp3s?

    Let me run right out and buy a few of their albums!

    The REAL jabber has the /. user id: 13196

  • If you've got some cash, Praxon [praxon.com] makes a phone system that will do just about anything.

  • I've done this with vgetty. (Score:5)

    by bmetz ( 523 ) on Monday November 13, 2000 @12:53PM (#626611) Homepage
    I've done a dial-in mp3 server with vgetty before. You typed in the first 4 digits of the band's name, then it used Viavoice Outloud to generate a band list, then you chose the right band, then it would tell you the available songs, then you chose a song, and then it streamed the mp3 out of the phone. It's very trivial to implement. It's a $10 voice modem off eBay, a spare pentium, and 2 hours installing vgetty and writing a 100-line perl script.

    If anyone is serious about wanting to do it this way I can provide assistance: bmetz (@) yahoo.com
  • ooo, correct lyrics. thats what I get for doing it from memmory :)
  • Back when I programmed Macs for a living (ok, I didn't make enough to live off of...) one of the projects I was assigned to involved connecting up a voicemail modem/software piece to a database (4th Dimension). I remember distinctly that the thing could play the silly MacInTalk voices out over it and you could record stuff in it's propietary format.

    the kicker: this was 1992! The thing ran on an SE/30! Surely this has hit the mainstream by now... :-)
  • As the resident computer guy for my company (and all around geek/nerd/what-have-you) I can honsetly say that TMBG is not my cup of tea. I don't hate them, and I can stomach listening to them (unlike most music on the radio), but I would much rather listen to something with some musical value (like Loreena McKennitt, or old school heavy metal, not that crap you hear passing for it now, like pre-90's, or most Pantera). I'm sorry, but TMBG=nerd band isn't quite accurate, as I'm definitely nerd material, and am no TMBG fan.


    Slow moving marsupials and the women that love them
  • That machine is probably melting down as we speak, eating its magnetic tape and spewing fire all over the band.

    Maybe they'll write a song about it: "Slashdot set my house on fire"

    It could be a duet with Hemos.

    Tony

  • If they want to spend some money get a T1 and a voice card from either Natural Microsystems (http://www.nmss.com) or Dialogic (http://www.dialogic.com).

    A little C or C++ coding and you've got a handy dandy system that can accept touch tones, play back music/voice/whatever, etc..

    It'd be far more reliable than crap based on Winblows using analog phone lines.

    Get ready to spend some $$$ though, those things aren't cheap.
  • heh . . . it's been slashdotted since something like 1995. "Always free, often busy," as one of their records put it.

  • Re:I've done this with vgetty. (Score:3)

    by SClitheroe ( 132403 ) on Monday November 13, 2000 @01:08PM (#626618) Homepage
    A $10 voice modem ain't gonna sell many albums...you need some real telephony hardware, like a Dialogic board, which can handle multiple lines, and has great (professional) sound quality to boot. A four line card can be had for about $200, if I remember correctly.

  • vmodem or expensive (and still no real linux drivers?) dialogic board matters less than you'd think; there's still only 300Hz-3kHz available in the phone line.

  • If... (Score:1)

    by Demona ( 7994 )
    ...the information presented is accurate, it should stand on its own. If not, it should be refuted. But maybe you'd like to whine about meaningless things like karma and moderation, until those you rail against think you care about those things more than they do.
  • For the curious, this is the Massachusetts Republican Party.
  • Note that vgetty is not released under a GPL and is not free for commercial use.
  • CallAttendant Pro [objectworld.com] is very good. Completely programmable, it sort of works in a flow-chart-type thing where you can have unlimited steps and options (see screenshot [objectworld.com])
  • You could do it with the ISDN4Linux programs and some scripting...4 or 5 ISDN PCI cards would give you 10 lines. I4L has DTMF support built in and an answering machine that actually works very well.
  • Particle Man, Particle Man,
    Particle Man thinks Linux can!
    Stream mp3's, fast as you can,
    Particle Man
    Insert solo here
    Put DMCA in a garbage can
    If you need more servers, set up a LAN
    Get a giant cooling fan
    Particle Man!
  • It won't matter how it sounds, as long as they only play "I can hear you".
  • Well I love TMBG, but will admit I understand what you're saying, and not surprised you said it!!! Come on everyone, you have to admit that TMBG is some zany music. And it's definately an acquired taste. And that's why we like it. Especially if you just pick a random song --hell, you never know which one he listened to.

    I'm sure a large percentage of you out there got hooked when the catchy "Instanbul" song became popular in 1991...A much easier way to transition yourself into their music.

    On a funnier note: You know how radio stations some times try to brag how hot they are... and they'll play small clips of hard-hitting songs they play? One station I know used to do this ad all the time for themselves: "This is isn't X-music (play some god-alwful slow song)...THIS is X-Music: (play some headbanger music) "
    Well one day they were playing this clip, and they put a TMBG song as the 'bad' music! I almost had to pull over from laughing so hard. And dammit, I liked that song!

    Rader

  • I remember when my friend Alex [phonelosers.org] used to harass people with dial-a-song. *sniff* those were the days.

    -Legion

  • Asterisk (www.asteriskpbx.com) - Works best with Adtran hardware, if you can afford it. Sorta works with the Internet {Phone|Line}Jack, but those have a higher price-per-line (not that Adtran's hw is cheap either).


    Bayonne (www.voxilla.org/bayonne/) - GNU's official telephony project. Supports Pika, Acculab and Voicetronix hardware, and anything with support for linux's kernel-based telephony driver. I haven't used it, but probably a better place to start than Asterisk.



    None of the hardware for this stuff is cheap -- I hope the folks working on this project have some cash to plunk down.

  • Most tape players are out of cal and put the tones off pitch. Check the tolorence requirements for DTMF. I am suprised anyone even tried to sell it on tape. A HI FI VCR could be used as the tape speed is locked to a crystal reference.
  • "The Man" is making them change to a more modern system. I say we all call the manufacturer and complain!!!
  • That's funny. Didn't they release an album called "I'm sick of this American Life"?
  • You don't need a DSP, just a simple D/A and A/D conversion. As long as the conversion isn't horribly inaccurate (doubtful, even cheapo CD players do well on this), you can do almost anything in software. DTMF detection isn't THAT hard to do, and recording/playing back audio is just a matter of moving bits around. Also 64kbps isn't very hard to deal with with a decent speed machine. You can't get higher quality than that, the phone switches only sample 8 bits every 125 microseconds (8000X/sec) and send theat digital data around.
  • Using a PC with a few voice modems would work, unless they expect lots of traffic. It would probably be best to have a dialogic card which has much larger capacity compared to a single line modem (can handle either single or dual T1s per card 24-48 lines). If they expect to handle more than a few simultaneous calls, using the Dialogic cards would probably be the best solution. From that it's fairly simple to play sound files to a caller, convert mp3 to a dialogic vox file and stream it to the card. Hell, i could probably whip up a fairly good service for this kind of thing...wonder what kind of commercial interest there would be (is it worth my time?). It'd be possible to set up a box that could handle several different numbers, each to a different band's songs or with some kind of special announcement...or to have it as a music store front-end.
  • Yet Another Slashdotted Phone #...

    Well, at least I am getting a normal busy tone instead of the usual /.ed phone number error "All circuits are busy"!
  • Im an integrator for a company called Decisif.

    We have a CTI suite called Focus with IVR (what they need), an ACD and Predictive Dialing.

    Now Im surely preaching our product but has one important thing that others dont, flexibility.

    MAJOR Flexibility, through scripting, and not some proprietary scripting language either (Im know some of you are going to shoot me for this...) but we use VB script.

    Why ? you might ask, because, WHO cant code in vb, seriously.

    We use Dialogic boards, and currently support Visual Voice pro 5, but we are working on our one voice module which should be finished soon.

    In any case, I think TMBG should be looking into real telephony solutions for this wether it be ours or another companies.

  • A possible solution exists using RandomWav! [omeganet.de] with Tobit's David [tobit.com]. This would allow many simultaneous callers, multiple mailboxes, unlimited message (song) length, announce only mailboxes, and random message (song) selection.

    As with every computer integration solution, there are possible drawbacks.

    First, it seems a bit like taking a drink out of a firehose. Tobit's David is a full messaging platform, not just an answering machine software.

    Second, the RandomWav! .DLL was written for an older version of David (5.2) and all of the documentation is in German.
    But hey, what else is new?

    Or, as the (Freetranslation.com [freetranslation.com] translated) web site of RandomWav! [omeganet.de] puts it best:
    "To the good fortune, the Skript-Engine of David can be expanded, under Windows NT mithilfe by DLLs, whose functions in the Skripten can be used. Exactly here our Utility jumps into the Bresche: it is a DLL, lauffähig under Windows NT 4.0, that includes a function to the accidental selection of a file that corresponds to a delivered pattern. They can program so mithilfe of the Skript-Editors within David an Anrufbeantworter, that the Anrufer with an accidentally selected greeting delights! For which things can yet be used entirely to one side of of Messaging and Anrufbeantwortern this function, remains leave your imagination."
    Good luck. :-)

    - philos

  • This functionality would be trivial with Tellme (800-555-TELL; www.tellme.com). See http://studio.tellme.com/mys tud io/showdirectory.cgi [tellme.com] and check out the GRAFF extension (extension 47233). Something like that, or the Tellme Announcements (audio, phone-based BBS, basically) would be perfect.

  • Um (Score:1)

    by Enahs ( 1606 )
    So you're here to goad people into modding you down, simply so that you can say "Ha! The fscking moderators don't read the guidelines and actually mod things down!"

    Pathetic, that's what it is. The last time I got moderator points I modded only one thing down (5 points, 5 moderations.) The only thing I modded down was something pathetic like you just wrote...flamebait deserves to get modded down.
  • When did Napster become a qualifying factor in helping someone. If that were the case, I wouldn't cross the street to help a napster kiddie.

    However, since that ISN'T the case, TMBG has done an awful lot for their fans; cheap / free concerts, give-away electronic versions of songs, freely available dial-a-song (except the toll cost), and they DO sell their music online in mp3 format - if I'm not mistaken, it's THEM selling it, not a big name label (I could be wrong there).

    It's really not much different from a friend who's deeply into the Microsoft world asking for my help on recommending him a new component DVD player. I should refuse to help him because his OS has DVD playing support and mine doesn't?

    Oh yah, and that whole 80s technology thing... trés passé. Off the top of my head, I've seen /. stories on Atari handhelds, various emulations of old tech, and basic old hacking of 80s equipment here in the past month.

    So, anyways, my basic point is this; put up or shut up. If the 80s tech they've been using for the past ~20 years is such crap, perhaps you con offer up a better Linux based telephony solution? Oh right... emerging tech...

  • I think this the first time a phone number has been slashdotted.
  • I hope they're reading this, because once they get an idea for a title, it seems they do everything possible to make it a song.

    I mean, where else would titles like "She Thinks She's Edith Head", "Siftin'", and "Someone Keeps Moving My Chair" come from?
    --
    Obfuscated e-mail addresses won't stop sadistic 12-year-old ACs.

  • Re:Why help them, they haven't helped us? (Score:3)

    by bmongar ( 230600 ) on Monday November 13, 2000 @12:44PM (#626667)

    For years TMBG has given music on their web sites. They want fans to hear their musice, especially that which isn't mainstream enough to make it onto their albums (that says a lot). Their problem with P2P is that it disconnects fans from the band. They would like to see people coming to their web site to get music, they can then see concert and album announcements. All that is missed when Napserting for Why the Sun Shines

    They have always had a good online presence, ehy released an entire album internet only. Why help them because they are cool.

  • Check out mvm (Score:4)

    by Anne Marie ( 239347 ) on Monday November 13, 2000 @02:17PM (#626668)
    No need to reinvent the wheel: mvm [alphanet.ch] will handle their needs including multiple simultaneous connections.

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