This is a call for all of you out there to post a comment telling us what you’re running right now for a computer. It doesn’t matter if it’s old or new, pre-built or custom, fast or slow, laptop or desktop, etc. Post your specs.

If you have multiple computers in the home, go ahead and name them all.

What I’m looking for here is a simple one-liner for each computer containing its specifications, monitor resolution, the current operating system on it and how long you’ve owned it.

Here’s an example using my two computers:

Custom build, 1.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD, 16x DVD Burner, EVGA nVidia 512MB video, dual monitor, 1680×1050, Windows 7 RC, 3 years

Dell Inspiron 6000, 1.5GHz Celeron M, 1GB RAM, 60GB HDD, 8x DVD Burner, integrated video, single monitor, 1680×1050, Windows XP SP3, 4 years

If you don’t know all the above info for your box, just take your best guess or put "unknown" for the ones you don’t know.

If you want to add in additional info like make/model/dimensions of components such as for motherboard, RAM, monitor(s) and so on, feel free to post that as well.

Why am I asking for this info?

A few reasons:

1. There’s going to be a swath of you considering upgrading to Windows 7 in October. If we know your specs, we can give better advice and tips because not everybody runs a super-duper-fast quad core machine.
2. For those running older hardware, this gives us a better idea of what Linux distributions to recommend to keep you modern without the need for hardware upgrades.
3. Using a laptop? Would be nice to get a general idea of how many of you have one.

Go ahead and post your specs!

The "transmitted" sound is the human voice that sounds as if it were being broadcasted on an old radio. To this day, Hollywood still uses this trick in movies for phone conversations and anything else where the voice is supposed to sound "old", "old tech" or "distant" (like in war movies).

If you’re into making your own movies/skits/etc., this is a good trick to know during post production editing.

This effect is best heard by example. Here’s an audio excerpt from a recent video I did:

Original (MP3)

Modified (MP3)

This effect can be done in just about any audio editor (including Audacity) and is achieved by doing the following:

1. Increase db by 20 (Amplify).

This will purposely distort the audio and sound – by design – as if it’s being transmitted "too hot". Most broadcasts of old were really hot on the microphone which is why you do this.

Original audio looks like this:

Amplified audio looks like this:

And yes it’s very hot and distorted – on purpose.

2. Compress audio.

The compressor will keep the audio "hot" sounding, but bring the real db back down to a level where it won’t blow out your speakers (or anyone else’s).

Compressed audio looks like this (when run after amplification shown above):

Note how the "hot" audio is maintained but the true volume is leveled down so it doesn’t clip.

3. Convert down to 8kHz 8-bit, then back to 44.1kHz 16-bit.

The original recorded audio was in 44.1kHz 16-bit (CD quality). It was downsampled down to 8kHz 8-bit to chop off all treble for that older raspy sound, then upsampled back to 44.1kHz 16-bit.

In Adobe Audition 1.5 (my audio editor of choice), the downsample is done like this:

After I apply that, the upsample looks like this:

The end result is what you heard above from the examples.

To note, the modified version is supposed to purposely sound distorted and overdriven because that’s what old-tech radio/phone transmissions sound like for the most part.

Final tips:

You may only need to perform step 3 and skip 1 and 2. If it sounds good to your ear, go with it.

Purposely using a distortion filter usually doesn’t work. What you’ll get is the all the "hot" you want but it won’t sound natural.

Chopping off the high bands via EQ usually doesn’t work either. You won’t get that old-tech sound but rather just "mud" (i.e. sounds as if being spoken behind a wall).