New Recording System Mixes Songs for Buyers

Students who have spent hours making "mix" tapes for parties will be relieved to find a new audio system at Newbury Comics which does the job in less than 30 minutes and produces a higher quality sound, employees say.

Last week the store received the Personics System, which is composed of two Sony juke boxes with headphones. It enables a customer to compile and record a personally chosen set of songs.

"The Personics System is an excellent idea because you can make a good high-quality tape inexpensively," said Cheryl A. Eagan- Donovan, a Personics System representative. The system has a 15,000 song capacity and Newbury Comics presently has 4500 songs in its machine.

The store will increase its selection of songs--which range from Easy Listening to Folk/Bluegrass to Rock/Pop--by 300 to 500 each month, Eagan-Donovan said. Also, the system contains a catalogue of sound effects, and each month, Newbury will offer three free songs, she said.

There is a three song minimum for each tape, but a consumer can fill up to 90 minutes of a cassette with the chosen tunes. Before choosing the songs, a customer can hear a 15-second sample on the provided headphones.

Each song costs about one dollar and the tape itself costs 75 cents, Eagan-Donovan said.

Employees said that the average customer who uses the Personics System is in their early 20s. One employee, Joe Coda, said he was surprised that younger customers who had watched The Big Chill were requesting more oldies than older customers.

Most consumers said they were impressed by the Personics System. "I thinkit's big and super-cool looking," said L. CameronKitchin '91-'92. Shopper Gina Preziosi said thatshe liked the system because she could make a tapethat she enjoyed without having to buy the albums.

Other customers said they liked the fact thatthey were able to make a high-quality mix tape, atask which they claimed was difficult toaccomplish when they attempted to do it at home.

However, not all were impressed with the newsystem. Ellie Y. Lee '92 said, "I think it's agood idea that you can hear the songs, but it'slame because a lot of people crowd around themachine and you can't get to the headphones. Also,you can only hear the song for fifteen seconds,and you can't groove for only fifteen seconds. Iwouldn't pay money for this."

Daniel H. Tabak '92 complained about thelimited selection of artists. "There's no BillyJoel, there's no Beatles, there's no Spinal Tapand there's no 'Weird Al' Yankovic, ergo there'sno culture," he said.

Eagan-Donovan said that there was a lack of bigname artists such as the Beatles, Bob Dylan, theRolling Stones and Michael Jackson because ittakes time to obtain the copyrights for theirsongs