Senator Max Cleland has chosen Michael Graves and Osiris Studio to restore and preserve his personal tape recordings that he made during his service in the Vietnam War. A common practice during the Vietnam era was for soldiers to record “audio letters” and send them back home for loved ones to listen to. The recordings entrusted to Osiris Studio were Cleland’s “letters” to his parents describing his time in Vietnam.
The reel-to-reel tapes were plagued with problems, first and foremost were speed playback issues. Because the portable tape recorder that Cleland used ran on batteries, occasionally the batteries would lose power while Cleland was recording making the tape rotate slower. Upon playback on a fully powered machine however the tape would rotate at the correct speed and Cleland’s voice would fluctuate from normal to being very high pitched. All the speed issues were corrected as well as any other problems. The final restored digitized recordings are now in the possession of Mr. Cleland, his alma mater, Stetson University and The Carter Center.