Finally, after receiving a particularly heartbreaking letter from a student, we decided we couldn’t let Acappella U end on such a sad, despondent note. Episode 4 is a compilation of the footage we DO have from our fantastic Dartmoth experience, and though it’s certainly not as dynamic a piece as it might have been with the lost tape, it’s far better than the big pile of nothing Allie and all of her wonderful Dodecas have had this last 13 months.

Tackling a project like Acappella U when it’s been neglected for over a year is no easy feat, particularly when there are now so many wonderful a cappella podcasts to listen to. If you’re still interested in hearing us blast collegiate a cappella goodness across the internets, please click this link to send us an email and let us know!

- Joey

P.S - We just uploaded Acappella U Episode 53 and Acappella U:HD Episode 4!! We’re still working the bugs out with the media player for the website, but they’re up on iTunes for free or you can download them directly by clicking ‘download’ below!

Unless you’re an overachieving wanker trying to graduate in three years, you don’t go to college in the summer. You waste time and money just hanging out. In an effort to emulate our students, we like to do the same thing here at Acappella U. Why look - we even took all summer to write this post! Slackers indeed.

Ah but don’t fret. Just as the new crop of freshman hotties is rolling onto campus, Acappella U will once again be pumping out the beats for the good of all mankind.

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Sometimes in life realized ideas come out as cool as they were when they were little baby ideas in your head, and after you’ve spent lots of time and money raising your idea through childhood and adolescence, it grows up and gets a Ph.D. in Biomedicalneuroscientifical Engineering from MIT and builds a really cool robot that restores sight to little blind orphans. It’s then that you stand back and say, ‘Well I guess that didn’t suck. In fact, I’d even say it was worth it.’

Today is that day for Acappella U HD. You COULD say that Acappella U HD was THE WHOLE POINT OF ACAPPELLA U FROM THE GET GO. To do something unprecedented: to put a kid who’d never seen a collegiate a cappella show into the front freaking row of an Off the Beat concert, or the ICCA Finals, or whatever, and say ‘Fuck, that was awesome.’ Or to have someone’s invalid grandma be able to see their little precious grand baby sing in 720 glorious lines of cataract-impeded resolution. You can’t do that on YouTube. Behold greatness:

Open iTunes and go to the ‘Advanced’ menu, then select ‘Subscribe to Podcast.’ Cut and past the following URL into the window that will open:

feed://acappellauhd.libsyn.com/rss

Blamo, you’re in. The first episode (U Penn off the Beat -the Ramblers vid was just a placeholder) is 294MB, so it will take a while to download. Revel in its enormity!

Note #1 - You’ll see a disclaimer at the beginning how disappointed we were with the video quality. The general idea of Acappella U HD is every bit as cool as we’d dreamed, we just started dicking around with the manual aperture setting on the cameras halfway through the concert and as a result ‘Voices Carry’ is way underexposed and hence grainy / noisy / however you want to say it. Oh, and one of our tripod heads sucks, so it’s a bit jerky. We put that note in there to say ‘Hey, before you write a dopey email telling us the video was grainy and a little jerky, we already know and have resolved it. Douchebag.’

Note #2 - For any of you that have already subscribed to Acappella U HD / are having problems, PLEASE DELETE THE ENTIRE PODCAST from iTunes and start fresh. Remember, the file should be 294MB

Note #3 - Acappella U HD is not iTunes Store searchable YET, i.e. you can’t just type ‘Acappella U HD’ into the search bar and find it as you can with the regular show. Hopefully it will be soon!

Enjoy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please check out the Rock Band songlist and Guitar Hero III songlist. If you have any a cappella versions of these songs, please email us and let us know. Thanks in advance for your help!!