news |  music |  background |  failed bands |  et cetera |  studio & gear |  doctechnical.com home | Music created with non-acoustic tools and methods has always held a special appeal for me. I can't explain it, nor do I have a particular need to. It's just the way I am. I know there are a lot of people who are turned off by music that is not played in real time by people, using acoustic music instruments. And I'm not saying I think electronic music is any more aesthetically valid than other forms of music. All I can say is the electronic music resonates with my own psyche in a way no other music can touch and this impulse, combined with a natural inquisitiveness and an acute sense of hearing has led to a lifelong obsession with all things electronica. My first exposure to musiqué concrété and synthesizer music was in the late '60s, when some adventurous record labels were producing experimental and electronic music albums. Some of the music on these albums was strange and creepy, and at first I was a little freaked out by it. But I later came to appreciate the desire on the part of avant-gardé composers to create something otherworldly and totally unlike anything that had ever been heard before, as a need to push boundaries and redefine preconceived notions as to what can be classified as music. My first hands-on experience with synthesizers and tape recorders came in the mid 1970s as a film student in college. After graduation I set out to build myself a small project studio in my bedroom, starting with a Revox tape recorder and a couple of keyboards. It later grew to accommodate a Tascam four-track deck, a basic mixer, four synthesizers and a handful of effects boxes. When MIDI became available, the studio expanded to include music sequencing (IBM PC, numerous rack mount synthesizers and effects) along with expanded analog recording gear (Akai MG14D 12-track recorder and a Tascam 24-track mixer to go with my reel to reel decks). In the mid-1990s, after four failed band projects and untold hours recording and mixing band demos while squeezing in the occasional personal music project in the process, I hit a creative wall with MIDI and got fed up with the constant hassles inherent in its technical limitations. I cut back on regular music making for four years, spending much of my time learning web development and teaching myself the ins and outs of digital audio - recording, editing and mixing, CD burning and graphics packaging - while watching the slow but steady growth of computer-based music production systems and software from the sidelines. Then at the end of 2000, Propellerhead Software released the astounding Reason program. I got hooked on making music again and never looked back. While I am pleased that I have been able to restore much of my personal archive of reel to reel electronic music recordings in digital form with remarkable clarity and definition, I don't miss the countless hours I spent troubleshooting wiring problems and fighting unwanted hums and buzzes to get to get the noise floor to an acceptably low level. These days I run Reason along with Ableton Live, some Native Instruments software synthesizers and a handful of other freeware and shareware music programs. Considering the mind-boggling expansion of innovative music and audio production tools and techniques that have materialized over the past few years, I believe we are truly experiencing a modern electronic music renaissance. I feel like a kid in a candy store when I sit down in front of my computer to make music these days. Follow the links at the top of the page to see and hear what I've been up to all these years.