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Many pieces of recording and synthesizer gear have passed through my hands over the course of the last 25 years, and I shudder to think of the amount of money I've spent on equipment that promised more than it could deliver. I spent way too much time in MIDI hell, and while the skills and techniques I learned along the way have proven to be invaluable in my present music work, I am really glad that the days of struggling with complicated patch cord setups, recalictrant and poorly behaved devices and computer software, and troubleshooting buzzes, hums and audio/MIDI signal problems are far behind me. I started out with a couple of reel to reel tape decks, an Arp Odyssey and an Elka string synthesizer, some cheap effects devices and a mixer. Here's a photo of that setup, after I replaced the Arp and Elka with a Prophet-5 and a Moog Source (not shown):  When the MPU-401 (an early MIDI interface for IBM PCs) became available, I jumped on the MIDI/PC bandwagon, adding more equipment to the rig along the way. In this photo, the keyboard stand held the Prophet-5 and Memorymoog synths along with an RX11 drum machine. The rack gear at this time included a Yamaha TX416 unit (four DX7s in a rack module) and some effects (REV7, MIDIVerb, D1500 delay among others) all connected to an 8-channel PA mixer. Off to the right you see the back of an IBM PC (yep, the first one) - the long gray cable is connected to the MPU401 MIDI interface, which is connected to the MIDI gear. (I also had - and still have - an early Yamaha "key-tar" MIDI controller, the subject of much derision in the present day.)  By the late 1990s, things had truly spun out of control. In these next two pictures, you see a 24 channel Tascam mixer with an Akai MG14D multi-track recorder (sporting one of the oddest tape formats on the market - can you even get blank tapes for these things any more?) and a rack of effects and patch bays to the right; and to the left two more racks of bloat (more on them below).  The two racks contained a Yamaha TG77, two Akai S1000 samplers, an Oberheim Matrix-6, an Emu Proteus 1/XR, more effects and cheap rack-mount line mixers, a MIDI patch bay and grid knows what else. On the desk to the left is the ever-present PC, with the side panels taken off because the unit seemed to be in constant need of tweaking.  These days, I have embraced the virtual gear bandwagon and do all of my music and audio work with a laptop (with audio interface) and software. My rig is more compact than ever before, while at the same time providing more power, quality and control than I ever dreamt of having at my fingertips.  Computer/Audio/MIDI Hardware:
Software:
Apart from the high audio quality I am able to achieve with this rig, the thing I love about it most is its compactness and portability. We live in a fantastic era in terms of music technology, and I feel blessed to have the opportunity to take advantage of it. My, how things have changed... |