Analog Tape

I began recording music when I was a child during the 1960s, using a little monophonic reel-to-reel tape recorder. I recorded the family piano, other instruments, as well as “found sounds.” Some time around 1970, I began recording multitrack tapes by using a second monophonic tape machine, which I used to record both the other tape machine while it played back, as well as additional sound, with a single microphone. I created multitrack tapes this way - by bouncing tracks over and over until the early tracks were difficult to make out! While in the hospital, I wrote numerous musical pieces, including a 24-part symphony. For my 18th birthday, my parents bought me a TEAC A-3340S 4-track reel-to-reel. I had just gotten out of the hospital after being in there for about 9 months (I would later have to go back in for a few months). I recorded hundreds of multitracked stereo and 4-track recordings with the TEAC over a period of about 5-6 years. I bought a very used RMI Electra-Piano for $400, and a used Roland SH-1000 for $100. People would bring over drum sets, keyboards, basses, and other musical instruments that would remain for months in my parent’s basement while I made recordings in my studio down there. I fell in love with analog synthesizer sounds and the expressive capabilities of these instruments. Eventually I became too busy for music while in college, and while working on my career, so I stopped recording for about 16-17 years.

Digital Technology

In 1999 I decided to start recording again using the exciting new technologies that had become available, such as Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) and multitimbral synthesizers, which could produce 16 channels of varied, polyphonic (multi-note) sounds in real-time. The first “album” I recorded was done entirely using a single synthesizer, the Alesis QS8, which I still use as my 88-key weighted-action keyboard. The QS8 was my first midi keyboard, which allowed these pieces to be my first midi recordings. All of the sounds were produced, and really, performed, all at once in real time, by the QS8 (it was a multitimbral synthesizer). Once programmed, a single such keyboard could play 16 different instruments, chords, melodies and all, all at once, in a real time performance of written, arranged music. I used my computer to create music with a program called a sequencer (Cakewalk Pro Audio, which could also record sound), then the computer had the keyboard play up to 16 instruments which were recorded in stereo into my computer sound card. This performance was recorded in real time (not rendered) by the little 8-bit stereo sound card that came with my 1996 Gateway Pentium 200 486 PC computer. The pieces I recorded this way have been compiled into the album called “Late Night Report.”

U-He Synths - analog in your computer

Those days in the 80s, playing my old single-oscillator monophonic Roland SH-1000 (Japan’s first synthesizer) were wonderful. The sound was gorgeous - silky smooth and sweet! The one thing I hated about the digital tech (especially sounds created by the computer) was the sound quality of the simulated “analog” instruments. They sounded rough, harsh, and unpleasant. Then I read about a new piece of computer software that was modeled on a modular analog synthesizer, that people were saying really sounded good - like 99% of the way toward real analog - the U-He ACE synthesizer. Because it was relatively inexpensive, I didn’t hesitate to try it, and I instantly fell in love with it. Not only did it sound smooth and sweet, but it had all sorts of capabilities that my old synths never had. This kickstarted another period of recording that I engaged in in the late 2000s, culminating in the Atmosphere album. Much of this music I also shared on SoundCloud. During these few years, my disabilities became more and more severe. I spent a couple of years recording game music for a couple of games, until I just had to abandon recording altogether.