Something wonderful happened a few nights ago. I was working with the modular synth and I began to tweak a patch I had just put together. I did a little of this and a little of that and things began to fall into place. It was becoming interestingly rhythmic with nice variations. I let it continue to play while getting ready to shut things down for the night. While doing all that I suddenly realized how much the music was …
Tonight I took my first steps in creating generative music with the modular synth. After studying the manuals to several of the modules I’m beginning to explore a little more deeply into their complex inner workings.
From Wikipedia; “Generative music is a term popularized by Brian Eno to describe music that is ever-different and changing, and that is created by a system.”
Or to put it another way, as Eno himself has said, “Generative music is a lot like gardening, …
Recently the components for my new modular synthesizer began to arrive.
I’ve wanted a modular for quite a while. My very first synth was a modular, a Paia that I built from a kit. I couldn’t afford a Minimoog at the time, which I wanted very much. But it was completely out of my budget at $1500 in 1975, so I built the $240 Paia instead. It actually was a better first synth for me because building it, and then …
The latest acquisition to my studio is a Hammond M3 organ. It now resides in what I call the “vintage” area of the studio due to being made in 1955, and it’s directly beside a Masco guitar amp from 1946. So being 68 and 77 years old does allow me to truthfully use the word vintage. 😁
I’ve had the Masco for years, but the M3 arrived recently on a whim. I owned one previously (with two Leslie 147 speakers) back …
Here is my Abbey Road shot, unfortunately I’m not in it because I was by myself. However, I did have an amazing top-to-bottom tour of the entire studio, compliments of a producer friend who set it up for me after working there a few weeks earlier. I visited in October 1989 while attending a training course for audio console manufacturer Solid State Logic in Begbroke, not far from Oxford.
I also spent time in London and was very lucky to …
January 2000, Robert Fripp held a four hour Q&A session at our studio that also included a listening party playing tracks from the then-unreleased King Crimson album “The ConstruKction of Light”. I admire Robert not only for his musicianship and musical vision, but also for his teachings and philosophies regarding life and work.
Roughly 70 people attended the Nashville event from as far away as Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, Georgia and Louisiana. The session lasted almost four hours and included …
I’m implementing my new motto: “Either show it or throw it, but stop carrying it around and storing it for decades.”
So here is something that I’m pulling out of storage, refurbishing and showing. It’s an unusual electronic musical instrument known as a Vibravox, built fifty years ago back in 1972 by my dad and myself from an article in an electronics magazine. The silver knobs on the left are touch sensors to use your hand to select various pitch …
I woke up Sunday morning thinking about the album that got me into electronic and ambient music. It was Tangerine Dream’s 1975 release “Rubycon”. I decided to play it while lying in bed and found that it still impresses me with the sounds and moods that the band created with what we now consider primitive gear.
Rubycon consists of only two long tracks each taking up an entire side of the album, at a little over 17mins each. After breakfast I …
This was a major influence in my life.
I own every King Crimson album and video, and have seen more of their shows than any other band. I’ve also attended Robert Fripp’s solo performances & speaking engagements, one of which I hosted myself during my time of owning & operating a recording studio here in Nashville. I was also fortunate enough to do studio work on Robert’s solo album “Love Cannot Bear”, providing audio editing. I never could have imagined …