Born Again Synth player that is./
You may have noticed I have been a little scarce of late. The reason is my discovery of my 1st Love; the Synthesiser!
In my teens and early twenties, I invested much of my free time and most of money in Synths and Recording equipment. Nearly thirty years ago however I the needs of time and space (my available time and space, not the cosmic variety) required me to break my studio down and pack it up, with most of it being eventually sold off.
Of course in those days Synths were still mostly Analogue, recoding needed proper mixing desks and tape recorders, they were bulky, expensive and needed a lot space and lot of power to operate. For decades I had neither time nor facility to set up a new studio so put it to the back of mind and largely forgot about it.
Then this year, three things happened.
1) My musical guru Edgar Froese of Tangerine Dream died
2) An old friend from my youth also suddenly died
3) Someone told me that lots of powerful synths exist as virtual computer programmes.
I was both intrigued and more mindful of mortality and concluded that there was no good reason not to start playing again.
I have frankly been amazed by what I have found and how much the technology has moved on. The best thing is that it is now possible to have a keyboard and studio set up beyond my previous wildest dreams, own classic keyboards that still cost thousands and for it all to cost virtually nothing and occupy no meaningful space whatsoever.
The low cost is remarkable, I bought an entry level MIDI keyboard for £70 (about $100) and with the bundles software that came with it and all the free VST pluggins have not had to pay a penny extra!
So there you are facilities that would have cost many £1000's in the day available for next to nothing, Incredible.
Anyhow here are a couple of pieces that I have knocked out while relearning the ropes. Be generous, I am having to learn a lot of new technology and I have not played or practised for decades.
Also be aware that I am a product of my generation and with tastes firmly locked in the Krautrock era
You may have noticed I have been a little scarce of late. The reason is my discovery of my 1st Love; the Synthesiser!
In my teens and early twenties, I invested much of my free time and most of money in Synths and Recording equipment. Nearly thirty years ago however I the needs of time and space (my available time and space, not the cosmic variety) required me to break my studio down and pack it up, with most of it being eventually sold off.
Of course in those days Synths were still mostly Analogue, recoding needed proper mixing desks and tape recorders, they were bulky, expensive and needed a lot space and lot of power to operate. For decades I had neither time nor facility to set up a new studio so put it to the back of mind and largely forgot about it.
Then this year, three things happened.
1) My musical guru Edgar Froese of Tangerine Dream died
2) An old friend from my youth also suddenly died
3) Someone told me that lots of powerful synths exist as virtual computer programmes.
I was both intrigued and more mindful of mortality and concluded that there was no good reason not to start playing again.
I have frankly been amazed by what I have found and how much the technology has moved on. The best thing is that it is now possible to have a keyboard and studio set up beyond my previous wildest dreams, own classic keyboards that still cost thousands and for it all to cost virtually nothing and occupy no meaningful space whatsoever.
The low cost is remarkable, I bought an entry level MIDI keyboard for £70 (about $100) and with the bundles software that came with it and all the free VST pluggins have not had to pay a penny extra!
So there you are facilities that would have cost many £1000's in the day available for next to nothing, Incredible.
Anyhow here are a couple of pieces that I have knocked out while relearning the ropes. Be generous, I am having to learn a lot of new technology and I have not played or practised for decades.
Also be aware that I am a product of my generation and with tastes firmly locked in the Krautrock era
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