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Yesterday I saw a posting on the Sonar forum about Zynaptiq ADAPTIVERB by 'synchrotron' (andy morris) where he mentioned the One Sample Dare Challenge here.
I hadn't heard about Ambient Online before that, so I checked a few things out and registered so that I could participate in the next challenge.
I am a retired software engineer living in Sunnyvale, California. I have lots of free time, and I like to write, so prepare for a long-winded intro.
I guess I should start with my earliest experience with electronic music. My high school physics class sponsored a field trip to the Smithsonian in 1968 where I heard 'Switched on Bach' played to a laser light show. It was a religious experience. I told myself I would get a Moog and do stuff like that.
It took a while for that to happen - about 11 years. I had to teach myself analog design and I subscribed to Bernie Hutchins ElectroNotes publication and Musical Engineer's Handbook where he wrote about synthesizer design and published module schematics.
During this time I listened to what was then called New Music on LP's. Morton Subotnick, Xenakis, Berio, Cage, Riley, Reich, etc. On the pop scene I liked The Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa, Yes, Synergy, etc.
This could be a short list of some musical influences, in no particular order:
Carlos - Switched on Bach
Bartok - Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste
Webern - Complete works
Subotnik - The Wild Bull, Silver Apples of the Moon, Touch
Reich - Violin Phase, It's Gonna Rain
Terry Riley - In C
Pink Floyd - UmmaGumma
Joe Byrd - United States of America
Zappa - Freak Out
Remi Gassman - Electronics
Moody Blues - In Search of the Lost Chord, On the Threshold of a Dream, To Our Children's Children's Children
Yes - Fragile
Larry Fast - Synergy, Games
Gary Numan - Dance
Forbidden Planet soundtrack - Louis and Bebe Barron
During the late 1970's I built a small electronics lab at home (Krell Labs) from Heathkits and old scavenged television parts found in a local dump. I also rummaged through electronic surplus stores near the IBM plant in Kingston, NY for parts.
In 1979 I started building a PAIA 8700 C/J computer-driven analog modular synth. It took about a year to build:
Building PAIA.jpg
This is what my lab looked like back then while I was building the stuff. I also built that Hafler pre-amp and amp from kits.
1981:
Krell Labs - Electronics - around 1981-BWa.jpg
In 1982, I made this piece using the PAIA gear and recorded on a Tascam 4 track Portastudio:
'Meteor'
Eventually, personal computers came around and I got an Atari 800 and later models along with an Ensoniq ESQ-1. I used Dr. T's sequencer software.
Then I added racked stuff: Oberheim Matrix 6, Lexicon PCM-70. I bought a Tascam MX-8 and 8 track. I traded the ESQ-1 for an ESQM and a VFX.
I sold my PAIA gear to help pay for these.
1989:
studio.jpg
I made this in 1989 using that gear:
'Death of a Hero'
In the 1990's I switched from Atari to IBM PC and used Cakewalk software. A bit later, through the new millennium, I started using Live 4, 5, 6 and 7. But my sample needs were outpacing Live's 32-bit space.
I was employed by ROLM, IBM and Siemens during this time and I did telecommunications software and firmware and later TCP/IP networking kernel stuff.
By the 2010 time, I decided I needed a more modern system, so I built a large desktop PC and started using Sonar for it's 64-bit architecture.
2012:
studio_2012.jpg
Moving from the hardware to software, I became interested in Reaktor around 2005, I think, when Reaktor 5 came out.
That totally changed my perspective and I began building all my stuff in software using Reaktor ensembles.
I became fairly proficient in building Reaktor stuff and became an NI Beta Tester. First I Beta tested Reaktor, then Kore and Maschine, then NI FX. I also made some sound presets for NI Scanner XT and Second Sense Wiggle.
I also Beta tested stuff for Galbanum and 2C-Audio - Aether, B2, Breeze and Kaleidoscope - and made presets for them.
Currently, I have over 80 uploads in the Reaktor User Library, some made it to the top 100.
My keyboard skills are rudimentary and I suffer from a pinched nerve from all those years of software development and hardware building, so now I don't play keyboard so much and I type a lot less.
I've found that Fractal Tune Smithy and some Reaktor MIDI tools like Spiral and stuff like that are great for generating MIDI sequences which I mangle though long VST chains, so I don't use a keyboard so much any more.
Here are some more recent pieces I made:
2009 'SkyKisser' from Jimi Hendrix's 'Purple Haze'
2009 'Return of the Krell' modelled after the Forbidden Planet soundtrack
2012 'Debating the Fiscal Cliff' in honor of our wonderful Congress
2014 'The Kitten Who Thought She Was a Tiger' inspire by my pet cat Uma
2016 'AlphaGo versus Lee Sedol' celebrating a triumph of AI over Mankind
I guess I can stop now. I think I will probably get involved in your next OSD challenge.
I hadn't heard about Ambient Online before that, so I checked a few things out and registered so that I could participate in the next challenge.
I am a retired software engineer living in Sunnyvale, California. I have lots of free time, and I like to write, so prepare for a long-winded intro.
I guess I should start with my earliest experience with electronic music. My high school physics class sponsored a field trip to the Smithsonian in 1968 where I heard 'Switched on Bach' played to a laser light show. It was a religious experience. I told myself I would get a Moog and do stuff like that.
It took a while for that to happen - about 11 years. I had to teach myself analog design and I subscribed to Bernie Hutchins ElectroNotes publication and Musical Engineer's Handbook where he wrote about synthesizer design and published module schematics.
During this time I listened to what was then called New Music on LP's. Morton Subotnick, Xenakis, Berio, Cage, Riley, Reich, etc. On the pop scene I liked The Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa, Yes, Synergy, etc.
This could be a short list of some musical influences, in no particular order:
Carlos - Switched on Bach
Bartok - Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste
Webern - Complete works
Subotnik - The Wild Bull, Silver Apples of the Moon, Touch
Reich - Violin Phase, It's Gonna Rain
Terry Riley - In C
Pink Floyd - UmmaGumma
Joe Byrd - United States of America
Zappa - Freak Out
Remi Gassman - Electronics
Moody Blues - In Search of the Lost Chord, On the Threshold of a Dream, To Our Children's Children's Children
Yes - Fragile
Larry Fast - Synergy, Games
Gary Numan - Dance
Forbidden Planet soundtrack - Louis and Bebe Barron
In 1979 I started building a PAIA 8700 C/J computer-driven analog modular synth. It took about a year to build:
Building PAIA.jpg
This is what my lab looked like back then while I was building the stuff. I also built that Hafler pre-amp and amp from kits.
1981:
Krell Labs - Electronics - around 1981-BWa.jpg
In 1982, I made this piece using the PAIA gear and recorded on a Tascam 4 track Portastudio:
'Meteor'
Eventually, personal computers came around and I got an Atari 800 and later models along with an Ensoniq ESQ-1. I used Dr. T's sequencer software.
Then I added racked stuff: Oberheim Matrix 6, Lexicon PCM-70. I bought a Tascam MX-8 and 8 track. I traded the ESQ-1 for an ESQM and a VFX.
I sold my PAIA gear to help pay for these.
1989:
studio.jpg
I made this in 1989 using that gear:
'Death of a Hero'
In the 1990's I switched from Atari to IBM PC and used Cakewalk software. A bit later, through the new millennium, I started using Live 4, 5, 6 and 7. But my sample needs were outpacing Live's 32-bit space.
I was employed by ROLM, IBM and Siemens during this time and I did telecommunications software and firmware and later TCP/IP networking kernel stuff.
By the 2010 time, I decided I needed a more modern system, so I built a large desktop PC and started using Sonar for it's 64-bit architecture.
2012:
studio_2012.jpg
Moving from the hardware to software, I became interested in Reaktor around 2005, I think, when Reaktor 5 came out.
That totally changed my perspective and I began building all my stuff in software using Reaktor ensembles.
I became fairly proficient in building Reaktor stuff and became an NI Beta Tester. First I Beta tested Reaktor, then Kore and Maschine, then NI FX. I also made some sound presets for NI Scanner XT and Second Sense Wiggle.
I also Beta tested stuff for Galbanum and 2C-Audio - Aether, B2, Breeze and Kaleidoscope - and made presets for them.
Currently, I have over 80 uploads in the Reaktor User Library, some made it to the top 100.
My keyboard skills are rudimentary and I suffer from a pinched nerve from all those years of software development and hardware building, so now I don't play keyboard so much and I type a lot less.
I've found that Fractal Tune Smithy and some Reaktor MIDI tools like Spiral and stuff like that are great for generating MIDI sequences which I mangle though long VST chains, so I don't use a keyboard so much any more.
Here are some more recent pieces I made:
2009 'SkyKisser' from Jimi Hendrix's 'Purple Haze'
2009 'Return of the Krell' modelled after the Forbidden Planet soundtrack
2012 'Debating the Fiscal Cliff' in honor of our wonderful Congress
2014 'The Kitten Who Thought She Was a Tiger' inspire by my pet cat Uma
2016 'AlphaGo versus Lee Sedol' celebrating a triumph of AI over Mankind
I guess I can stop now. I think I will probably get involved in your next OSD challenge.
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