I thought it would be interesting and amusing if we all described our individual beginnings in synthesis and music - our first instruments, musical influences, eductaion, experience, and all else. Pictures, stories, and even old embarrassing recordings are welcome. This is not for bragging purposes, but more for fun and to liven up the forum a bit.
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Although my real musical beginnings were on organ (I learned at home on my mother's Conn Rhapsody), my first synthesizer was the Univox MiniKorg (below). My father bought it for me for $200 in East Hartford, Connecticut when I was about fifteen years old. When I got home and plugged it into my stereo, I thought I was the master of the universe. I was ecstatic. It sounded like a Moog Modular to my young ears. If you like bubble sounds, the MiniKorg is the ultimate! Since I liked to put the speakers in my bedroom windows, the neighbors began mentioning to my parents that they were hearing immense bubble sounds at all hours. "Is everything alright?"
My next synthesizer was a Korg MS-20. It was an important step up into programming from the MiniKorg, and I loved having the little patch bay for experimentation. If I remember correctly, by clever patching you can compensate for the absence of some parameters. Next, I had an Octave CAT (below). This instrument was one of my favorites. It was duophonic and had a fabulous thick, rich, heavy analog sound that was a huge improvement over the rather thin MS-20 tone. This sort of classic analog tone left a lasting impression on me, and I find myself searching for it again today. The CAT had impressive modulation and was far more complex than it appeared. With all the re-issues of vintage instruments these days, I often wish the CAT would reappear. From there I turned to ARP - the Axxe, Pro Soloist, Odyssey (all three models), Little Brother, and later, a Minimoog Model D, Moog Taurus Pedals, Elka Rhapsody 490, and Roland Juno 60. I also played Wurlitzer and Rhodes electric pianos.
My favorite bands were the Electric Light Orchestra, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Yes, and especially, Genesis. Tony Banks influenced my musical beginnings more than any other contemporary musician. I learned to appreciate the many uses of the diminished seventh chord from him. I was also able to perfectly imitate his distinctive Hammond sound on my Crumar Organizer with an MXR Chorus and Phase Shifter. That, combined with the sounds of the Pro Soloist, put me in Genesis paradise.
For a few years, I tutored synthesizer programming. After placing my advertisement in a music store and a newspaper, I would get phone calls from people saying, "I have such and such a synthesizer, and I can't get a sound out of it. Can you help me?" So, I'd visit their house once a week for several months, teaching them the simple physics of sound and how to understand the basics of synthesis.
After playing in bands for about seven years and composing quite a few elaborate progressive rock type pieces, I sold all my instruments (Okay, I threw the Crumar down a stairs after breaking up with a girl friend!) and went to music school for less than two years as an organ/composition major. While there, I took one class in electronic music, using a semi-modular ElectroComp 101 (below). The teacher - a classy middle-aged women from England - eventually decided to abandon electronic music because, in using reverbs and delays, she felt she was tampering with time. I never quite understood her. Surely, recording should have struck her the same way.
Finally, I turned exclusively to church music. On my own, I worked hard practicing organ for hours every night and studying music theory, especially counterpoint and harmony, with the help of an old Hohner Clavinet. I composed lots of preludes and fugues, and absorbed the influences especially of J. S. Bach and Girolamo Frescobaldi. The latter introduced me to a type of voice leading and chromatic movement that I now use constantly in my improvisations. I was a small-time working church organist/choir director for about twenty years. Then, about seven years ago, after being away from synthesis for many years, I bought a Prophet '08 out of a need for a home practice instrument. And you guys know the rest.
Although I took perhaps eight years of organ lessons, one year of harpsichord, and briefly attended music school, I'm primarily self-taught. In other words, I made very little progress under the guidance of others (probably because I'm slow), but excelled when working alone. I'm by no means a trained classical musician. As a performer, I'm only mediocre. My strength is in composition.
All of my synthesizers have been the parameter-ridden hands-on analog type - excellent for learning the fundamentals of synthesis. After getting a couple of DSI Evolvers, I seriously considered heading in a more digital direction. That short period has passed, and I'm now committed to a primarily analog direction.