the archive

Soundcloud does not allow me to order and organize audio files to my taste, so use the info and links below for a simpler and cleaner navigation through the archive. All of my recordings are free for downloading from Soundcloud.

1984-1999: The MIDIot Era

In 1983, I migrated from straight analog recording on reel-to-reel tape to working with a home computer outfitted with a MIDI interface. It didn't take long before I became a full-blown MIDIot, making sequencer-based music with an array of synths, effects and studio gear, which I built up and added to over the years, upgrading the computer hardware and software along the way.

The thing about making sequencer-based music in that early MIDI era is that, time and again, I found that the synths, devices and software were always promising more than they could deliver. What this meant was that, more often than not, it felt like more of my time was spent troubleshooting and fixing audio and computer issues than actually getting music made. Hence the term MIDIot: it required a high degree of time, effort and (especially) patience to get the computer and all the gear to cooperate. Since it was so easy to get lost in the weeds of the tech, in retrospect its a miracle I was able to make any music at all and maintain my sanity throughout this era.

Some of my work in this era is not included in this archive, three local bands I was in: Silicon Safari, One Fell Swoop and Sister Sun. I will be uploading the demo recordings we created into their own Soundcloud accounts at some point.

By the mid-90s, my patience with the limitations and overall unreliability of the MIDI setup wore thin. Not much in the way of new music came out of me in the five or six years that followed, as my attention turned to getting a handle on the early (and relatively inexpensive) digital audio software tools for the PC that began to appear at that time.

The music I've uploaded to Soundcloud from this era is a mix of ambient music and more rhythmically oriented works.