The Moog Synthesiser is 50 years old

[Martin@AS Financial]

I grew up in Hertford, so used to go to Rob the guy from Omni Trio's record shop (Parliament, which now has the main branch in Hitchin IIRC) and spend my hard earned 2-3x a week. I was in there the day that it opened and was a regular customer so chatted to him quite a lot over the years. Rob Playford (Moving Shadow) & Shaun O'Keefe (Two Bad Mice) used to come in there a lot as well but I only chatted to him once. I got a load of classic records from there, acid like ecstacy club (I had to persuade him to sell me two copies so I could get one for my best mate), all the hardcore anthems of the 89-02 period (T99, Manix, Zero B, Didgeridoo etc), the first WARP album, first black dog album, first aphex twin album, loads of stuff.

I was at uni in Bristol after that, we used to go see Roni Size and DJ Krust on a tuesday or wednesday on a boat called the Thekla. This was 92-95 so a bit before it all kicked off for him and he won the Mercury prize. I still have my DX100 uber bassline machine from back in those days. Even with all the soft synths and a Virus I can't bring myself to part with it. What I really enjoy is getting that and the virus synced to the machinedrum so I don't need the computer at all apart from setting up the routings on the MIDI interface so it all plays nice.

I have a QY70 the missus gave me that I need to get into as well, I reckon with that I could do a whole track without going near the computer. Her mate who gave it to her composed a whole album on it, but he was actually a proper & talented musician.

That is very cool. Bristol was responsible for some awesome music as I loved what Tricky and Massive were doing as well.

I'd love to learn how to use that kind of hardware. Right now my studio is just a mac with ableton and a pair of senheisers.


I bet those early Full Cycle parties were incredible with Roni, Krust and Die. Because of the connection with Bryan and Frost, you must have got to hear loads of fresh V dubplates as well.

You cant beat those hardcore tunes - one of my all time fave sets is kenny ken b2b with Randall at AWOL 93 which I had on in the gym this morning.


Randall & Kenny Ken AWOL August Bank Holiday 1993 - YouTube

[doodab]

That is very cool. Bristol was responsible for some awesome music as I loved what Tricky and Massive were doing as well.

I'd love to learn how to use that kind of hardware. Right now my studio is just a mac with ableton and a pair of senheisers.

I am kind of lucky that when I was a teenager and first got into making music that was what there was. So I learned to program drums on a second hand TR505 (a cheap peace of junk from loot, not a poor mans 808) and used that to sequence drum sounds I programmed myself on an FM synth module. I had a Korg Poly 800 and later the DX100 as well, and I used to mix the lot down to stereo via my DJ mixer. I had no effects or anything so everything sounded fairly crap when done

We had a choice of cubase or notator on the Atari ST for MIDI sequencing but computer based audio was limited to high end DSP based digital multitracking systems and VST hadn't been invented.

I gave up on it from about 95/96 onwards and sold everything except the DX100. I got back into it around 2001 when I bought a new keyboard then I bought an interface and a copy of Cubase on a whim a year or so later. That had VST which I thought was amazing really.

The trouble with Ableton IMO (up till now at least) it that unlike cubase it's never had a proper grid editor view for drum patterns. It's very geared to using loops, so what I tend to do when I use it is record the loops into Ableton as audio clips. The trouble with that is you use the hands-on-ness of the machines, which has made it hard for me to really get into. Although I bought version 8 and have upgraded to 9 I hardly use it. I should look again as with the Max/MSP stuff someone is bound to have produced a decent drum sequencer by now.

I bet those early Full Cycle parties were incredible with Roni, Krust and Die. Because of the connection with Bryan and Frost, you must have got to hear loads of fresh V dubplates as well

It was mostly locals and a few students, mostly the hardcore people who would happily drop pills midweek, so they were pretty mental for a weeknight. I recall after one night I woke up in the middle of a roundabout with my GF after we had decided to stop their for a spliff and a kip on the way home

I have a few of the early V records. Haven't had my vinyl out for years mind. I haven't even owned a turntable since 1998 or so. I suppose I should flog them, some of the early house and detroit techno stuff is worth a bit now.

[doodab]

Anyway, this thread has inspired me to put finishing something musical on my bucket list. So I will get started on that later.