Last time I stopped composing electronic music, I told myself. 'no more.' Problem was, I didn't really know what I was doing, and I never really played anything I wrote for people. But now I'm starting to reconsider because I've been noticing some really interesting ways to write electronic music, some new, some old. I have to confess, it's mostly the nature of the technology that's drawing me back in. I dream about performing live with small, or retro electronic devices. I find it appealing to use machines that people wouldn't expect to make music. For instance, the commodore 64. This was the first machine I ever used to write music, way back circa '87. Back then I had two programs for the 64 and a MIDI interface. All this was used to control a
Casio CZ-1000 synth. This was all actually much more powerful than you might think. The CZ-1000 has been used by several professional musicians including
Vince Clark (Depeche Mode, Yaz, Erasure). My CZ-1000 is still sitting around in my dad's house (granted in some disrepair) and there are plenty of C64s there too; my dad was a commodore hobbyist for many years. In fact he is in possesion of a paticular model of C64 that I think would be ideal for live performance. The
SX-64 is a 23 pound 'portable' C64 with built in monitor and drive! I think it's about time to revive the CZ-1000 and ask Dad about borrowing the SX-64. This decision is fueled mostly by the desire to purchase a relatively new product for composing music on the C64. It's called
MSSIAH. It's a cartridge that slots into a C64 and what it has on board is kinda mind blowing. It includes a sequencer, virtual synthesizer, beat machine, and bass line synth (I think there might even be a few other things in there too). I had been looking at its predecessor, the Prophet 64, for many years and only resisting because I know what a sticky web writing electronic music is. Now, with the MSSIAH, they've added MIDI to the roster of features, so I think it's time to take the plunge. I'm just waiting for them to release it sometime second quarter this year.
Last time I stopped composing electronic music, I told myself. 'no more.' Problem was, I didn't really know what I was doing, and I never really played anything I wrote for people. But now I'm starting to reconsider because I've been noticing some really interesting ways to write electronic music, some new, some old. I have to confess, it's mostly the nature of the technology that's drawing me back in. I dream about performing live with small, or retro electronic devices. I find it appealing to use machines that people wouldn't expect to make music. For instance, the commodore 64. This was the first machine I ever used to write music, way back circa '87. Back then I had two programs for the 64 and a MIDI interface. All this was used to control a
Casio CZ-1000 synth. This was all actually much more powerful than you might think. The CZ-1000 has been used by several professional musicians including Vince Clark (Depeche Mode, Yaz, Erasure). My CZ-1000 is still sitting around in my dad's house (granted in some disrepair) and there are plenty of C64s there too; my dad was a commodore hobbyist for many years. In fact he is in possesion of a paticular model of C64 that I think would be ideal for live performance. The SX-64 is a 23 pound 'portable' C64 with built in monitor and drive! I think it's about time to revive the CZ-1000 and ask Dad about borrowing the SX-64. This decision is fueled mostly by the desire to purchase a relatively new product for composing music on the C64. It's called MSSIAH. It's a cartridge that slots into a C64 and what it has on board is kinda mind blowing. It includes a sequencer, virtual synthesizer, beat machine, and bass line synth (I think there might even be a few other things in there too). I had been looking at its predecessor, the Prophet 64, for many years and only resisting because I know what a sticky web writing electronic music is. Now, with the MSSIAH, they've added MIDI to the roster of features, so I think it's time to take the plunge. I'm just waiting for them to release it sometime second quarter this year. 
2 comments:
I really think you should do it. We have plenty of room to set up a studio. You need to rock out some chiptunes with an old gameboy! Maybe i'll play Patapon in the background...pretend i'm contributing. heh :P
yes, rock it!
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