From an early age, I was always surrounded by music as my late Father was an Organist and Choirmaster.
Aged nine, I had won a scholarship to a Choir School and singing on a Sunday paid for the Education. Before this, I had started learning piano aged six with a local teacher - an Austrian lady who I will never forget as she kept a wooden ruler on the piano for those slip ups during scales. Terrifying!
Aged nine, I had won a scholarship to a Choir School and singing on a Sunday paid for the Education. Before this, I had started learning piano aged six with a local teacher - an Austrian lady who I will never forget as she kept a wooden ruler on the piano for those slip ups during scales. Terrifying!
From the age of twelve, I had taken up learning classical organ as it was suggested it was an instrument more suitable for me. However, my older Brother Nick used to regularly buy records and I was drawn to the sound of a then unknown instrument - called a "Synthesizer". I listened to a lot of Emerson Lake and Palmer and two ground breaking albums by Stevie Wonder Innervisions and Fulfillingness' First Finale both produced by synthesizer pioneers Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff. You'll find the documentary "Stevie's Wonder People" in my Youtube section here.
By the time I had reached my mid teens, I had given up playing and never really thought about synthesizers again until I was in a local newsagents. In front of me was a magazine called "Electronics and Music Maker". The cover featured Kate Bush and a mysterious" white" keyboard with a green computer display. This of course was a Fairlight CMI and it was to become the catalyst that changed my life. I bought the magazine (and every issue thereafter) and started to read everything I could about the new electronic keyboards and synths. It was the early eighties and electronic music was everywhere. Not long afterwards, I bought my first synth - a secondhand Yamaha CS5 mono synth. I wasn't so interested in "playing it" but more trying to fathom how a synthesizer made those sounds. This is laughable in the modern world of "off the shelf" multi layered VSTi's with huge "song on one note" sample playback capability but with just one oscillator the CS5 could produce some strange - and to me - very interesting sounds. Over the coming few years I bought poly synths, drum machines, FX units and a junior Fairlight - the ill fated Yamaha CX5 Music Computer (I still have it in the loft). Apart from the FM sound generating system and onscreen scoring ability - this machine bought the possibility of "Sampling" - although it never matured. Two years later I bought a Casio FZ1 sampling keyboard and an Atari ST1040 computer running C Lab Notator software. What I really wanted was an EMU Emulator III but at £10k it was only a dream. However, twenty five years later I'm now the proud owner of one! See some of my synth collection here.
During this time I had been working in Mechanical Engineering but I was made redundant so I enrolled (and funded) myself on a college course at Media Production Services in Brixton. This turned out to be a really good experience as I met a lot of industry people and had access to a real studio and Pro gear. I opted to take a video course as well as I was interested in program production which would prove useful later. After the course finished, I did some assistant engineering with Tony Faulkner - mainly recording classical CDs for the Readers Digest publication - at St Johns, Smith Square. This was short lived but a tremendous opportunity and experience to work with a master engineer.
Nearby to where I lived was the home of Digital Audio Research (DAR) - a company who had developed a professional hard disk recording system with a touch driven screen - ahead of it's time perhaps? I was offered a chance to join their customer support department and this took me around the world and back. I am privileged to have been inside some of the worlds most prestigious studios and broadcast facilities.
After leaving DAR I switched allegiance and joined Lightworks Editing Systems - a british company developing professional video editing systems primarily for the Film industry. After Lightworks was bought by the American giant Tektronix, I was headhunted by Fairlight UK to expand distribution of their MFX Audio Post Production systems. So, full circle, from seeing that Fairlight CMI on the cover of Electronics and Music Maker magazine - I ended up becoming a fully paid up Fairlight Evangelist. There were still a number of CMI clients around and I got to indulge myself fully in Fairlight history. I collected a lot of original brochures. Please see the Brochures page for more info.
After leaving DAR I switched allegiance and joined Lightworks Editing Systems - a british company developing professional video editing systems primarily for the Film industry. After Lightworks was bought by the American giant Tektronix, I was headhunted by Fairlight UK to expand distribution of their MFX Audio Post Production systems. So, full circle, from seeing that Fairlight CMI on the cover of Electronics and Music Maker magazine - I ended up becoming a fully paid up Fairlight Evangelist. There were still a number of CMI clients around and I got to indulge myself fully in Fairlight history. I collected a lot of original brochures. Please see the Brochures page for more info.
I eventually left Fairlight and started work with an old client from my Lightworks days in a growing programme production company. I have stayed in visual media ever since but rekindled my passion for retro electronic instruments as a sort of obsessive hobby. All those expensive instruments of the mid to late eighties have seen a recent revival of interest and I'm fortunate to have become the custodian of some. Please see the Studio Page for a detailed list. PLEASE NOTE: I'm not a serious musician nor a serious collector - I just like having some of the items that hold sentimental or nostalgic value to me.