Quote vinyl_junkie:

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Quote Darclinc:

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Despite being advised against it, the first thing I bought was a Nord Micromodular.

Turned out to be a HUGE mistake and I had to sell it later for quite a loss. Oh well, so we learn eh ...

D.

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I loved that little synth...was hooked on it for hours and ended up making hundreds of patches lol Sounded pretty good too

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For sure, it sounded great for such a small box, and had so much to offer if you knew how to use it properly, which sadly I didn't.

The guy I contacted ( some Nord guru ) advised me against buying it because it was a bit above my level of understanding at the time, being modular and all. I knew best, of course, and got it anyway

In retrospect I should've got the Juno 106 instead ...

D.

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www.thirdfloormusic.com

Quote turbodave:

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The one and only Tascam 244!

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Me too.

My parents' tape recorder (1956), with which I first got the bug:
Grundig TK 5

My first serious mic, and its restyled successor (of which I have never seen another example, nor any reference to it):
Reslo RBT (and Reslo MR1)
Two each of these, for stereo, of course.

Paul

First Instrument was Hohner PJ Bass

First real tech was an Amiga 500 with Music X, a midi interface and a borrowed Kawai K4 - killer setup!

And you could play the Chaos Engine as well!

My first music tech item was very similar to that of Paul Hodges - my parent’s Cossor valve tape recorder that I used on my first few dozen tracks, whose inputs you could drive really hard for overdriven guitar sounds

However, this is also when I first gained a fondness for ‘magic eye’ indicators, with their such elegant display of input levels.

WARNING Nostalgia alert:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAFPzBEe9b4&feature=related

Cool or what?


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

Now I remember! I had Yamaha CX5M MSX music computer.
http://www.retrothing.com/2005/10/the_yamaha_cx5m.html
http://www.kratzer.at/dxcx5faq.htm

Stored data on cassette tapes, later they released a single sided diskette drive, and a small hard drive.

Programs were contained in ROM cartridges!

MSX was a standard hardware that all the Japanese electronic companies made for the domestic market.

They had slot for optional hardware, the yamaha had a FM module, that internally was the same as a FB-01.



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G-Dub
Studio G-fx 15inch quad-core i7 Macbook Pro Logic913

Quote Martin Walker:

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My first music tech item was very similar to that of Paul Hodges - my parent’s Cossor valve tape recorder that I used on my first few dozen tracks. However, this is also when I first gained a fondness for ‘magic eye’ level indicators.

WARNING Nostalgia alert:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAFPzBEe9b4&feature=related

Cool or what?


Martin

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Super Cool! My parents used to have a Grundig reel to reel when I was very young that had a magic eye VU meter on it, used to play about with that quite a lot...also a few old relatives still had valve radios when I grew up, some had the magic eye.

Part of me wants to start a new thread asking people to post up *the first track they ever recorded* with all their first gear.

However, the prospect of having to put up or shut up dissuades me from that idea somewhat...

Quote desmond:

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Part of me wants to start a new thread asking people to post up *the first track they ever recorded* with all their first gear.

However, the prospect of having to put up or shut up dissuades me from that idea somewhat...

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And given that would have been an acapella version of twinkle, twinkle little star, aged 5, the answer is: no way in hell!

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New album 'Fantasy Bridge' available now!
Making of Fantasy Bridge Diary

Quote MarkOne:

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And given that would have been an acapella version of twinkle, twinkle little star, aged 5, the answer is: no way in hell!

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What, poor mic technique?

My first tracks could strip wallpaper with the piercing amount of treble on there lol The monitors at the time were quite treble shy so I always used to stick loads on oh noes couple that on top of a 909 and what you have is very unpleasant

Quote desmond:

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Part of me wants to start a new thread asking people to post up *the first track they ever recorded* with all their first gear.

However, the prospect of having to put up or shut up dissuades me from that idea somewhat...

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I still have the first track I committed to DAT available as well the first ones put on minidisc. I seem to recall coming across my first track made with the aforementioned 05R/W on a tape, but I'm not sure if I could locate it readily. I probably still have the Cubase file tucked away somewhere, I could possibly resurrect it. I still have the 05R/W.

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http://soundcloud.com/richie-royale
http://www.mixcrate.com/richieroyale

I still have the first track I ever made.

It's complete rubbish.

At that stage I didn't even have any understanding of what stereo is / represents, kick drum coming from the left speaker only, etc.

Atrocious ..

D.

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www.thirdfloormusic.com

My parents bought me a mono Grundig reel to reel tape recorder in about 1967. As I recall, it wasn't too bad. In about 1970 I bought a used 12:2 stereo mixer (which still cost about £600 in 1970 money - I recall it was a major bank loan!) and went into business recording pub bands with a guy who had a Ferrograph Series 7 stereo tape deck.

Live recording, straight to stereo, often achieved by us supplying home made Y-leads to the band's own mics as we did not own enough mics ourselves. (I know.)

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Dynamite with a laser beam...

Quote Steve Hill:

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My parents bought me a mono Grundig reel to reel tape recorder in about 1967. As I recall, it wasn't too bad. In about 1970 I bought a used 12:2 stereo mixer (which still cost about £600 in 1970 money - I recall it was a major bank loan!) and went into business recording pub bands with a guy who had a Ferrograph Series 7 stereo tape deck.

Live recording, straight to stereo, often achieved by us supplying home made Y-leads to the band's own mics as we did not own enough mics ourselves. (I know.)

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Stop! I'm gonna start crying!...Steve, Did you record in black and white?

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My head hurts!

Quote desmond:

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Part of me wants to start a new thread asking people to post up *the first track they ever recorded* with all their first gear.

However, the prospect of having to put up or shut up dissuades me from that idea somewhat...

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I'd have to find the C90 and a cassette deck to play it on first...

Quote jaminem:

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and a borrowed Kawai K4

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My brother still has a K4R and it's great. If anyone sees me bidding for one, please don't compete, I'm not very wealthy.

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

It was a Casio CZ230S, awesome sound!!!

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Composer, Producer, Sound Designer
www.universal-sound-design.com

Assuming guitars etc don't count here... the first kit I bought cost me 650 dutch guilders (a coupla hundred quid-ish) and these days they're about 30 euros... what a wonderfultime we live in !!
Anyway, it was a Fostex X28 and I loved it !


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It's only rock 'n' roll, but I mic it !!

LOL I recently picked up a mint X28 for £15 and use it all the time either as a quick scratch pad for ideas or for the lo-fi ish cassette tape sound effect

When my first university loan/grant came last year I bought myself a focusrite saffire pro 40, beyerdynamic dt770 headphones and a rode nt1a microphone. whent skint for months untill my next installment and bought more gear! before that i borrowed/hired stuff.

tech gear is the bain/love of my life. i am skint :[

I think was called a Tascam 108 sync, or something, from memory. Spent my student grant on it--stereo cassette deck but you could record left and right separately then there was a sort of mix button that added a bit of left to the right and vice versa! Fantastic. Wish I still had it but I loaned it to someone for a party and never got it back. (I'd gone truly multitrack by then, the four track Fostex X-15 that someone else mentioned!)

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" Charles Darwin.

An Akai open reel recorder and a Hitachi cassette deck... Used to bounce between em, adding an instrument each time... Loads of hiss, wow and flutter!

I later graduated to a Teac 144 portastudio... got some good sounding results from that eventually!

Quote starman999:

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An Akai open reel recorder and a Hitachi cassette deck... Used to bounce between em, adding an instrument each time... Loads of hiss, wow and flutter!

I later graduated to a Teac 144 portastudio... got some good sounding results from that eventually!

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I've still got stuff recorded on a 144. The synth sounds I was using then were rather weedy, but what DOESN'T shout out at you is any lack of quality.

Yamaha RX21 drum machine. Ugh (in retrospect). After a few years, it became the first bit of music tech that I ever sold.

Quote desmond:

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Wow! We had one of those! What a blast from the past.

Apart from guitars, amps and drums, I guess I was using an Amiga in 1991/2 with a program called 'bars and pipes'! Anyone remember that? It was a great little sequencer! Had a neat little system. Even had midi 'effects' where you could drop in a delay (pretty similar to using plugins now actually) and it would send midi delay notes to your sequencer. Pretty cool back then!

Used it with an old roland drum machine and a juno!

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http://www.loverslanestudios.co.uk

Quote desmond:

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Not exactly late to this thread but didnt put my first music instrument as Desmond and I seem to share exactly the same one. Although mine was red in color. And never learned to play anything on it. Except "happy birthday to you" and few nursery rhymes. Funny part is I simply knew first couple of lines and after playing those in unofficial kiddo talent shows among friends I used to say "some other time guys", and save my ass. Once I even fooled a girl by clicking the demo button and running my fingers over it as if I am playing it. I hope she never came to know the truth.

By the way Casio was a gift to me by my aunt and the first music thing that I myself bought for me was FLStudio version 2.

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SoundCloud


Edited by AuralSerenity (10/10/10 02:43 PM)

I should note that my VL-Tone was also gifted to me, and was the first thing I learnt to play. I even remember (somewhat embarrasingly) phoning up my local radio station and playing/singing a jingle with it I'd composed on air - hopelessly out of key.

As I was only about eight or nine, obviously I wouldn't be buying my own gear for quite some time, and instead relying on Christmasses and Birthdays to equip my "studio".

Without going into those pressies, I guess the first things I bought with my own money at maybe fifteen or so (not quite sure of the exact order of purchases) was a Frontline 8-channel rack mixer to be able to mix various keyboards and a drum machine, an Alesis MMT8 sequencer to finally start to be able to get on the MIDI sequencing thing, a Philip Rees MCV MIDI/CV converter, and Tascam hifi separates stuff for monitoring/recording, and a pair of Rotel speakers...

Never seen a red VL-Tone before though:
http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/2010/03/casio-vl-tone-rare-red-edition.htm l


Edited by desmond (10/10/10 06:17 PM)

My brother had a VL-Tone, I know because I bought it for him as a Christmas present. Interestingly, our father played it more than anyone else, he could pick out tunes easily, and he was the least musical in the family !!

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

Wow, is it rare? I didnt even know that. I'll call my mom and ask her to find it, I hope if it still works. Once I thought of circuit bending it but for some reason I didnt, and now I am feeling good that it survived.

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SoundCloud

Korg Poly800. or maybe Schader pickup for my 12 string Eko guitar.. followed closely by Roland SH101 ( which was stolen 15 years later )
I was lucky enough to have been gifted with a Yamaha CP25 a year before that.

Quote G-Doubleyou:

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Now I remember! I had Yamaha CX5M MSX music computer.
http://www.retrothing.com/2005/10/the_yamaha_cx5m.html
http://www.kratzer.at/dxcx5faq.htm

Stored data on cassette tapes, later they released a single sided diskette drive, and a small hard drive.

Programs were contained in ROM cartridges!

MSX was a standard hardware that all the Japanese electronic companies made for the domestic market.

They had slot for optional hardware, the yamaha had a FM module, that internally was the same as a FB-01.

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I remember that! Been a long long time. I had one and really enjoyed creating manic sounds from it.

I had completely forgotten about it until you mentioned it.

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Samplecraze
Stretch That Note

Yes, that brings back ancient memories for me as well - I remember sitting on a “manufacturer’s panel” when I worked for Atari and all the other companies represented offered MSX-based computers.

And yet I ended up being the one that had to explain exactly what MSX was to the audience


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

Yep, we had a CX5M at school. It was horrendously crap.

Much better was the Yamaha CS01 and CS01II that we had. I used to stay after school and tinker with those - I'd still like one now (largely for nostalgia), but they go for ridiculous prices for what they are.

I also remember when our school went all hi-tech and the music department received an Atari ST, Pro24 and a Yamaha SY22. No-one knew what to do with them - and I walked in, never having used any of it before, plugged it in, booted it up, stuck the SY22 in multitimbral mode, picked some patches and made a quick multitimbral song in Pro24, all with my music teach watching bemused going "Er.. *how* did you do that..?"...

Happy days

Quote desmond:

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Yep, we had a CX5M at school. It was horrendously crap.

Much better was the Yamaha CS01 and CS01II that we had. I used to stay after school and tinker with those - I'd still like one now (largely for nostalgia), but they go for ridiculous prices for what they are.

I also remember when our school went all hi-tech and the music department received an Atari ST, Pro24 and a Yamaha SY22. No-one knew what to do with them - and I walked in, never having used any of it before, plugged it in, booted it up, stuck the SY22 in multitimbral mode, picked some patches and made a quick multitimbral song in Pro24, all with my music teach watching bemused going "Er.. *how* did you do that..?"...

Happy days

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NERD!...or is that ..GEEK!...or maybe ...SHOW OFF!

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My head hurts!

Quote turbodave:

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NERD!...or is that ..GEEK!...or maybe ...SHOW OFF!

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No, it's SuperDes!

A few years later, and I still remember fondly my first major software purchase, that of C-Lab's Creator which, at £300, was a heckuva lot of money for schoolkid who would have otherwise been buying a cheap synth module or FX unit. I sat in McDonald's reading the gorgeously slick manual, and when I got home to run it the first time I was in sequencey heaven

It felt like I had "arrived" as this was what the pro's were using and it was wicked to have rock solid timing after all the freeware Atari sequencers that felt about as tight as a hilariously loose thing.

I learnt 80% of Creator in the first couple of evenings, and it took about a week to get to 90% - the other ten percent weren't really relevant to me (advanced syncing stuff etc).

I used my Atari so much I went through three internal power supplies... (!)

So much geek I feel I should qualify high in a nerd-off...

Quote desmond:

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Yep, we had a CX5M at school.

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I never knew anything like this. It looks so funny and ancient. Does it sound like speak and spell?

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SoundCloud

No. Speak and Spells sound cool.

Quote desmond:

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I also remember when our school went all hi-tech and the music department received an Atari ST, Pro24 and a Yamaha SY22. No-one knew what to do with them - and I walked in, never having used any of it before, plugged it in, booted it up, stuck the SY22 in multitimbral mode, picked some patches and made a quick multitimbral song in Pro24, all with my music teach watching bemused going "Er.. *how* did you do that..?"

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Sounds much like me at my school, except we had a D-50...

I can't claim to be a smart ass though! I'd had my own Atari sequencing my PSS-480 for about a year at that point so kinda knew what I was doing! I tried teaching my teacher how to use it all but he was hopeless so I was pretty much only person in school that used the ST to do sequencing... And sampling too actually (Mastersound II), but that was my own software that I used to bring in.

Oh, and all my first music tech stuff is mentioned above, the PSS-480 came first in 1989, I saved all my pocket/birthday/xmas money for over a year to get that.

My school had a couple of these.



I don't remember anyone acheiving anything useful, let alone musical.

Standard use was

10 PRINT "The Headmaster is a *****"
20 GOTO 10