Violently Happy To Be Infected!
 

Hello! Have a bit of catching-up to do as military career and college made it pragmatic to put musician part of me on hold until presently. Am now 100% USAF Svc.-Connected Disabled Veteran at age of 49. Strong background as a cultural creative in having been very active in past with visual artwork/painting/mixed-media, as that was something could do prior to military engagement of the unjust kind. Although still have my art studio supplies, decided to engage in serious music playing as both therapeutic and few levels higher than a hobby. Also am a writer with subject at task on my rather unique military experience.
Have a decade of formal piano and as many with various reed instruments. Learned synthesis in 1982 on Korg MS-20, then only allowed myself luxury of polyphony once mastered and "moved-up" to an SCI Prophet year later. Have played in gigging cover bands but at this point in life am playing catch-up on mastering midi knowledge and am about finished in setting-up arsenal of home music studio. Was going to go the Pro Tools route but decided to start learning Reaper DAW instead partly because even though have a custom built seperate desktop pc for pro video and audio, AVID has unfortunately been elitist snobs when asking for tech support in that if they do not "approve" of one's PC config, absolutely no support. I like Cockos Reaper's Philosophy and quite helpful and friendly forum support.
Love all kinds of music, with my focus currently to be in some form of ambient-industrial-atmospherics. All is in flux as learning to navigate menus of various synths, capabilities, so focus can be on creativity rather than technical impasses.
Have an eclectic mix of great hardware synths, with heavy representation from German Waldorf and Access. Have had a Virus KB for almost a year and today my mint Virus KC arrived. I love professional musician forums as have learned ALOT from plethora of searches on all of them and decided was time to join infected for obvious reasons! Am not a snob towards vsti's but am a bit old school in prefering hardware. However, I DO prefer innovative instruments and the German's win hands-down for me without a doubt! Looking forward to learning much here and perhaps making some new friends as well.

Hi namnibor - well consider yourself a friend made in Wales, UK. I've been around on here for a little while but have only recently re-started in my music production hobby after some sweeping changes in my life. I too am 49... it's a great age for music making eh!

Good luck with your music making... and kudos to you, sir!

John

Thanks alot, John! Certainly a wealth of info to absorb like a dry sponge off this forum. One thing that remains a constant in this life is regardless of age, et al, music is an international language with only barriers being one's imagination. Understand that since so much of my time has been in military career/college/again military, that my gear list may seem arcane to some but to me they are brand new, with midi remaining the same all this time thankfully. On some other pro forums have encountered the inevitable "Virae Haters" whom seem to always stereotype the whole line into the trance genre, then expound upon how much better software synths are! No sense trying to argue with these people whom have pigeonholed themSELF while our hardware synths will continue operating while they have to pray that their softsynths will have updates for a new operating system! HA! Nice to see you also appreciate some of the same mix of diverse instruments as well. With both the Virus KB and KC as part of my lethal arsenal, will be learning new things for decades onwards! Thanks again!
Robert

that's a very interesting read! I'm curious to listen to your music efforts and even read your writtings... Please keep us posted here.

With music, I'm sort of taking the inverse route: I started experimenting with software synths, only latter got a virus and would like to get myself a real analogue some day - and would definitely like to get my hands on some of the classics like the MS 20...

Best reggards

Thanks! Would you also happen to be the same Tweakhead that has various "How To's..." posted on web in another forum? I ask because if so, I made MS Word Doc's of ALOT of the wealth of info about MIDI, studio construct, etc.--and thanks! If not same person as name implies, my bad!
Have not set-up a SoundCloud or otherwise as am still configuring everything and learning menu/technicalities of my hardware, not to forget learning DAW Reaper, of which purchased great DVD tutorial from groove3 by Kenny Gioia. Then, just as life experiences influenced visual artwork in past, the same will be true in my goal of expressing the many facets of military PTSD in an audio genre.
Although I have a publisher interest in rough draft of book, which is by far incomplete; due to my level of clearance whilst in military, The Pentagon may be the impass to actually ever publishing due to a non-disclosure agreement that I really do not remember ever signing:twisted: !! In any case, just the writing process is therpeutic in it's own and am the eternal optimist.
I wish I had held onto that MS-20 but it served it's purpose in teaching in-depth synthesis. It's now learning all the ways to modulate this with that, et al that the Virus's and other's in studio possess as well as mastering midi deeper. I record primarily audio and use midi for example in a linked channel on an audio track to have that midi only track make altered states in that sound. Peace!