A couple lifetimes ago, I was a full time professional musician. I played the Albuquerque club circuit in the 80’s and the scene was such that a good top-40 cover band could make a good living and have a lot of fun. Playing helped fund college. Eventually I graduated and set out to have a “career” in engineering which somehow ended with programming computers. I boxed up my guitars, keyboards, amps, and floppy disks with songs I had written and pretty much didn’t dig them out until last summer.
Last summer I bought a Mac dual quad, a Digital Performer upgrade, and some Audio Unit virtual instruments, dug out my old material, and began transferring the stuff to DP through a fairly laborious process. The goal? Make that great album I’ve always been meaning to do. Heck, I’m over 40 now. If not now, when?
I also hooked up with a bunch of geezers with a similar history and we’ve started a cover band (average age in the band is something like 48). So I’m splitting my time between learning current songs (and lots of oldies) and polishing my live chops, and getting up to speed on modern recording technology. Lots to learn. It used to be all about the hardware. Now all that gear I used to use in the 80s is available in software for about one tenth the price. Cool. No more tape machines either. All digital. Unlimited tracks and takes.
But it all takes time to learn so I think I’ll start blogging about that a bit.