The pivotal record in my life that made me absolutely sure that I was going to make music is DJ Shadow's Pre-Emptive Strike, in particular the second disc, "What Does Your Soul Look Like?"

What it made me understand is how music is often just a combination of different sounds. I discovered that everything he was doing simply involved machines that anyone could buy. I could select my own samples; many of which i had already decided I would one day use to rework into newer pieces, long before i ever started actually producing. |
So I had to figure out what equipment to buy. One thing that I discovered had been used in nearly every noteworthy hip-hop album that I'd ever listened to was (and is) the MPC.
The trouble is that those things are way too expensive and I couldn't afford one, and I didn't feel like waiting, so I got some other stuff but eventually I did get an MPC.
The MPC was interesting but it wasn't really the kind of instrument I needed because it was too dry, and it seemed rigid in its structure. Its strong point was mainly as a drum sequencer. You could record drum sounds, and then play and record beats onto pads. But I never thought of it as an affective melody or instrument machine. I still make a beat on it now and then, but I've been really trying to get it to work as a midi controller lately.
The very first ALBUM that I ever made didn't actually involve any professional music equipment. It was kind of this random pile of stuff that I put together with little bits of money that I earned periodically throughout my teenagehood.
The whole thing was based on this one piece of consumer electronics that had breif success on the market: the mindisc recorder.
For one thing, it was portable. I could use it as a walkman anyway. The other thing that I discovered was that I could make loops on it, just by placing "track marks" down in key locations and then repeating those singular tracks. I bought two of these things. One, I would loop stuff on. Then it went through a radio shack mixer that my dad gave me. Next, I would add stuff with a keyboard that I got from some kid at my school, or scratch some records over the beat that i sampled. This went on to be one of my more favourite things to do in my spare time. I eventually produced something like 25 labeled numbered minidiscs, all containing original material, which were then later swiped in college by dormatory theives.

Didn't matter, for long. I then produced something like 15 songs on a demo version of fruity loops after I dropped out of college, mostly due to that dorm theft. I couldn't save any of the fruityloops songs on the computer in files, so I would make a song, record it onto my minidisc, then save it on minidisc and close the program down, so the songs would be gone forever, except on that minidisc. Me, being the genius that I am, decided it wasn't necessary to make a backup disc, and that minidisc malfunctioned one day and all of those songs are gone. No matter.

At the same time, I was doing alot of self-teaching. I was learning how to make websites, and it was all kind of basic stuff at the time, I guess, but I wasn't in school and I had to learn something, so I got into developing little skills that I thought would have a lasting positive effect on my life. I started to think of a concept for a website that I could put my songs on, and someday possibly sell my music on. That became this site.

What really changed things was a program called Reason. It made it possible for me to visually manipulate sound on a screen in almost any possible way. I made so many songs once I got that program and it was good because I saved them all. For the first time in my life, I was really careful to back up the files and keep it all together.

At this point, I can't find a label, but I've been given a number of great opportunities to go and perform music. I'm putting music online for people to check out and buy, and still trying to find someone who will put my stuff on vinyl.