On July 19, 1983 I bought my first synthesizer at the Hollywood Guitar Center; a Roland JX-3P. It was a big step. At the time, the main things on my mind were the Cure, my first job, at May Co., though not necessarily in that order. I had already bought a JL Cooper box to be able to sync up my Oberheim drum machine with my Roland Bass box and now the on-board sequencer for my JX-3P. Midi was the newest thing; it was a technological advantage being touted as the revolutionary breakthrough in modern music. I was still a bit skeptical to accept any such claim until I saw evidence of it catching on. Until then, the only sequencer that was compatible with Oberheim was Oberheim’s, the only sequencers that ran at the same clock pulse as Roland’s, were, of course Roland’s.
My first synthesizer experiments involved using just the keyboard, as I didn’t have any background in full arrangements with many sounds. I dabbled with synth pop pieces like In Love Again, which I wrote for my friend Anne, who was my biggest fan and who collected cassettes of my music. It seems amazing now to realize how far my music has evolved since the last tape I got to her.
I wanted to move my music in direction similar to The Glove and New Order, so the sequencer (128 notes capacity!) came into a lot of use.
1983_0720 : In Love Again (A Short Interlude)
Description
On July 19, 1983 I bought my first synthesizer at the Hollywood Guitar Center; a Roland JX-3P. It was a big step. At the time, the main things on my mind were the Cure, my first job, at May Co., though not necessarily in that order. I had already bought a JL Cooper box to be able to sync up my Oberheim drum machine with my Roland Bass box and now the on-board sequencer for my JX-3P. Midi was the newest thing; it was a technological advantage being touted as the revolutionary breakthrough in modern music. I was still a bit skeptical to accept any such claim until I saw evidence of it catching on. Until then, the only sequencer that was compatible with Oberheim was Oberheim’s, the only sequencers that ran at the same clock pulse as Roland’s, were, of course Roland’s.
My first synthesizer experiments involved using just the keyboard, as I didn’t have any background in full arrangements with many sounds. I dabbled with synth pop pieces like In Love Again, which I wrote for my friend Anne, who was my biggest fan and who collected cassettes of my music. It seems amazing now to realize how far my music has evolved since the last tape I got to her.
I wanted to move my music in direction similar to The Glove and New Order, so the sequencer (128 notes capacity!) came into a lot of use.
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