November 8, 2023
30 Years Of Linear Arithmetic
For a while now I have been uploading some music that I have been working on to Youtube mainly to keep the channel running and the flow going.
Usually I pick a photo that I feel goes well with the song and for my latest upload, I used this picture that I have posted before on the web. It’s a photo of me playing the Roland D-50 and this is what I added to the description of that photo:
‘My D-50 dates from June, 1987. An astonishing amount of albums from the late eighties/early nineties era contain sounds coming from this machine. George Michael’s debut album “Faith” (the LP is on top of the cassette deck) was no exception’.
This photo was taken on the day that I bought the last Roland D-05 (the little box to my left) that was in stock at a local music store in September of 2020. Without going into any detail; the D-05 is essentially a D-50 in a small format, released 30 years after its original day of release. I have some interesting writings about the D-05/D-50 that could possibly be of value for the community and I may share that another time.
The Roland D-50 wasn’t my first ever synth, but it is certainly the synthesizer that changed my life. I learnt programming it by using the screen, and because of understanding the D-50, it made it a lot easier to program other synths. I always find it amusing how an old piece of gear that existed before I arrived on this earth, made an impact on me and many of my generation.
I will talk about the D-50 another time, but as I have stated before; one step at a time as I have the tendency to go into too many details, weaken the eventual outcome, blurring the core thing I wanted to address and essentially crushing my brain as well.
Devin