FIND SOME OF MY DEMOS AT :- http://www.youtube.com/anthill1956
Welcome to my Music Pages.
The following pages are a condensed but hopefully, fairly complete history of my musical career to date and beyond.
While it may not be very interesting to anyone not directly involved it does give me a chance to take stock of where I am and how I get here and also to indulge in a little nostalgia. It also proves to myself that I can still remember what I was doing 40 + years ago even though I can't always recall why I went upstairs half an hour ago....unless it was to write this....somehow I don't think that was the initial reason! Anyway that's not important but, for what it's worth
here is my story:-
As a Pianist/Keyboard player I have always had as much satisfaction and enjoyment from composing my own music as I have from performing.
I have been writing music since I first started to learn the piano at around the age of 15 and I am still learning and developing my techniques as a writer and performer many years later!
Over the years the ways to actually record music in an affordable and satisfying way has been increasing but so has the time and cost it takes to keep up with all this new technology. I do wonder where it will end as the learning curves are also getting steeper I get older!
My first attempts at multi track recording involved bouncing between a couple of cassette recorders with little success but the results, poor as they were, were still enough to make me realise the potential of being able to arrange my music the way I wanted it. Thankfully a few years later someone else must have spotted the potential and Tascam invented the Portastudio giving me access to 4 track recording on cassette tape and Dad, bless him helped me buy one. This kick started my desire to increase the sounds I so desperately needed to get the best from Multi track recording and over the next few years I obtained more keyboards and guitars and fx pedals.....just to get that sound we all had to have!
Eventually I reached a point where I had some pretty good gear for the time but not very impressive results from my recordings l as it dawned on me that I didn't really know how it all worked. What was a send and pre fader knob for,what does eq do? Anyway, eventually, after a lot of soul searching (about 5 seconds) I took the first opportunity to get myself down to London for a week's course in primary multitrack recording. After completing the very enlightening course I couldn't wait to get back home and try out all my new skills in my own studio......oh dear! Shock , horror, after a week in real studio surroundings with a mixing desk and an 8 track reel to reel recorder and numerous Samplers, reverbs, delays and compressors my beloved portastudio just wasn't going to cut it anymore....I think you can assume I was hooked!
The rest is history and to cut a long story shorter, I was lucky enough to get involved with setting up Subway Studios and rehearsal rooms in Nottingham and we eventually invested in the equipment we needed to run this as a commercial enterprise, which also gave me the equipment and time to develop my potential further. We never made much money but managed to buy some great equipment and I met a lot of good people and made a lot of new freinds so all in all a worthwhile investment.
All things must pass and eventually I left Subway and set up my equipment at home where I commenced a period of intensive writing and recording. Usually I worked alone but in collaboration with Chris Gill and a few others we produced some good recordings.
Over the next few decades technology rendered a lot of my equipment, if not obsolete then certainly impractical, bulky and unreliable and I had to slowly refit my studio with computers and sequencers and mini mixing desks ext.
It was traumatic at the time but the ever lengthening learning curve kicked in again as I struggled to get to grips with Audio/Midi music production programmes like Logic and Cubase which I am still using. Now I have far more equipment and sounds at my fingertips than ever before. A click of the mouse will summon any number of reverbs, delays, compressors and fx that I want while another click of the mouse gives me all the virtual instruments I could dream of.
Grand Pianos to Glockenspiels, bagpipes to bass guitars and synthesiser to orchestras, all now literally at my fingertips.....but without those intense learning curves and years of struggling to create the sounds and effects I wanted I really don't believe I would have ever appreciated what I now have enough to make full use of it. So sometimes its better to struggle to achieve than to just have everything ready to go straight from the box which is probably why apprenticeships used to be 7 years .....Mine has been a lot longer than 7 years but what the heck, I'm still learning!
For those who may be interested the following pages will provide more information on the equipment I am using and have used over the last 40+ years. Some of my music from the distant past and possibly up to today's efforts are also "probably" included. Obviously that depends on when you read this and if I have kept this site updated, it's quite possible I am away on another ever expanding learning curve but hope to be back with updates..... eventually.
and have used over the last 40+ years. Some of my music from the distant past and possibly up to today's efforts are also "probably" included. Obviously that depends on when you read this and if I have kept
this site updated, it's quite possible I am away on another ever expanding learning curve but hope to be back with updates..... eventually.
Anthony