It's hard to believe they've survived, but way back in the beginning of my synthesizer journey, I made several tapes from 1985 (I'd just turned 17) to 1989. Over time, I will  try to clean them up and add them here. Much of it is weird, but some of it is pretty nice ... for a kid.

Back to the Beginning: My 80's music from when I was a Teenager. More added soon!

This was from my earliest days of sound tinkering ... January 1987 to be exact. I was 18 going on 19 when I recorded this little piece, "Should I?" I know the title because I still have the original tapes with the original inserts that I scribbled on. Now, what I was asking if I should do or not do? I have no idea. 🤷‍♂️

This was done on my first real synthesizer, a Korg Poly-61, and with it, a Korg Super Drums drum machine. There's not much to it, but I put some thought into that drum pattern and then just played some eighth notes that came to mind. 🎶

The sound quality isn't the best, as to be expected, but those tapes held up over lots of time and many moves. I'm glad I kept them, no matter what. 💙

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Should I?

Should I .ᐣ (Korg Poly-61 + Korg DDM-110 Super Drums, Recorded to Tape, January 1987)

Well, this is going back to the very beginning of my synthesizer journey, early 1985 to be exact. This is from a tape that is now 40 years old, but it survived! 😯

The title of this track, "Have a Pleasant Afternoon", is the original one that I gave it at that time. I just thought, compared to some of the weird sounds I'd been making, it was "pleasant" ... so it stuck. 

I got my Korg Poly 61 for my 17th Birthday, and I believe I'd saved up some money to get the Korg drum machine not long after that, just a few weeks I believe. They worked perfectly together and I loved them so. 💕

This is most likely from the Spring of 1985, back when many of you reading this right now knew me best. 🤗

I had to fix a couple of dropouts and scratches as best I could, but they're pretty minor considering the age of the tape. There is a lot of noise, but you really only notice it in the outro. 🙏

I did a lot of experimenting, some more of which you will hear in the future, but this one was just meant to be pretty, and I think I may have reached that goal here. 👍

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Have a Pleasant Afternoon

Have a Pleasant Afternoon ( · ❛ ֊ ❛) (Korg Poly-61 + Korg DDM-110, Recorded on tape Spring 1985)

This is part of a longer piece, from an old tape, and I think it's the best part of it. There's one flub, but hey, it was the 80's and this was all new to me. A slow piece with heavy resonance on the sounds, which I always loved to do. From 1987, this is "channel 41". There's going to be some tape noise on all of these, but I really feel very lucky to have saved these old tapes at all!

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channel 41

channel 41 ᯤ (Korg Poly-61 Synthesizer + Korg DDM-110, Recorded on tape Spring 1987)

This is going WAY back to January, 1987. A calming piece made with my Poly-61 and Superdrums, recorded on an old tape that mostly survived. The original title had the word Heavens in it, but I couldn't make out the rest of it, so let's just call it "My Heavens", since that's kinda funny. 

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My Heavens

My Heavens ⋆˚࿔ (Korg Poly-61 Synthesizer + Korg DDM-110, Recorded on tape January 1987)

The opening track to a tape titled "Breathing", that I recorded in the Spring of 1987. It's amazing that I remember exactly where I was sitting when I taped this and several other pieces. This is an example of some crud overdubbing. The main part was recorded on tape, and then that tape was recorded along with a few more notes played along with it. Essentially a 2-track recorder I suppose. Being as it was March of that year, the title is "Exit, Winter", when was the original title I gave it way back then. 

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Exit, Winter

Exit, Winter 𖤣𖥧𖡼. (Korg Poly-61, Recorded on tape in March of 1987)

Tinkerer of many sounds, mostly just for fun. Player of many things, but a master of none.

Exit, Winter 𖤣𖥧𖡼. (Korg Poly-61, Recorded on tape in March of 1987)

GKS