Musician

I have been playing guitars, including bass guitar for over 40 years. I started playing guitar as a teenager in the 80’s when Rock and Roll was expanding into different genres, and Glam Rock and Heavy metal were popular and many young people wanted to be rock stars. I tried starting a band with friends that never made it out of the garage. Then at age 19 I formed a band called “No Outlet” that actually played out at venues as an opening act for a working band. I was working as roadie and helped the sound tech of the working band for about a year while in trade school.

In my senior year of high school, when planning what I was going to do after high school, I wanted to go to collage for music. My parents didn’t think this would be a good future and wanted that I go to some type of trade school. I was taking trade type classes in school like shops, drafting, and electronics. In electronics class my teacher who knew I played guitar found me schematics and board layout plans for a Fuzz Box. I was hooked and decided I wanted to get into electronics and work for a music manufacturer. I attended Technical School for Electronics. I stopped playing in bands during school so that I could go to work while in school, but I continued to play guitar and started getting into electronic music, I bought a book called “Electronic Projects for Musician by Craig Anderton, and built some music projects like powered line splitters and A/B boxes.

After graduating with an Associates in specialized Technology, I had tried applying to some of Music manufacturers but most of them were on the other coast than where I was located. I ended up working in manufacturing and controls assembly, inspection, testing, and trouble shooting. Not wanting to give up on music I took a correspondence course in “Electronic Music” and built a four channel mixer. I also got a keyboard with the course and started to learn to play a keyboard with PCM synth. I earned a diploma in Electronic Music through this course of study.

In the mid 90s I started working for a computer manufacturing company, as an electronic technician, that made Modems, Video Cards, and Sound Cards for the PC. This is when I got exposed to computer music. I bought a sound card which came with a free version of Cake Walk DAW, and a program called Band in the Box. I used band in the box to compose a couple of songs and did some rough recordings. I continued to upgrade my computers and hardware and used a Turtle Beach sound card for a while which gave a 4 channel interface.

During this time in the mid 90’s I had joined a local band on the side as a guitarist in which we played at venues for money. At this time I was purchasing equipment including PA/Mixer, keyboards, guitars and pedals. I found that I like the tech as much as the music.

My Career went into a different direction, getting more into computer networking, computer installation, IT support and eventually Software Development. I actually put down the music for a couple of years due to demanding work requirements and spending personal time reading books and learning the technology I was using on my job. The computer age was maturing and I was growing up in it.

In the early 2000’s while I started in my software development career, I joined a worship team at my church, in which I played bass and guitar. I also did personal recording and took guitar lessons out side of working hours. I was also starting a family at this time.

I also invested in my sons musical talent and provided him with drum and voice lessons as he grew up, and have purchased both acoustic and electronic drums for him to play. He sang in choir through out school, and is currently attending college to earn a Bachelor of Science in Music Industry and Recording Technology. We are also performing as an Acoustic Duo at local clubs.