In August of 2018, I moved out of my office rental space where I was also able to house my recording studio. When I closed the office, I rented a warehouse and moved everything into storage, including my recording equipment, because I didn't have any room at home to set my recording studio back up. At the end of 2022, I was able to repurpose the same bedroom that once served as my home studio into a recording studio once again and although it is much smaller in size than the office space I had been using, I'm glad to be able to start recording again.

In re-setting up my studio at home, I decided to go with electronic drums over my acoustic drums for various reasons. Although I dearly love playing my acoustic kit and believe that it is the best recording drum set I have ever owned, it is too loud to play at home even with the door closed. With my new electronic kit, I can plug headphones into the brain, power it up, and play silently while still hearing the drums in all their glory though the headphones. In addition, the new electronic kits offer mesh drum heads that feel and play very similarly to acoustic drum heads. In other words, no more "Simmons" wrist.

With the advent of amplifier modeling and plugins for DAW's, it's tempting to record guitars through using those methods instead of going through the hassle of plugging in and recording through a conventional guitar amp. But while a copy of something can often be good enough, in many ways, there's just no substitute for the original. While I like having the flexibility of using software, I may be a dinosaur but there's just nothing better than plugging into an amp and recording guitar tracks that way. Among the endless number of factors that ultimately determine the tone of an electric guitar, I believe the amplifier is the single most important factor of all.

Even though I am not a guitar player, I have accumulated a number of guitars over the years. Each offers something that none of the others can in terms of a distinctive sound which is why I guess I've managed to keep them. If I had to pick one that is my favorite it would have to be the 2002 Cherry Sunburst Les Paul Standard, followed closely by the 2003 Tobacco Sunburst Fender Telecaster. 

In 2007 I made the leap from the Zoom digital recorder to a computer DAW system. Up until then, I had been able to do pretty much anything I needed to do with the Zoom MRS-1044, but it had one major drawback - the laborious process of converting a Master mix to CD's. To do so, I had to send final mixes through the 1044's optical cable to a dedicated CD burner that required special CD's. Those CD's could then be copied or burned onto regular CD's. I had long since given up the 'gigging" ghost and no longer had a need for a P.A., monitors, and a rack full of outboard gear for live sound, so I traded all that stuff for a computer based recording system. I settled on a Presonus AudioBox 22VSL, a simple two input/output audio interface with MIDI in/outs and ultra-low latency. 

In 1998, I began looking for a new acoustic drum kit after a few years of not playing drums. I had some gear to trade and after seeing what was available locally I stumbled across a 5-piece drum set made by a company I had never heard of - Legend. It was flat black with a textured finish. The snare was a beast measuring 7" x 14". It had one  9" x 12" tom that was mounted on a cymbal stand with a clamp and an "L" bracket, and it had a 16" x 16" floor tom. The kick drum was 18" x 22" and the hardware was heavy duty, double braced Gibraltar hi-hat stand, three boom cymbal stands, and snare stand. I spent an hour playing it and the more I played it the more I wanted it. It was the best sounding kit I had ever played.

By 1997, analog recording had been almost totally replaced by digital technology. During a hiatus from music and a move from Orlando to Tallahassee, I had dismantled my home studio but when I set the studio back up I made the transition from analog to digital. Because the transition required me to re-learn certain aspects of recording and to keep things as simple as possible, I replaced my reel to reel decks with a Zoom MRS-1044 10-track digital "studio in a box", a unit that offered much of the simplicity of my old Tascam 244 cassette Portastudio with the recording and mixing advantages of computer recording.

Fostex launched the Model 80 eight-track recorder in 1986, replacing the A-8 which was the first eight-track recorder that used 1/4" tape instead of the much more expensive 1/2" and 1" counterparts. That made the A-8, and then the Model 80, a very popular choice for home studios. When paired with the Fostex Model 20 (the two-track stereo mixdown deck), Fostex offered a very affordable recording setup that allowed mere mortals to produce excellent quality recordings.

In 1988, my drum kit underwent a serious change when I traded my Export and Simmons SDS9 kits for a Pearl  BLX Pro Series drum set in a gorgeous Sequoia Red lacquer finish.  The BLX (birch shells) and its relative the MLX (maple shells), were Pearl's top of the line drums between 1986 and 1995. In 1996, Pearl phased them out to introduce the thinner-shelled Master Series. At first, Pearl only offered a 4-ply birch set, the MBX model, but  by popular demand, the original six ply BLX birch shell recipe was reintroduced as the BRX model.

In 1988, I was exposed to the world of studio recording by one of my bandmates who had a home recording studio, featuring a Tascam 38 1/2" 8-track reel to reel deck. We used this studio to record some parodies for an Orlando radio station's morning show disc jockeys. Our most popular creation was "What Are The Words To La Bamba" that received airplay not only on that station but on a number of other stations throughout the U.S. By watching how tracks were laid, how effects were used, and how songs were mixed down, I learned the basics of recording.

In 1985, Simmons released the SDS9 electronic drum set, a five-piece kit that won the NAMM Most Innovative Product award in 1986. Over time, Dave Simmons’s unmistakable hexagonal pads and modular drum synths shared the stage with some of the most recognizable drummers of the ’80s and ’90s, including Phil Collins, Alex Van Halen, Rick Allen (Def Leppard), Danny Carey (Tool), Bill Bruford (Yes, King Crimson), and Roger Taylor (Queen). and in 1987 I decided to make the leap.

My first drum set was a 1985 Pearl Export Series EX5300, a 5-piece kit consisting of a 6.5"X14" metal snare, an 8"x12" and a 9"X13" rack tom mounted on the kick drum, a 16"X16" floor tom, and a 14"X22" kick drum. I soon added another 8"X12" rack tom that I found orphaned at a music store which I tuned to sound like an 8"X10" tom, and in time I picked up an inexpensive pair of timbales that were later replaced by a 6", 8", and 10" set of  Remo Roto Toms.

In 1964, my parents bought me an acoustic guitar on which I learned how to play. It was all they could afford and I was grateful to have something on which to learn, but with the advent of The Beatles, acoustic guitars were not cool. Luckily, my best friend had an electric guitar and a drum set and that summer we formed a band with a couple of other guys. I alternated between electric guitar, bass, and drums, and we played at parties every Saturday night. "Wild Thing", "Louie Louie", "Gloria", "Little Black Egg", and any other song with A, E, and D chords were on our set lists.