For all you old farts (born before 1967)

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My first guitar was a nylon string beater I bought off the son of one of the cops on Hill Street Blues TV show. Sikking was the last name of the dad. This was in 68.

I went through several cheapo nylons while I learned to play. Beach Boys, Simon and Garfunkel, Dylan, Donovan, Motown and the Fab 4 days. Anyone remember the hit, “This diamond ring” ? Then I joined a band in high school in 1970. Glenn Campbell TV show days. Man he could play.

First electric guitar was a Sears Silvertone using the amp in the case. The high e string was actally a banjo string because I had no money to buy new strings.

Then I worked to buy a 1965 Fender Mustang, bought a FUZZFACE to sound like Hendrix. Doors, Steppenwolf, Ten years after, Cream days. I traded the Mustang and Fuzzface for a 1964 Gibson SG Custom and $75. Best trade I ever made. Less than a year later a guy in my hometown stole the SG and sold it somewhere in Western Kansas as I later found out. Sigh.

Then I switched to Cat Stevens, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and also James Taylor mode. I bought one of the first Alvarez guitars out of St. Louis. I played for several years with this guitar and did a single act while going to college the first time. This guitar was stolen in KC Mo. 3 years later out of a practice loft. Dropped out of college.

Next I bought a 1966 Gibson Melody maker, 1959 Strat and a Gibson J50 from the early 60s. This was back in the days when most of these guitars could be had for $400 or less used. Then I traded all of this in on a 1972 first year Fender Custom Tele with the humbucker. This was my Loggin's and Messina, Blues days. Got my first Boss distortion unit and my first of several Fender Twins.

Next I sold all but the Tele, and bought the first year Pignose amp (mainly because the rumor was that Clapton had done a whole album with one of these – not true). I quit music, went to work in a car factory for 2 years. I saved up enough money to go back to college, bought another 1977 Alvarez, which I have to this day. Played jazz in my spare time and also purchased my first 4 track a Pioneer RT2044 (10 inch reels) and a Teac Model 3 mixing console. Great little board. George Benson, Earl Klugh days.

I then went back to college, played Country and Western to pay my way through. As new pedal technology came along I bought more Boss pedals i.e. chorus, phase, then I bought a last year original blackface Fender Vibrolux Amp 1981. I will never sell this amp. Not too heavy and sounds like the twin except it breaks at lower volumes. Got my first Rockman in 80. but it was not usable live and the rack unit veresion had not come out yet. Got my degree. Ended up in computers and software.

Skip ahead 20 years..... Wife, Computer Job, Kids phase.

Kids are in high school, going their ways and me drifting back to mine, bought a computer, built a project studio for writing. Recording just my stuff. Happy as a clam.

Born in 1952 the same month and year as the Fender Tele. Jeez, I feel like a living history of American Music over the last 50 years. Glad to see there are a few old timers around still in the game.

“I’m still here” – From the movie Pappion
 
antique roadshow

Born 1950.
We even had flush toilets then, though only mono.

Back in prehistoric times in the 80's, my 1st setup was an Atari 520 (1/2 a meg, no hard drive, single sided floppies only), Passport Mastertracks Pro, a Casio CZ-101, Roland MT-32, an SM58, Tascam Porta One, & I mixed down to a mini Aiwa boom box. Later upgraded to an Atari 1040ST (golly gee, one whole meg but still no hard drive). You had to keep swapping disks, & don't even think about multi-tasking...

That all got ripped off from my place in broad daylight one Sunday. When I rebuilt I tried an Ensoniq VFX but it broke down at least 6 times in 6 mos. Traded that in for a Korg M1, which I still have. & another Atari 1040ST & bootleg copies of Cubase v 1.0 & X-OR patch librarian.

Still have the Atari & all my song files on floppies. I had a great time, learned arranging, became a MIDI maniac & wrote some damn good songs.

Matter of fact, here's a question, if there's anyone of sufficient vintage to know:

The M1's battery died & all my custom patches along with it. I still have patch banks on disk & the damn Atari still works! If I get the M1 back up & running, do I need to keep carting around the ancient computer just to reinstall my old patches? Or is there a current online source or M1 users group where I could find more patches to transfer via my PC to supplement or replace the factory presets?
 
Shit! Macintosh power amps! those were supposed to be all hand made right?

Macintosh is still around. Very Very expensive hifi gear.
 
I was born in 1956.

My first guitar was a Truetone Rock Star made by Western Auto! Got it when I was twelve years old. Talk about hard to play! Later I graduated to a Fender Strat.

I’ve just got to mention my first big amp, it was called a Plush amp, I think it was made by Kustom. It was huge standing about 5ft. tall. Back then they called them piggy back amps. The amp was beautiful, but sounded absolutely awful. I received many visits from the police dept. I remember them telling my they could hear it from about 6 blocks away!

My first real tape recorder was an Akai reel to reel. I don’t remember the model number but I do remember it had a knob that said something like crossfield on it. Had a great time with that recorder.
:cool:
 
Ah, Plush Kustoms. What great-looking junk! They looked like Tijuana tuck and roll jobs, but they were LOUD!:D
 
Yep, I believe Plush had their priorities backwards. Terrible amplifiers, but great looking furniture!:D
 
The only things that sounded worse were the Traynor and Shure Vocalmaster PA systems! Distortion at 50 watts!:cool:
 
1961


Gibson SG and a fender twin....

I used a Realistic tape deck with a built in mic on the box....











as a matter of fact... I still do:D













oh...the horror...the horror :D :eek: :D :eek:
 
Born in 59.

First guitar was a Harmony Stella, the one with tiger stripes across the front. LaBella nylon strings. Strung lefty.:) I was 9 years old.

My first teacher was a young woman that played folk music and gave lessons. She got married and that was the end of my lessons with her.

First song I learned was "Dog Blue". Then "MTA", stuff like that.

Then I got my first electric, a cheapo righty again strung lefty, and a cheesy little amp.

Got my custom-made SG in 74, and a Fender Super Showman amp. I think that amp permanently fucked up my hearing! I had a paper route and other little odd jobs that paid for that guitar and amp.

Next was my D-35 in 77. My folks gave it to me for graduation.
 
I am a bit younger than you guys but I started with ancient gear. The best bit was an old Teac Reel to Reel 33 something. It was the one with the simulsink switches on the box over the rec/play heads. It weighed 80 lbs or so. I ran it through a qaudra phonic amplifier and mixed in mono/pseudo/surround. Later I got a Fostex D80 8 track reel to reel then a tascam portastudio and then much more boring but better new stuff.
 
I was a teenager in 1967 (born 1952) so I guess I'm an old fart.
I've been drumming forever (I play some trumpet and can punch out a few tunes on piano, oh yeah, and about 5 or six chords on a guitar, I do read music tho). But recording is something that I always left to the professionals. I owned a few Shure mics (I still own and use my old SM57) but there wasn't that many options readiy available the way there is now.
I own only three drum kits, an old Rogers(purchased for me by my parents in 1962) and an old Slingerland (the snare on that one is still my primary snare, I love it) Recently I picked up a Tama set (I cut down the rack toms don't like deep rack toms).
All of my drums have been refinished(covered) so that they will match and I can add and trade of where I want to.I use a mix of Zildjian and Paiste cymbals and one Sabian.I prefer Paiste crashes and Zildjian rdes and hi-hats. I have a few Wuhan China crashes.My Paiste crashs I've had since 1968 and my Zildjian ride since 1962. I take good care of my instruments and play them,I don't punish them. When my cymbals die, they die from old age not abuse. I replace drum heads when they've gotten tired not broken.
My sound equipment is mostly all new. I got the bug for homerecording only recently. My mic selection is okay-good and gradually improving. My mixer is new a Yamaha MG16/4 and I love it. I use a little Tascam 4 track for now (pathetic) I'm upgrading to a larger Tascam 4 track (better) and eventually I will convert my Mac to do recording with Pro-tools editing (all of the pro studios I work in use Pro-tools and it's easy enough.

....so you can teach a old dog....
 
i was born in '53. My first real bass at 13 was a Kay double cutaway with a little blue amp called a "007" with a 4 " speaker. I`ve played on or thru most everything since then. I have always been a player, with a little producing and promoting. I never fooled with any engineering except for some live mixing and assisting engineers in a couple of places where i was working. I just started learning to use software to record and learning how to mix with it since last summer. I am too sexy for myself!!
 
Waened on? Hmm. First off was a friends Boss DR-55 and a Korg MS-20. The I got a Korg Polysix, and we got a band together with a Korg Ply800, a Casio CZ-101 and a Sequential Circuits Pro-One. We borrowed drum machines then, some kind of Yamaha I remember at least. Can't remember the other ones.
Then I bought a beatiful red Ibanez archtop, and some kind of black goth guitar. And we also had a Superstringer, and a Bass of a brand I don' remember and some different bass and keyboard amps.

Yup, that was what I was weaned on in the 80s.

I don't think I have ANY of the equipment left. I sold it, lost contact with the owners or it just got lost. :D
 
(Born in 1954)- Revox 4 track open reel, Shure Unidyne II, MacIntosh power amp, Jensen triaxials, Gibson SJ and Les Paul Junior.-Richie
 
Also born 54. Of course, on this side of the pond equipment hasn't changed at all. We still use a Marshall stack and a Baldwin Black Bison bass (although I did have a Farfisa organ in 71 and I haven't seen one of them for a while).
Anyone want to hear about the time I stood next to Dylan backstage at the 69 Isle of Wight pop festival?
 
Was going thru some boxes.... came across an ancient beat-box.... the Boss DR-55 Dr. Rhythm.... circa 1982!

Put some batteries in it and the damn thing still works!!

Talk about cheese though.... Phil Collins would be proud of the bass drum though!

Since when do snares go "boooossshh", and hi-hats go "ppssshhhht"???

:D
 
Born in 1948.

Originally used a Wollensack tape recorder to record live band jobs in the mid 60's. First guitar was a Harmony archtop (which my grandson now has). First good guitar was a Fender Telecaster (67) which I still have.

Later moved to a Tascam 4-track and did some mostly instrumental albulms for relatives. This was during the early 80's.

Have now moved to a Fostex MR-8 and PC based hybrid. Play a PRS guitar through a 20 space rack.

Old gear still around includes:

Fender Telecaster
Vox Super Beatle amp
Fender Princton amps
Hofner Bass
Tascam 4-tracks

Ed
 
Born '55.

First rig: used Heathkit (!!!) Vox Jaguar organ. Ewwww!!! This woulda been about 1971. A lot of my early playing was on my folks' Conn organ and upright piano. Oh, and they had a CF Martin ukelele and an autoharp too. Big fun.

When I got serious:

1974:
Rhodes 88 Stage
ProCo Bullwinkle 2-way speaker (anyone else remember when they made speakers?)
Peavey Standard head.

1976:
ARP Axxe synth
ARP SE-4 String Ensemble (still have it, needs repair)
Tapco keyboard mixer

1977:
Hohner D-6 Clavinet (still have it)
Acoustic 500 keyboard mixer (still have it)
Univox tape echo
Mutron Bi-Phase (still have it, needs repair)

1979:
replaced my Rhodes 88 with a 73 Stage (still have it)
Kustom power amp

1983:
Prophet 5 (still have it)

1984:
Crest Power Amp (still have it)

1985:
Yamaha KX-88 controller (still have it, needs repair)
2 Yam TX-7 modules (still have them)
Yam R-1000 reverb (still have it)
Yam 3115 2-way cabinet (still have it)

1986:
My first midi studio -
8088 portable PC clone (2 floppies, 6 mhz, 640k ram)
Passport Master Tracks PC v. 1.0
DX-Connect (my TX-7 ed/lib)
Still gigged with it as late as '92. Eventually added 2mb memory (portable hard drives weren't reliable then). Still have it in stationary form - the porta-pc died, but I replaced with desktop 8088 - with a hard drive this time.


A couple other old-skool items I picked up later:
Yam RX-11 drum machine
Yam TQ-5 workstation module

other firsts:
first pop sing learned (piano age 10) - Henry VIII (Herman's Hermits)
first pop song learned by ear (ukelele!!! age 11)- Save Your Heart for Me (Gary Lewis & Playboys)
first pop song arranged and played in public (piano age 11) - I Love You (People)
first time - bugly drunk girl from Wisconsin on a church trip to Albany GA - I was 16, she was 17. She broke my zipper. She liked the way I played Ball of Confusion...

Can you tell I'm avoiding studying for tomorrow's finals?:rolleyes:
 
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