Steve urged me to provide an introduction. Here it is.
Music has played a prominent part in my life. As a lad I studied piano and violin. I was first chair in the school orchestra. I’m self-taught guitar and 5-string banjo. I ranked third in the first Topanga Canyon Banjo & Fiddle Contest and performed with the likes of Pete Seeger, Ry Cooder, and Frank Zappa.
Although it was over 50 years ago, I still have fond memories of those days: Like hearing a symphony orchestra for the first time. That inspired me to learn the violin. My parents bought me a violin with a ¾-size bow. It wasn’t long before I out-grew the small bow and we visited a violin shop to buy a full-size bow. The proprietor laid out a dozen bows that were within my price range. One by one he handed me a bow to try. I didn’t think there would be much difference: After all, a violin bow is just horse hair tied to a stick, but some were definitely better than others. Then he handed me a bow that was worlds apart from the others. I think I played no more than a note or two before declaring that it was the bow I wanted. He laughed. It was a $300 bow. That experience left a lasting impression. I eventually choose a $14 bow. I still have it, the violin, and the hard shell violin case the proprietor gave me to replace the cardboard one I was using. Apparently, he was impressed with my playing and my ability to discern the best violin bow.
After I high school I flunked out of college, worked at UC doing research in nuclear medicine, tuned pianos, and built a few harpsichords before discovering computers. I assembled an 8080 microprocessor with 4KB RAM but no I/O. Hand-coded machine language had to be toggled into memory via the front panel switches but it made music! It’s well known that computer generated RFI can be picked up by a nearby AM radio and by changing the nature of the running program the noise can be controlled to resemble music. The very first program I wrote played Daisy. Soon I had a program that played 3-part harmony via AM radio interference. As far as I know, that hadn’t been done before or since. After I acquired a CRT, keyboard, floppy disk and more RAM, I wrote several programs that did music synthesis in different ways and I made my own R/2R DACs. I wrote the world’s first microprocessor-based program to do wave-table synthesis. Several variations followed including one that added attack/decay envelopes to the tone generation. The process requires multiplying each sample produced by the tone generator with a factor from the amplitude envelope but the 8-bit micros of the day had no multiply instruction. I solved the problem by encoding the wave and envelope tables as logarithms.
While working as a computer engineer in Silicon Valley I earned enough money to begin dabbling in high-end audio. Although I have an appreciation for the best in audio, I am not an audiophile and I don’t belong to the Component of the Month Club. I am more into DIY. If I live long enough, I would like to replace every store-bought component I have with one I have designed and made myself. A unique DAC design is underway.
My moniker comes from the hero of the ballad popularized by Sandy Denny and Fairport Convention.
Music has played a prominent part in my life. As a lad I studied piano and violin. I was first chair in the school orchestra. I’m self-taught guitar and 5-string banjo. I ranked third in the first Topanga Canyon Banjo & Fiddle Contest and performed with the likes of Pete Seeger, Ry Cooder, and Frank Zappa.
Although it was over 50 years ago, I still have fond memories of those days: Like hearing a symphony orchestra for the first time. That inspired me to learn the violin. My parents bought me a violin with a ¾-size bow. It wasn’t long before I out-grew the small bow and we visited a violin shop to buy a full-size bow. The proprietor laid out a dozen bows that were within my price range. One by one he handed me a bow to try. I didn’t think there would be much difference: After all, a violin bow is just horse hair tied to a stick, but some were definitely better than others. Then he handed me a bow that was worlds apart from the others. I think I played no more than a note or two before declaring that it was the bow I wanted. He laughed. It was a $300 bow. That experience left a lasting impression. I eventually choose a $14 bow. I still have it, the violin, and the hard shell violin case the proprietor gave me to replace the cardboard one I was using. Apparently, he was impressed with my playing and my ability to discern the best violin bow.
After I high school I flunked out of college, worked at UC doing research in nuclear medicine, tuned pianos, and built a few harpsichords before discovering computers. I assembled an 8080 microprocessor with 4KB RAM but no I/O. Hand-coded machine language had to be toggled into memory via the front panel switches but it made music! It’s well known that computer generated RFI can be picked up by a nearby AM radio and by changing the nature of the running program the noise can be controlled to resemble music. The very first program I wrote played Daisy. Soon I had a program that played 3-part harmony via AM radio interference. As far as I know, that hadn’t been done before or since. After I acquired a CRT, keyboard, floppy disk and more RAM, I wrote several programs that did music synthesis in different ways and I made my own R/2R DACs. I wrote the world’s first microprocessor-based program to do wave-table synthesis. Several variations followed including one that added attack/decay envelopes to the tone generation. The process requires multiplying each sample produced by the tone generator with a factor from the amplitude envelope but the 8-bit micros of the day had no multiply instruction. I solved the problem by encoding the wave and envelope tables as logarithms.
While working as a computer engineer in Silicon Valley I earned enough money to begin dabbling in high-end audio. Although I have an appreciation for the best in audio, I am not an audiophile and I don’t belong to the Component of the Month Club. I am more into DIY. If I live long enough, I would like to replace every store-bought component I have with one I have designed and made myself. A unique DAC design is underway.
My moniker comes from the hero of the ballad popularized by Sandy Denny and Fairport Convention.
