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by the Tweakmeister Rich
The Evolution of TweakHeadz Lab
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In 1996 I launched my website,
called "Rich's MIDI Lab" after learning the ins and outs of PCs, DOS, Windows
3.1, and midi, html seemed easy. My dream was a total midi website for
electronic musicians. Back then Real Audio was brand new and online music
was extremely lo-fi.
So, you ask. What happened
after that? Well, friends the rest is "current history". Basically,
I got several machines since then and have been working somewhat semi-professionally
in the synth/sampling industry, making sounds. I got an Alesis QS8 which
I can say a lot of good things about. And an ESi32 and maxed both of these
machines out. (The new Turbo board for the Esi is a tremendous leap!)
Its great to have, at last, music technology at a state of maturity. From
reading this article I hope you have gathered that it wasn't always this way.
Digital Audio Comes of Age
1997 and the PC has finally arrived
1994. Ten years after George
Orwell thought would be when computers monitored our every move. Not quite.
It was however the dawn of inexpensive digital audio. Finally with the
emergence of the '486 and the 8030 and 8040 series microprocessors, developers
began writing applications for digital audio. Logic and Cubase Audio were
introduced on the Mac and Atari platforms. The Tweakmeister, due mainly
to issues with the day job, migrated to the PC platform.
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1995, the PC does digital
audio while the Atari
proudly multi-tasks Logic and XoR held in sync with Midi Time Code
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My first software Digital Audio
recorder was Quad Studio, a package that was bundled with the Monterey Sound
card developed by Turtle Beach systems. Quad was a basic 4 track that
had a decent editor called Wave Studio. It worked well enough on Win 3.1.and
most amazingly was able to sync to another computer doing MIDI.
But there was to be trouble in audio land. The early software was crash prone
under the heavy load of a 4 minute song, MTC would lose sync, and rebooting
was a normal part of the recording process. With the introduction of Win95,
(in 1996) it got worse: most audio software stopped working until new drivers
were written. This led to lots of anguish among early audio buffs as Win
95 went through its teething pains. On the PC, most of us had to use "dual
boot" computers that could run either OS for a while. The next few years saw
the development of the integrated digital audio sequencer. By 1997, Logic
Audio Windows was finally out, whispering the promise of what was to come, the
complete virtual studio in a computer. At last we had a non-linear recording
solution that integrated audio tracks with midi in an "object oriented" environment
where midi data and regions of audio could be moved around the screen with ease.
One would like to say there was
a happy ending. However, it is instead becoming abundantly clear that
there is no ending. Digital audio applications took off like rockets in
1998 and 1999. As technology progresses we are offered more and more power
with each software release. And we are still crashing and rebooting.
Most significant in these two years, though many may disagree, is the dawning
of virtual synths and samplers. Soon it will be possible that nearly every
function of the recording studio will be able to be done in the virtual domain
of the computer, except, perhaps, the keyboard and the amplifier and speakers.
Look, girlfriend, No More Cables! (Won't they be happy).
Tweakheadz Lab in 2001
TweakHeadz Lab is Born
Its June 13 1999 and I texted my
girlfriend at the time of a major idea I decided to embrace...
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I am just a tweakhead,
Sitting in my little little lab.
O let me entertain you, and give you a little pad
called
TweakHeadz LAB
Hello all you synthmasters, gear collectors, djs midiphreaks,
philosophers, thinkers twinkers adoring groupies and friends. The Tweak says hello.
You have wandered into TweaKHeadz Lab. I am the ruling TweakMeister
of the lab and I am here with all my studio devices running hot, with decades of
archives of music, ideas, sounds and insights in to the mysterious creative process.
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At the time, I was deep into the development of Ice Kold Tekno Orkestra and the
Mystik Garage, having just got my programming street cred working for the Alesis
QS synth. I ended 1999 working on The Celestial Windowpane, a set of loops
for the new Audio Loop sequencer called Acid by sonic foundry. 2001 saw me
involved in the Post Industrial Cyber Depot CD Rom for the Emu Ultra Samplers.
2002 and 2003 saw the expansion of TweakHeadz Lab into the forums at studio0-central.com,
my second major website.
      
 
Various Album Covers and CD Rom Covers for my home productions form 1996-2002.
There were more! This was an intensely productive period
Adding the forums was a significant crossroad as to be successful I had to really
make them work to teach people the technology of studios. Unfortunately I
realized I could not keep sound development and 2 websites running along side my
full time job. Yet it is true that the forums and all the work they entailed
practically killed my music. This has got to be the most supreme irony of
all.
My Main rack in early
2002
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Busy on the World Cafe CD Rom
My friend Winnie Belts one out
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