Big Tex is not actually from Texas

[bigtex]

Hello all,

I've been posting a bit here on the Synth DIY forum, but I've never properly introduced myself. I'm a Californian who likes to make noises, often using electronic things.

It all started when... well I've got to thank my parents for putting me in piano lessons. Despite now non-musical the stuff I like to make is, I'm glad I have a solid foundation in music theory. Hey parents: teach your kids some music!

Anyway, some time in the early 90's, Farallon (later bought by Macromedia) released the MacRecorder. It was a microphone that connected to the Mac's serial port. It also came with SoundEdit, which is still one of my favorite peices of software, if only for nostalgia value. Imagine how excited I was, probably only about 11 or 12, howling into a computer microphone and turning my voice backwards, adding reverb and delay, and generally making a lot of noise. It drove my parents crazy!

I started getting serious about audio in high school in the mid to late 90s. I'd mess around on the computer, layer my voice to make strange answering machine messages or splicing together strange stuff from the radio and play it over the phone lines to friends. I had no multitracking DAW like is readily available today, so it was all cut 'n paste, but I loved it.

I also spent a lot of time ripping apart electronics and trying to run audio through various broken circuit boards. I'd just cut up RCA cables, clip leads on to circuits at random points and see what happened when I ran music through it. I never actually understood how electronic things worked back then, but I sure knew how to make them stop working! I once made an oscillating clicking buzzer out of relay feedback. That was a hoot! I took that concept and used it on a speaker, even better! (or worse, if you were my neighbors) It's still one of my favorite ideas: get a 9V battery and a speaker. Hook a wire to each speaker terminal, but rather than hard wiring one of them, touch it to the wire that connects the cone to the frame. When it makes contact, the speaker will push/pull away, breaking the contact, sending it back, and repeating. It's the ugliest oscillator you'll ever hear. What fun!

When the book Gravikords, Whirlies, and Pyrophones came out, I snatched it up immediately. I had made good friends with the local music/book store proprietor, and he knew what I was looking for. In that book, I was introduced to a wild and wooly world of experimental musical instruments I had never before seen. I started making didjeridoos out of PCV pipes, made some contact microphones out of peizo buzzers, started doing tape manipulation, and got way into circuit bending.

When I went off to college, I started picking up whatever cheap audio gear I could get my hands on. In the beginning, it was just a DJ mixer and a couple of distortion pedals, but over the years it has grown into a big, heavy, wonderful home studio. In the beginning, my actual "tracks" or "songs" or whatever you choose to call them, were just simple experiments. My first actual release was as mumble on the Lobot Manual CD compilation in 1999. My roommate named me Big Tex when I was bending a Texas Instruments Speak and Spell through his Quadraverb. The name stuck. I've been releasing music as Big Tex since 2000.

My 2000 CD, Big Work, was a disjointed mess of short experiments. There are some clips available, but the CD is long since out of print (maybe I should put the whole thing online for free, then) Cover your ears if you click on those samples!

My 2002 CD, Authentic Songs of the Old West was a little more cohesive, and seemed a little more like an actual album. I do like it, but I find that I should have taken a little more time to realize it fully. I want my next album to be something that I LOVE four years later.

Since then, I haven't released anything, but I've done a few remixes for friends. I've decided that I won't release an album until I work on my compositional skills a bit and learn how to really make songs that you can listen to repeatedly. I want to make a real album that stands the test of time. I really want to make at least one good album in my life. It's one of the things on my list of things to do before I die (like get something patented, "finish" a modular synth... ok modulars are never finished, write a novel, make or score a movie, that kind of stuff).

My current plans include putting together the Music From Outer Space kits I've bought (VCO, VCA, ADSR, VCF, Sequencer, SoundLab) and then start in on a serious modular. I'm still deciding on build style, banana vs. 1/4" jacks, rack-mount width or seperate case. I'm also battling with MIDI. I've never been able to use MIDI very well as a compositional tool and I'm trying to decide if I should just sell everything I own with a MIDI port on it and buy more analog stuff.

My first analog was a concoction of a Tama Tachstar TS-305 drum brain and a bunch of bench oscillators that I managed to make simple sequences and some pretty complex waveforms with. I recently bought an Octave Kitten and now I'm hooked. I think CV/Gate is really the way to go and I lose interest in MIDI more and more. I'm just not sure if I can give up on it entirely, yet. I really like my TX81z and my ESQ-M, though I've never been able to make any real music with them.

So that's my story so far, or at least part of it. I think my recent move from the boonies into the big city has really sparked my interest in music and accomplishing some of my goals. I've been around a lot of interesting people and seeing a lot of good live music, and it makes me want to get going on creative and technical stuff!

[mosc]

Well, Tex. Sounds like an interesting path to electronic music. I'm sure not unlike many peoples', just that the details are different.

Anyhow, I'm glad you ended up here. There are lots of kindred spirits.

[Uncle Krunkus]

Hey Big Tex!
Don't give up on midi. I know it can be frustrating setting it up, but once you've got something happening it's really handy. My advice would be to set the mixer up in the middle of the room. Put your computer and anything midi on one side, and your modular, analogue, bent and experimental instruments on the other. Then create something inspiring on the computer, cross the floor and play along, and then go back. They are two different worlds, but they can get along okay!

[bigtex]

[Uncle Krunkus]

It doesn't even need to be literally separated. I just find find it easier to have all my midi stuff ready to be looked after by Cakewalk on the computer.
I figure if I do it that way then when I finally build my midi->CV controller I'll feel like some great diplomatic figure breaking down the Berlin wall.
Until then it gives me two different directions to approach the actual process of doing music. (with the amount of music I've actually done lately, God knows I need as many directions as possible!! )

[bigtex]

[mosc]

Yes, a MIDI/CV/Trigger converter is very useful. Can't imagine analog without it.