I've written quite a bit of music, in a variety of styles and even have a musical show in its early stages. For anyone who's interested, I've started to list some of my more interesting and/or vintage music equipment on Alex Annesty's music equipment page. In response to feedback from a number of people, I've expanded the sections on the Yamaha DX7s synthesizer. To date, I've produced specific pages covering the following:
- How to replace the battery in a Yamaha DX7s
- How to restore Yamaha DX7s factory voice and performance data
- How to run the Yamaha DX7s internal diagnostics
The six songs available on this page are examples of some material I wrote and recorded a few years ago. They were originally recorded around 1990 on a 4-track Porta Studio and mixed down to 2-track stereo cassette, so the sound quality isn't great. I didn't have the benefit of compressors, limiters, or any other studio gadgets, other than a very primitive reverb unit, so the sound is rather amateurish I'm afraid. Also, the keyboard parts were actually played on a basic Yamaha PSS-680 home keyboard, with some voices coming from a Yamaha CX5MII/128 music computer, a fact which is particularly obvious in the 'jazz quintent' bridge of 'Dream a little more'; I wrote the arrangement for a real jazz band, but you need a bit of imagination to hear the FM synth voices as anything other than electronic. When I get round to re-recording them, I'll upload the 'new improved' versions.
Enough of the excuses, here are the songs:
Please feel free to let me know what you think, but be gentle with me.