History - 3
The Digital Age
After the creation of CONCEPTVM UMBILICVS way back in 1986 Mr Concept continued to make recordings of the finest quality on the Portastudio for some time. A new drum machine was added to the arsenal of equiment and we recorded several tracks with it. Meanwhile The City of Concept was growing and developing into the massive metropolis that we live in today. As part of that development a new levitated tramway was needed to connect the workers luxurious living areas with their city based 'Centers of Creativity' and/or the pub. Unfortunately the planned route was right through Concept City Studio 2 and so everything was packed away and put into storage.
The levitated tramway opened in 1990 and was named 'Route Marionaro'. The contents of Studio 2 were rehoused into Studio 3 which was located in an affluent suburb area of CONCEPT CITY. Unfortunately the engineers had trouble remembering how to connect everything up again and the Portastudio never really regained its importance as a creative tool for the genius mind of Mr Concept.
Mr Concept struggled with the inner turmoil of stifled creativity and unfinished work.
The world was advancing rapidly technologically and computers were becoming more powerful year by year. The
engineers at CONCEPT CITY realised that if they could distract Mr Concept for long enough then maybe they
could create a completely new methedology of recording and forget all about connecting the old studio up again forever ny-a-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaa! Soon they had a strategy - connect a computer to a musical keyboard and let the computer control the keyboard. All Mr Concept would need to do would be type in a few numbers in boxes and new tunes would roll off the production line and his stiflement would be no more and they would be off the hook. They worked incessantly both night and day trying to develop this wonderful dream but got nowhere. Meanwhile Mr Concept bought an Atari ST and a cheap Yamaha keyboard with MIDI and was soon creating wonderful new music. This brought us the tune that is Autumn.
Mr Concept was fired with enthusiasm and decided that all of the remaining music created on the Portastudio would be released on a cassette and he would call it '37'. A master tape was labelled and the first track 'Open Up The Network (Reprise)' was written and recorded and placed on the master tape. And that's as far as it got. For Mr Concept became pregnant with wife and child and his creative stiflement was no more for he had created the best thing ever - children!
Some Years Later....
The world had changed. Especially the world of the computer. The PC was King, and the King had a sound card, and hard drive, and a CD-Burner, and Windows, and a door and a f***in roof - yeah - pull the other. And Mr Concept's creative stiflement had come back, only this time on the left side. He had heard, from a far off land, that there were computer programs that could be used to create music like in the old days with the Portastudio. He would be able to play his guitar and record it on the PC. And the PC could play samples like the old UK101, and it could do MIDI, and everything that Mr Concept had ever dreamed of! Mr Concept plucked up the courage to visit a downtown CONCEPT CITY music store. It was empty and two bored assistants listened to Mr Concept's description of the software 'Holy Grail' he was searching for. They nodded as each feature was listed and said 'yep' to let him know that they understood. Mr Concept expected the worst but was thrilled when they both looked at him, then looked at each other, and shouted 'ACID ROCK!'. An initial order of twenty copies was placed and within days the engineers were installing it at the Concept City Test Plant for approval. The Portastudio was moved to one side to make more room, and then later put back in its box for a few days, and then even later forgotten.
This was indeed the dream application that Mr Concept had hoped for... within hours he was creating new tunes with this wonderful software. It was sooo easy using all the supplied loops. Unfortunately every other user of Acid Rock was doing the same and you would hear the same drums and riffs in other people's songs. So Mr Concept started going through his record collection and making his own samples by recording small snippets of sound from them onto the computer. Another source of samples is Computer Music Magazine where each month they give away a couple of thousand samples for free!
And so, over the next three years, new recordings were gradually created. Time was limited, what with the cloning and everything, but Mr Concept gradually learned how to make music in this new way. The early tunes contain quite a lot of ready made samples and Mr Concept wanted to put more of his own stamp on any future recordings and so decided to create a CD with the material so far and draw a line in the sand. The CD 'Electric Gates of Distinction' was made with this early computer created music but remained unreleased as there might have been copyright issues with the samples used - you be the judge!
At around the same time Mr Concept rounded up all the remaining tracks from the Portastudio years and finished off the '37' project, but instead of a cassette he created it as a CD. Again it remains unreleased - except for you dear Listeners...
And so - line drawn in the sand and everything wrapped up Mr Concept sits at the dawning of a new era in his life. He looks back at the past and then turns his gaze forward. 'Will there be a future' I hear you sigh....