Happy 25th Anniversary... with C-Lab

[n6smith]

By my reckoning.. it was exactly 25 years ago today (11.35am on Nov 14th 1987 to be exact if my bank statement from back then is accurate) to that I bought my first Atari ST and a copy of C-Lab's Creator in London..

 

I followed this with Notator about a year later... selling my copy of Creator to a fellow ST owner... but Nov 1987 was really the start of my journey with computers and making music via midi.. and the purchase of one of the first Oberheim Matrix 1000s to arrive in the UK at that time, completed my first Mono/Multi-timbral midi setup... though i did have a SC Six-Trak prior to that but it always gave me issues!

[La Playa Studio]

Thanks for the memories, I also remember the black and white C-Lab Atari days, Notator: chains of patterns linked together, no audio, everything hooked up with loads of midi cables, running hardware synths, drum machines, sync with an SRC (think that was the name), program changes flying around, CC midi control, linked up to 2 inch 30ips ampex with 24 tracks of precious audio drop ins for vocals and guitars. What has happened over the last couple of decades has been a revolution. But its SOOOOO easy now compared to then. Did we lose something? I think we did. My perfect working order minimoog now sits in a cupboard, my juno 106 propped up against a wall, my jupiter 6, S1000, S3200s, kurzweil K2000, Roland JV1080, TC Finalizer, Lexicon Reverb, Mackie d8b, Mackie 2496, all gathering dust. Now I can sit on a plane with my MBP and work on complete mixes with all the sounds I need right there in a mini 1Tb external then switch to Final Cut Pro to edit the HD video to go with it. On a 6 hour battery charge. Whilst drinking coffee.

 

What happened?

 

Important note: the things that are not gathering dust are the drum kit, bass guitar, electrics, acoustics, percussion instruments, microphones and headphones. These are crucial, and knowing how to play them, don't care how many times they try to create a 'real' sounding drum kit in software, its never the real thing.

 

btw a million thanks to C LAB and the amazing creators who started this incredible journey.