[sdiy] RE: how it all started

[Daniel Araya]

I have always been interested in how electronic and mechanical stuff
works, how they look inside and what one can make from the parts. 
My first memory of electronics is of me and my grandfather disassembimg
an old transistor radio when i was about 3 years old.
Electronic music for me came in to the picture about 88' (age 12) when
I heard the first acidhouse-music and at the same time got an Amiga 500
computer. I soon got tired of just playing games so i copied some
tracker programs from a friend an built a simple 8-bit sampler. I wanted
those wonderful filtersounds of house and techno but sampling them in
8-bit didn't cut it. I found my first analog synth in 90', a korg 800DV
for 10$ that I fixed, modified and hooked up to a homebuilt "robot
interface" that was controlled by a weird piece of software written in
AMOS-basic... That was my firs sequence, 10 notes (I had 10 I/O lines!).
:) I think I still have that melody on tape somewhere!
In 92' I found some of my mothers old Tangerine Dream-records and also
found some friends in school that shared my interest in synths and
sounds...this led us to the (late) discovery of the modular
synthesizer.
At age 19 I had built a twenty+ module Formant as my final project in
school (got an A!), bought about ten analog synths and drummachines, and
my focus had shifted totally from computers to electronics and audio.

Now I work as technician in the broadcast industry, a great job that I
got almost solely because of knowlege gathered when building and
repairing synths!

/Daniel, Sweden