Perfect Time is the band name I came up with for the project that became possible in 2004, largely due to my purchase of a Roland JV-1010 synthesiser - a remarkable little black box - in conjuction with a somewhat decent microphone through an analog to digital converter and Cubase software on a second hand Power Mac.
Spasmodically over the years since the early 1990s, with the arrival and gradual improvement of accessable music production software, I've messed about with synthesisers and building up multi track music performances using a DAW, whereas before that time I'd used a Tascam Porta One four track tape recorder, which was now relegated to the role of a four track mixer.
Early on I was using some very limited software synth sounds and some limited score software, that I can't remember the name of, on a Mac SE with 9" black and white screen, but no facility to add any live tracks. The built in synths were quickly replaced with a small Casio keyboard synth with little keys. The main benefit of this setup was in developing my arrangement skills and giving some kind of realisation of my ideas.
Moving along, the Mac SE was replaced by an improved Mac with a larger colour monitor and the Casio with a Roland JV-80, with a much improved sound, but still not very convincing and the system was still pretty clunky and time consuming. As the nineties progressed, power macs came along and the free Pro Tools for Mac OS 9, the last Mac operating system before the appearance of the original Mac OS X. I used this setup to do some editing and production work on some old band tapes, some of which will soon be found in the Vehicle section.
My music during the nineties was largely still a hobby, that I didn't often find lots of time for, but the work I did then, provided significant feedback into my development.
The music presented in this section was mostly built up using a foundation of multiple midi tracks, that I typed in via Cubase Score, played on a hardware polyphonic synth and recorded to a stereo audio track, hence the name Perfect Time - which is registered at bandname.com. Added to this foundation were recorded audio tracks of me singing or playing acoustic guitars through a microphone. I did some falsetto as well as experimenting with pitch modifying some voice tracks.
Towards the end of the Perfect Time phase in late 2007, as refelected in the last two tracks of Symbiosis, I had got myself a decent multi track, analog to digital interface and started recording live electric guitar as well. By 2009 I had set up my own rudimentary home studio and moved towards experimenting with recording small live bands.