… my first multitrack recording device:MT-100II …

Here is a brief history of my early music career:

1st grade – 3rd grade = private piano lessons
4th grade – 5th grade = trumpet in the school band
6th grade – 8th grade = bad 80’s Yamaha synth at home
9th grade – 12th grade = timpani, electric guitar, electric bass in the school band

In the summer of 1989, My mom bought me my first electric guitar. It was a red Fender Strat that I still own today and has morphed over time into something called the “K1”. With that guitar, I discovered that I really enjoyed writing songs.

I had a horrible Radio Shack mixer that I would plug into my tape deck and try and record my songs. The first song I wrote was called “Nuclear Toxic Sludge”. I was 14.

Someday, I’ll post it on here. I have a recording of it that I made on my tape deck with me on guitar, my best friend Dewey on vocals and the above mentioned bad Yamaha keyboard on drums.

Somehow, I discovered that there were these crazy devices that allowed you to record and overdub tracks with normal cassette tapes. I convinced my mom to help me get the Yamaha MT100II.

I spent hundreds of hours of my life in my room, making songs on that thing. Sometimes I would borrow my friend (and musical mentor) Rafe’s crappy digital effects processor and make songs like “Space Whales”.

Later, after I graduated from high school and moved to Bellingham, I did quite a bit of recording with a Yamaha MT4X. My friend Nick had one and we used it to record our demos for the band “Shed”.

When Rafe got married, I gave him the MT100II as a gift. I think it needed a new power supply or something, but it was a huge thing for me to part with.

I’ll have to pick one up on ebay or something … just to have around …

I bought a MT4X a few years back, so I guess I need a MT100II now.