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Last Updated: 5/23/09
I suppose that I've always been interested in music to some degree - growing up on the classics of the 18th century, semi-enforced piano lessons, and a succession of radio stations (classical, jazz, Top 40 alt/rock/pop, and completely eclectic, in that order). It was only a few years ago, however, that I began to, in a manner of speaking, "take it seriously."
At this point, I was into my senior year of high school, and designing an audio documentary with a couple of college students. One of them, an exchange student from England, introduced me to the wide world of electronic music, which, unbenownst to me, was flourishing in Europe, while keeping a decidedly low profile in the states (even in its heyday, trance music was a bit of an "underground" genre, briefly peaking in popularity with the rave culture, and going back underground now that the new genres of hip-hop and dancehall reggae are disappointingly flooding the club scene). Inspired, I began to listen to DJ sets off of the BBC's Radio 1, as well as internet radio stations that carried similar material (foremost among them DJ Tornado's mixed station, which is regrettably no longer online).
A few key points influenced my journey into musical composition. I had become proficient at picking out basic melodies on an old Yamaha keyboard, but had no real way to turn them into a permanent composition. Then, one day, I came across the program Melody Assistant on versiontracker.com, and discovered in it a powerful music-sequencing engine. True, the sound quality wasn't on par with the likes of Rebirth or others, but it was a start. The first compostion I created jointly with my younger brother was entitled "The Big Mixx," and was a frenetic jumble of sound (if you want to hear what it sounded like, you can download it by clicking here).
The other key point was discovering mp3.com. I first heard about them, I believe, when they made the news by being sued for copyright infringement. When I visited the site, though, I was amazed at the huge variety of independent artists exhibiting their tracks for all to listen. I quickly found a number of excellent electronic artists, and the thought began to simmer in the back of my own head - that I should become an artist on mp3.com.
Then, one day, it happened. I was working on creating station IDs for my then-intensive project of shoutcast-based internet radio, when I ended up with what became known as Project - Modified. On a whim, I decided to create an artist and post this short bit of audio to mp3.com - and Digital Dissonance was born.
Since then, Digital Dissonance evolved into DigInt, and has since undergone a number of upgrades - from basic sound editing programs to Harmony Assistant, from Harmony Assistant to Logic Express, and from there to Logic Studio, Live, and a full-featured workstation set with a plethora of plugins and musical resources (scroll down to the bottom for a listing of my current setup). As a result, over time, you may be able to see some of the progressions in the music, from the very basic to a sound that is significantly more professional (or at least higher-fidelity). I've been doing this as a hobby for quite a number of years now, and it's been quite a lot of fun to experiment with electronic music, while at the same time creating some very unique and distinctive music.
One thing that I've really enjoyed since getting the new setup is the ability to actually to some improvised and "live" pieces and playing. Before this, the closest I could come to this was picking out a melody on my Yamaha keyboard or the house piano, scribbiling down the attendant pattern of notes on a piece of paper, and then manually entering them into the notation program, basically guessing as to the note lengths, durations, and effects, and getting the desired effect through a lot of trial and error. With this setup, however, I have both a realtime recording program and and actual keyboard controller, meaning that I can play virtually all of the instruments that I have live. Some of my more recent pieces replect this - while they end up having more mistakes on occasion (it's true that I can go back and clean up some of the notes later on, but sometimes this affects the way the piece sounds - and with one of my setups, it records straight to audio, so you either live with a minor error or do the piece all over again... and as a lot of my pieces are done on the fly, creating the exact piece over again is a bit of a feat), in certain contexts, I like the sound of some of the finished pieces more. Being able to improvise in this fashion means that instead of just sitting down and plugging a way at a project, I can really experiment with different sounds - once I've found what I'm looking for, I can either build a piece around it, or use different phrases played live in conjunction with quantization and other sources to build into a song. The new technology surrounding music is incredible in what you can do with it, especially for the price - I can't admit to having a hugely expensive studio setup, but for what I do have, I've been able to create some incredible sounds, and I'll probably get my hands on more in the future, as the technology continues to improve and expand. Computer music is a brave new world, and I would encourage anyone with any aptititude for music whatsoever to give it a try. For no, or very little money, anyone with a PC can get their hands on an incredible array of technology, and create near professional-quality sounds from the comfort of their own home. Just as digital photography has brought high-level tehcnology to the masses, computer music setups bring the same thing to anyone who wants to create music, and once people really start taking advantage of it, I have a feeling that it has the potential to revolutionize both the music industry itself, as well as how we think of music and our relationship to it.
I originally named my "band" Digital Dissonance, as a sort of in-joke about my philosophy towards music. I guess I'm the kind of person who loves experimenting with music, and I invariably love listening to the results that I get, as they're tailor-made to my musical taste (I created them, after all). However, my musical taste probably differs for that of other people, and not all of my music is "hi-fi" enough for them. As a result, I invariably take on the stance that I'm going to promote my music, regardless what anyone things of it. Perhaps that's the stubbornness in me speaking, but I'm going to make music my own way, and I'm not going to compromise what I do to satisfy popular tastes or the whims of a random critic. If you like my music, great - I love working on these musical projects, and I'm glad that you are able to enjoy them along with me. And if you don't like it - well, no one's cramming it down your throat, and there's a whole world of music out there that you can trawl to find soemthing that better suits your taste.
Of course, that's not to say that Digital Dissonance is about anti-music. Digital Dissonance was then, and is now, the results of my continuing experimentation with various types of music and musical techniques. Will it ever create music that sounds like a mainstream band? Maybe, but probably not. Will it create music that all people will deem listenable? Absolutely not. But will it continue to showcase a variety of my own original music? Absolutely. I enjoy making music, and I enjoy listening to the products that I come up with, and that's what matters to me. The fact that I can share my passion for music and experimenting with sound with others is an added benefit, and I'm glad that other people have the opportunity to download and enjoy my music. However, I don't create music with the idea that other people are going to listen to it. I create music that sounds good to me, fulfills my needs, and satisfies my tastes and my penchant for playing around with music... and that's good enough for me.
You may have noticed that over time Digital Dissonance became DigInt. This happened for a variety of reasons, one of which had to do that I was actually creating some music that wasn't particularly obtuse or lo-fi. DigInt, in a way, is still intended to relate the original purpose of the name, but in a more abstract way. DigInt is the name on my music - but it also stands for having fun, and enjoying limitless sonic possibilities. DigInt is music the way I like it, and the way I think it should be - free, fun, and at the very least, interesting to listen to. Or, as a quote in a mixset I got a while back states, "I am mixing up these CDs, really take a lot of time and determination, but to all of you that dig this stuff..."
All production is done in a small-to-medium-sized room, with no acoustic treatment whatsoever. The music is EQed on a pair of Altec Lansing MX5021 multimedia speakers (and occasionally using a pair of Sennheiser HD 280s). While some songs have been "mastered" to an extent using various compressors, I am a long way from being a mastering expert. So, that being said, be aware that the tracks are not all uniform, and are all produced differently, according to the way I hear them on my setup. As a result, some tracks may have different volume levels, or sound different on your own setup. Personally, I've had pretty good luck listening to my tracks on everything from the mostly shot speakers in a twenty-year-old car to a reasonable-quality home stereo system, so I would say that my music generally sounds okay on most setups - you just might have to ajust the volume a bit.
Digint is a semi-electronic artist and netlabel, working entirely with computer-based music in a variety of styles. Just me, some computer synths, sequencers, and sound editors, a good helping of inspiration, an immense amount of determination, and just a tiny bit of insanity, creating stuff for your ears.
I believe that webpages are meant to be designed to provide for the free flow of content and information to the viewer in the most straightforward and acessible manner possible. I would infinitely prefer a site with decent visual appeal and easy, obvious navigation than a "polished" corporate-style site so crammed with links and information as to be overwhelming. Unfortunately, with corporate pages, one too often is so deluged with information and confusing design that it is nearly impossible to find what you are looking for. Simply put, when a visitor visits one of my websites, I want them to be instantly able to find and access the exact content they desire. For a more detailed explanation, you can read my paper on the subject.