Ballast

However modest, the sound studio that I pieced together in the mid-90s was a magical thing. To me. Magical to a guy with only one year of middle school piano under his belt and who’d only recently begun to unravel the mysteries of waveform editing.

At the heart of my poor man’s Abbey Road were two pieces of equipment … a sound module and a mixer. I’d agonized over these purchases, knowing that I needed what I was buying, but knowing also that I was buying out of my league. Moreover, the sound module was the costliest thing I’d ever paid for without assistance. One thousand dollars. A heart-stopping sum in those days.

Selling the module this morning on ebay for $87.10, I had no regrets. I’d gotten my money’s worth out of it almost 20 years ago sequencing music for children’s theater productions. Likewise the mixer that I sold through Craigs List to an energy healer in Asheville on Friday.

Both of them, the mixer and the module, had been sitting in closets and storage units since 2006 like a couple of old shirts that I knew I’d never wear again.

Reuse, recycle, you know? Waste not, want not.

Here’s the pair performing together, circa 1995.