I’m kind of embarrassed about today’s post as I’m going to share my early attempts at ‘reference’ monitoring in my first studio build. Now remember I was 17 years old, broke as a tramp, but as excited as a Labrador pup. I suggest that if you are drinking near your computer you put the drink down and swallow any that may be in your mouth, as I wouldn’t want to be responsible for you trashing your computer.

My first monitors (now that has a ring that I think Fisher Price could jump on) were a pair of Realistic Minimus 7 from Tandy, powered by a used Sony hi-fi amp that didn’t always work unless you hit the side of it, as it had a sticky relay on it when it first turned on. I think the whole system cost me about £200 in 1983, that’s around £470 in today’s money - so a price of any mid-range monitors could be got for the same price. It kind of makes me want to weep when I think what we got then and what you could get now.

Anyway, now I know it was a hi-fi set-up, but did I care? Not at all, I was banging out 3 demos a day. Did it sound any good, were my mixes good - again I couldn’t tell you. When you’re 17 yrs old and going to be the next John Lennon, then anything is possible.

If you want to know more about these acoustic masterpieces there’s a cool site here

Previously on my journey - where it all began, the Tascam 244