I play keyboards in Honolulu, Hawaii. I play Jazz/Funk/Rock music and love old analogs as well as the newest Physical Modeling keyboards. I'm into breath controlling them. If you're into breath controlling instruments, let's talk! I am also a software engineer. I was born and raised in Hilo, Hawaii where I played in an extremely fun band called N-Focus.
I am also a "music designer" i.e. composer for Audio Bytes, a post-production company here in Honolulu.
I also build analog pedals as a hobby. Check out my Guitar Stompbox Page!!!
Check out my High School: Hilo High.
Check out University of Hawaii at Hilo.
Check out San Jose State University.(Graduate School)
Current Projects:
Keyboards with Na Leo, Ben and Maila. Corporate band Nueva Vida, Guitar with Joy Waikoloa and Arex Ikehara, Soul-Kyo, an asian-influenced Koto "hipnotica" band with Darin Miyashiro (koto), Dayton Arima (Bass).
Check out the software.
Older projects....
Bay Area Guitarist Ken Harrill
Ken Harrill sounds like Larry Carlton, little Alan Holdsworth and Scott Henderson thrown in for good measure. Don't think that he's just these guys thrown together (although, that's awesome enough!). He's fast, smooth and clean; even when distorted! Our music will be smooth Jazz based with some funky tunes thrown in. We may play around with some acoustic stuff as well.
Import/Export (Rest in Peace)
Import/Export is gone. The music was brash, definitely fusion (Jazz/Rock), lots of improvisation, raw yet refined. I've been trying to do some of this music here.
My Live Rigs:
KEYBOARDS:
Yamaha S90ES - Great piano sounds, fat tones. Weighted action with 88 keys.
Yamaha CS6x - Yep, a "techno" keyboard, but an extremely powerful keyboard if you know how to program it right. Unfortunately it has some MIDI delay. Even more unfortunate is the fact that most keyboards suffer from this now.... Email me if you know of a powerful keyboard that has no MIDI delay when stacking sounds.
Yamaha VL1 or Sequential Pro One - These keyboards are my soloing axes. Depending on the people I am playing with, I will use one or the other. The VL1 is good for powerful bands where I need presence. The Pro One is more responsive and dynamic but has a mellower sound.
Can you tell I like Yamaha Products! :-)
Kurweil PC361 - No other keyboard is as powerful as this one. Breath controller input, powerful layering, fast response, very, very good tones.
Rolls 1 space line mixer.
Crown 650 watt power amp.
2 Yamaha cabinets fed from the Crown amp.
I'm starting to experiment with using my Mac Mini onstage. I'm writing software to address this.
Here's one of the first software releases:
CO2 MIDI Launcher
Hit a program change and a document launches. Set lists, mp3, Logic song files can be launched with your MIDI controller.
GUITAR:
Suhr Pro Series. It's _the_ guitar. Fantastic and every bit as good as the hype.
Fender Bullet - yes, one of the cheapest guitars, and one of the most fun!
Stompboxes: low and hi-gain custom pedals I designed +EH Deluxe Memory man (modified). Optional stuff: Buffer/booster box/tuner bypass box. Crybaby Wah (modified), Hornet Fuzz, Danelectro Chorus, Ibanez Programmable Distortion, Morley JD-10. I also use Line 6 stompboxes as well (Verbzilla and Echo Park).
Amps: Custom Champ, Blonde Bassman Combo, Custom Traynor YRM-1, Custom Bassman.
Speakers: 2X12 Celestion Greenbacks, WeberVST speakers, Eminence Speakers.
Dunlop .010 strings/D'Addario XL (.009) and .010 strings.
COMPUTERS:
Macintosh and Windows XP computers running Logic Audio.
Legacy rig: Macintosh running Studio Vision Pro + Galaxy Plus Editors.
My Info:
Grew up in Hilo, Hawaii. Played with various bands including the very fun N-Focus with Moon Brown, Rainbow Page, Craig Ochikubo and Sid Hopson. While playing with N-Focus, we were one of the first pioneers locally to use computer-based sequencing onstage along with some of the first use of professional drum machines (Linn Drum, Oberheim and Yamaha drum machines). Sequencer Plus and Personal Composer w/IBM PC- LIVE! Back then Craig and I were deep into sequencing and analog synthesizers as well as playing guitar. Yes, I have been sequencing since the beginning!
Received performance degree from University of Hawaii at Hilo (piano).
Moved to Bay Area (San Jose, California). Studied Electronic Music Composition with Allen Strange. Received Masters Degree in Composition from the Electro/Acoustic Program at SJSU. During this time I developed several MIDI toolkits in Pascal and C for writing sequencers and real-time MIDI control. I programmed in FORTH as well as using a language developed at SJSU called MASC written by Dan Kelley. I got to study/work/learn from tons of people including Morton Subotnick, Dan Wyman, Michael Boddicker, Larry Wendt, Randy Masters, and many others. I wrote a real-time gestural sequencer/MIDI "transforming" application as part of my studies.
Studied Jazz Piano with George Cables. Played with a bunch of people and played in Import/Export: Darryl Rowe, Ken Harrill, Chris Miller, Gus Kambeitz, James Reily and Dean Hudson. This band later became an instrumental fusion band. In the Bay Area, I mainly played Jazz/Rock aka "fusion" music as well as R&B. I played everywhere from Scramento all the way down to Monterey, CA; mostly in clubs. I was lucky to share the stage with (Nicolas Bearde, Tony Lindsay, Myron Dove, Tom Politzer, Oliver Harris, Gary Brown, Kenny Brown, Joel Griffin and many others.
Worked at Graphic Notes - an international (Australian/US) company developing music notation software (Music Publisher). I was a product specialist and tech support.
Worked at Opcode Systems Inc. - tech support/sales/R&D. While I was in tech support I was able to help some of the top studio musicians in the world. I helped develop tons of editors and librarians for various synthesizers. During this time I got to work with many synthesizer manufacturers as well as have access to the latest digital synthesizers. Later I did some work on Studio Vision Pro doing some of the 24-bit work.
Moved to Honolulu, HI working for Audio Bytes, and started building guitar pedals as a hobby.
I have written music for many commercials including:
Hilo Hattie, Ala Moana, Hawaii Dental Services, Aloha Tower Marketplace, Ward Center, Altres, Toyota, Lexus, Hawaiian Airlines, Aloha Airlines, Alu Like, Kau Inoa, Central Pacific Bank, Verizon, Pacific Resource Partnership, Finance Factors, Homeworld, Nissan, Kamehameha Schools, Hawaii Humane Society, State Farm Insurance, Foodland, KHON-TV, KITV, AIG, City Mill, Golf Hawaii, First Hawaiian Bank, Pepsi/Guam, Symantec, Servco Automotive, HMSA, McDonald's of Hawaii and many other companies.
I have also written the theme music for Golf Hawaii, Long Story Short (Leslie Wilcox), City Mill and many other shows.