My musical background goes way back. As a kid I took five years of piano lessons, then "home-schooled" myself in picking out tunes through high school, when I got involved with a "bad crowd" and joined a band. (Best move of my high school career...) Since we had several horn players in the band (in addition to the typical ensemble of guitarists and drummers), we named ourselves "Pittsburgh" as a parody of the band named Chicago whose music we covered (along with the likes of Blood, Sweat & Tears, Joe Cocker, the Stones, and Led Zeppelin).
Since then, I've dabbled in home recording, employing various incarnations of a Mac-based studio with a variety of keyboards, MIDI sound generators, and software. My instrument collection over the years has included everything from an Electro-Harmonix "Mini-Synth" and a cheesy Roland "Organ/Strings" keyboard to a Prophet 5 and an 88-key digital piano. Currently, I'm using my iMac as the centerpiece of my studio--Logic Studio is used to generate pretty much all the sounds, with MIDI keyboards controlling the show and a TASCAM FW-1804 serving as the audio/MIDI interface. When I get together on occasion to jam with my old high school friends, my rig consists of a MacBook running Mainstage and a modest MIDI keyboard, passing everything through a FocusRite Saffire LE.
