JIMIMDI

Back in the days when I was rocking an EMU SP-12, a Casio FZ1, and a 1/4" 8-track Reel-to-Reel tape machine, future multi-platinum award winning writer and producer Sam Hollander created the moniker
"Jimimidi" for me during the many hours we spent formulating ways to make sample mash-ups, harmonic and vocal experimentation, and new song forms fit into coherent moments.
Given that much of my programming and sample work at the time with Dr. Nerve, Bobby Previte, a variety of aspiring rappers and MC's was equally a dive into the unknown, the name stuck.


We're talking the late 1980's and early 90's.
In those days, sampling and MIDI programming was a nascent field and the tools were primitive, time consuming, and extremely expensive by today's standards. We created our own sample catalogs, screens were small, computers were slow and software prone to crash. Time stretching and pitch shifting was a completely hand crafted and hit-and-miss endeavor (although the results were often surprisingly fresh and original). Loops? We made them, traded them, and saved them on floppy disks or DAT tapes.

Electronic drums were equally a challenge.
Choices were limited as was the technology, pads were hard as wood covered with rubber (that's actually what most were), things took for ever to set up and get ready, sounded terrible without specific audio gear, and when your gear crashed (particularly on stage), you were in for some real surprises and an education about performance under pressure.

While building a career in NYC, performing and touring, doing programming sessions, engineering and operating Skyelab studios with multi-platinum engineer Arty Skye, and beginning a contracting/coordination catalog, "JIMIMIDI" stuck, and my programming space became "JimiMidi's House Of Swing." 

 

To this day, if I ever answer the phone or get a text and the first word is "Midi," I know that I'm about to be honored with some wisdom from the "21-Hit Wonder" himself.