R is for RECORDER

I bought it from a guy who only live about nine miles away from me but whom I never knew until we went to university together. Even then he was really only an acquaintance but happened to be an acquaintance with something that I liked. I should say that covet is probably the wrong word to use here but the thought had crossed my mind that it mightn't be so far off the mark. He was into hi-fi in a big way. I hadn't even knocked the door. But someone told me that he might have a tape recorder for sale. Not just an ordinary tape recorder but a big upright one that held tow large reels and was the closest thing to having a recording studio that existed. He used it for making recordings of his albums so as not to have to play the vinyl discs and preserve their quality while listening in perfect stereo to the big recorder. But he just didn't see the potential in the machine, probably because he wasn't interested in playing music in an instrument sort of way. I had researched for months how to be able to record more than one instrument playing a piece of music and so sound like a one man band and all roads had only led me to one affordable solution, the Akai 4000 and suddenly it lay directly in my path, though someone else was still holding it! It didn't take much persuasion to make a student part with a peripheral possession for about £100 and I didn't need any time to make a decision either.

It was a great buy, though not the Rolls Royce of recorders at the time, it lay somewhere neatly below a Teac reel recorder and far above the old Marconi recorder that lay underneath the record player in our good room. Still, it was beast and not portable in an ipod sort of way, being about the size of the average computer tower but the weight of an a 32 inch television. However, for years it did the job and the beauty of it was that even though it recorded on two tracks, you could either record them separately and make a beautiful stereo picture or you could record on just one track and 'bounce' it to the other channel while adding a second instrument. For months that was how I spent much of my spare time, experimenting with different instruments and voices and building up the whole thing until I sounded like a full band. However there were drawbacks, the main one being that every time a track was bounced, the quality of the new track was not as good but the amount of tape hiss increased. By the time I had completed six or seven bounces, the track and the hiss were in direct competition for my attention and there certainly wasn't any clarity in the recording. But I kept them and in retrospect I now see just what an important learning experience the whole thing became and while the sound quality was never anything other than mediocre, the music quality began to improve the more I played and even now some of those old recordings hold a special place in my heart.

Richard was an expert in recording and on several Sunday afternoons he and I would meet up in our living room and attempt to make our own particular version of a song. We were always full of good intentions but when we sat down to it, we could never think what song to record so we ended up with such classics as 'I'll fly away' and the old Kristofferson hit 'Help me'. The quality was so much better for two reasons. First, Richard knew what he was doing and secondly we just played live and never bounced any tracks. But I learnt form such a master and got better. HE went on to work for the BBC and though illness claimed his life very early, I was always thankful that he had crossed my path and showed me the way.

You know I don't consider myself anything special, especially when I look at the great men of faith in Bible times and even in our modern day. I don't even consider myself special in my achievements compared to those who have become successful entrepreneurs, politicians or enterprising businessmen. I'm not the Rolls Royce of human beings in any field but thankfully in God's eyes, I am every bit as special as any other human being. What a lovely thought to cherish. So I look at what He has given me and I try to utilise that as best I can and in the way I think He would want me to do so. And I'm thankful that even amidst the hiss of everything else that surrounds my life, He can still hear and see me loud and clear and is pleased with what He sees. I'm thankful too that he has directed many individuals along my way so that I can learn from them and be more successful for Him and I'm thankful more than anything that I took that step, even when I knew so little and asked Him to be my Saviour.

I never use the Akai reel recorder any more. I've moved on to other devices as my knowledge and experience have increased and as man's technology has improved but that grounding has never left me. At this Christmas time, as we hear so much negativity about the offence that the Nativity might cause to others, never forget those words from Ecclesiastes, 'Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, I find no pleasure in them.' Remember it's not the life that you have but what you do with it!