Deep Signal Studio's Vintage Mac and PC MIDI Sequencer Lab at Vintage Computer Festival SoCal February 15-16, 2025

Author
Nick
Deep Signal Studios at VCF SoCal 2025 flyer

We are participating once again at Vintage Computer Festival SoCal on February 15-16, 2025 at Hotel Fera DoubleTree by Hilton at 100 The City Drive S in the city of Orange, California. We will have two computer based vintage MIDI sequencing stations set up for you to play with.

While the average PC user might remember MIDI as a technology adopted by the game industry for music or as a way to play renditions of pop songs which might later go on to be consider chiptunes, at the same time, both professional and ameture musicians were making real music. We'll have A MacSE FDHD with 4MB of RAM and a Pocket 386 running MS-DOS with a vintage Roland MPU-IPC-T MIDI interface in the Pocket 386 ISA expansion board. Compose electronic music the way it was done circa 1987~1991. Each station will be set up with synthesizers, drum machines and samplers, mixers and effects from the era. We will give you a crash course on the earlier form of computer-based midi sequencing. Or just hang out and chat about MIDI, synths, an old computers. On the Mac we will have Opcode EZ Vision, Vision, Steinberg Cubase, MOTU Performer and on the PC we will have Texture, Voyetra Sequencer Gold Plus, Voyetra Digital Orchestrator Pro and Cubase. After you complete your song we will record to two track, mixing it "dub style" which was how much of the underground electronic music of the time was recorded, not being mulitracked to tape. We can email you an mp3. We'll feature all of the tracks on our Soundcloud.

Day passes to the event are available for $25 per day, $40 for a weekend pass and $100 for a deluxe weekend pass bundle. Get tickets and read more about the packages at the VCF website. Once you are in the event, participation at our booth is free.

At the time of his writing here is what we plan to bring from our extensive collection of vintage synths, samplers, drum machines and effects units, which is subject to change.

Workstation 1

Pocket 386 running Texture and Mac SE running EZVision

Workstation 2



About Deep Signal Studios

Based in Long Beach, CA, Deep Signal Studios is a commercial recording studio and specializing in vintage synthesizer recording and rentals. Our collection boasts over 150 modern and vintage instruments, including synthesizer keyboards, sounds modules, samplers, drum machine and effects units spanning across the 70s, 80s, 90s and beyond. We excel at audio tape archival, digitizing both analog and digital multitrack and 2-track tape sessions for clients aiming to remix or master old recording sessions for modern DAW mixing for commercial re-releases or preservation. With over 50 media playback machines, we handle a wide range of audio and computer media transfers and can convert more than 30 different sequencer, DAW, and notation file formats from the 80s to 2000s for use in modern software.

About VCF SoCal

The Vintage Computer Festival (VCF) was created as a celebration of the history of computing. This is the 2nd year for the SoCal chapter. You’ll find retro wonderfulness in all corners of the 14,000 square feet of event space. There will be vintage computer equipment exhibits featuring original machines, pristine restorations and incredible modifications, new and original tech, an impressive assortment of accessories for many vintage computer models, entertaining and educational presentations from industry veterans, makers of retro tech accessories and enthusiast creators, vintage tech consignment, auction, and freebie tables. There will also be panel discussions and speakers and various vintage computer topics. You can watch last year's discussions here. Check out the other exhibitors that have signed up thus far. Learn more.