The Bedroom Studio
Brenda and I moved to Nashville in July of 1981. I built a 4 channel mixer in a little metal project box from Radio Shack and started turning our bedroom into a recording studio. Brenda was thrilled.
I had a 2 track Sony reel to reel tape deck that I had disconnected the erase head on so I could get sound on sound. I would mix these 2 tracks down to cassette while recording a live track.
Then I'd take that cassette mix and dump it back to one track of the Sony and repeat the process. It sounded awful and it was soooo much fun.
The whole thing was a montage of homemade and consumer electronic gear, but I've got to say that I probably had more fun making music with this setup than any of the fancy equipment that followed.
Audio:
One day I brought a computer home from work. This was before the IBM PC in about 1983. It was a CP/M based machine by a company called Vector Graphics . (they didn't survive)
It had a floppy diskette drive R/W diagnostic test that sounded like one of those percussion fish-looking things. I stuck a mic in front of it and let the tape roll for about 3 minutes. I used a cookie sheet for a snare drum and added bass guitar and some sped up trumpet and vocals just 'cause I could.