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ABOUT / WHY THIS EXISTS

Before Groove Machine, there was Logic by Machine.

I’ve been making electronic music since the 1980s. Groove Machine is the free music tool I wish I’d had at the start.

Ciarán Paul Roche as a child around 1979, holding a skateboard, collaged inside an old television with Cheeky annuals.
c. 1979 Me, a skateboard, too much padding—and the Cheeky annuals. Made from my old photograph with a little help from AI.

THE SHORT VERSION

I wanted a Moog.
I got a Casiotone.

When I was a kid, all I wanted for Christmas was a Moog. I wanted to be one of those cool guys behind the keyboards, making the sounds I heard from Vangelis and Jean-Michel Jarre.

There was one small problem. We couldn’t afford one. Santa, apparently, had limits.

What my mother could afford was a little Casiotone. It was more plink-plonk than outer space, but it was mine, and I made music on it. That started my love of old synths and keyboards.

In the 1980s, machines such as the Yamaha CS-80 and Roland TR-808 might as well have been on the moon. I moved on to full-size Yamaha home keyboards because they sounded great and were affordable. You used what you had. I still do.

LOGIC BY MACHINE

Sound before screens.

Electronic music and noise made at home: machines, tape, repetition and useful accidents.

  1. Making electronic music at homeKeyboards, tape and whatever I could get my hands on.
  2. Logic by Machine goes onlineOriginal music, edited archive film and images—now a public YouTube archive.
  3. Three synths. Three amps. One iPhone.Played live. No DAW, no editing and no second take.

The name came from a 1962 film about computers and the human mind. I liked the question inside it: where does the machine stop and the human begin?

Listen to Logic by Machine Open the music archive

WHY IT IS FREE

There shouldn’t be a barrier between an idea and making a noise.

I built Groove Machine because I wish I’d had it then. It is free because the point is to remove the barrier, not move it somewhere else.

No account. No paywall. Open it, press play and make a beat.

Hopefully it sparks in someone else what that little Casiotone sparked in me: a love of old synths and keyboards—or simply ten happy minutes making a racket. Both count.

So here it is. Make beats. Have fun.

Ciarán Paul Roche / Logic by MachineCiaranRoche.com
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