Don Lewis’ Passion Inspired Children to Say “YES” to Music!

            

Like most innovators, Don Lewis is always thinking ahead and the occasion of his 78^th birthday last month was no different.  

“I’m reading a book called The Jazz of Physics: The Secret Link Between Music and the Structure of the Universe,by Stephon Alexander,” he said. “The next thing for me is to discover how innately we’re wired for the sensation of vibrations. I’ve always been interested in what resonates with us.” 

Lewis has…

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 TR-808 The Downbeat of Innovation

By Susan Hayes © All Rights Reserved

Percussion is the back beat, down beat, foundation for and expression of temperament in music. The evolution of Roland’s TR808 has been all that and more- its versatility inspiring new uses for the instrument, as well as a new genre of music.  

Don Lewis’s involvement with the TR808 began with Ace Tone’s original version, the FR-2L, known as the iconic “Rhythm Ace,” which he first started using in the late 1960s to add electronic…

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Don Lewis Takes on the Vocoder

By Susan Hayes

 

It is one thing to be called a pioneer, yet quite another to actually be one.

For Don Lewis, his decades-long contributions to the development of the synthesizer and related technologies like the vocoder qualify him as the real deal.  

Starting in the late 1960s, Lewis consulted behind the scenes to drive synthesizer innovation for commercial use by Hammond and Acetone. In coming decades, he contributed to development efforts at ARP, Yamaha and Roland…

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