Who we are (the short version)

We are an innovative sound design company with more than 25 years of experience developing extremely usable audio sound sets for popular hardware and software music instruments and DAWs. Our Mindstock® sound sets may be ordered securely online on CD, DVD, Blu-ray, flash media, or download (or e-mail depending on file size); ZIP disk by special order also available.
 
Company history ... a little more in depth

Mindstock is one of the many step-children of a company established in 1983 by Christopher Laird Simmons and originally was set-up to sell "patch banks" and "sound sets" for early MIDI instruments like the Sequential Circuits Prophet 600, the Korg Poly-800 (and EX-800), Linn 9000, and Oberheim Matrix 6R. In the mid 1980s, Christopher was often out shooting photographs of indie bands during studio recording sessions for his promotion company (Mindset), and he often got requests to program synths due to his experience with analog synths (his Prophet 600 "flute" sound appeared on a lot of Southern California indie band demos of 1984/5). The project shut down circa 1990, with his last sound sets being for the venerable "affordable" Roland U-220 and Yamaha TX81Z sound modules.

More than a decade later, Simmons got back into music post-divorce, and he began making sounds for his Akai MPC-3000, Kurzweil K-2000, and Ensoniq Fizmo, among others. He offered the MPC3K sound sets in 1998 on his site (ga-ga.com), before getting sucked into the dot-com boom, and the offerings were expanded for a time to include stock/royalty free images, font sets for designers, loops, and other downloadable elements for "sound, music, and visual design." These were also sold on his ecommerce site (Digital Imaging Depot). An extensive print marketing campaign began for Mindstock® in numerous imaging and design magazines, until, again the company was put on hold due to the death of company co-founder Dr. J.L. Simmons in April, 2003.

As 2008 drew to a close, Chris decided it was time to get back to doing something he loves, which is creating unique sounds for instruments to pull more out of them than the often stodgy factory sound sets provide. Coincidentally, over the past few years he has amassed one of the largest private collections of desirable synth gear, and this $50K collection of gear forms the foundation for the new Mindstock® offerings.
 
About Christopher Simmons

Mindstock's founder, Christopher Laird Simmons, has been a fan of electronic instruments since a pre-teen, hearing music by pioneers such as Tomita, Larry Fast, and the numerous keyboard players of the 1970s using early EMS, Moog, ARP, and Oberheim gear. His first keyboard, briefly, was a Moog Minitmoog in 1976; followed later by a twin keyboard organ with built-in Leslie speaker. His first "brand new" synth was a Sequential Circuits Pro One the week they were released (he had a synth before his first car!).

Although the majority of his career has revolved around advertising, marketing, and public relations (PR), as well as graphic design and digital imaging, he has also "dabbled" in music as often as not. His first sale as a working journalist was in 1984, to Polyphony magazine (which later became Electronic Musician), for a review of the SCI 64 hardware/software sequencer running on a Commodore 64 and connected to his Prophet 600 and SCI DrumTracks. He has written widely for magazines in the imaging and design fields, and currently writes for various online publications including Music Industry Newswire.

He is a member of ASCAP, PRSA, and GAG, and former member of the DMA. He has won numerous marketing awards including a Harvey Measurement award for "most responsive advertising" for the launch campaign for MacMall®, as well as an ARPL design award from Apple Computer. He has been widely interviewed in publications as diverse as Entrepeneur, PCWorld, Chicago Post Tribune, and TrendWatch. As a digital artist his work has appeared on numerous national magazine covers, in various digital art shows (including "Bytes of Art"), and was used for the cover of the Science and Technology course catalog at Cal State Long Beach (CSULB), among others.

He survived playing in two live indie bands during the 1980s, including Project 11 with Peter Racine (who trained and toured with League of Crafty Guitarists), and Pets Gone Wild with Rick Kleffel (who wrote the user manual for the Linn 9000). "Pets..." was featured in the L.A. Times Calendar magazine (on the contents page, inside front cover) for its debut performance, and also was the L.A. Weekly "band name of the week."

His music has been widely played on radio, reviewed in Electronic Musician and elsewhere, and is available on iTunes, Napster, CDbaby, Amazon, et al (search for CD "Beserker"). He has composed music for two cable television programs (VidKidCo and Viewpoints on Video, produced by Martha Cholmo-Helmsley).

He is the CEO of Neotrope® which is the parent company for Mindstock®, California Newswire®, Send2Press® Newswire, ContextEngine®, eMediaKit™, DotComMojo™, eNewsChannels™, and is involved in both brand marketing, PR, and entertainment publishing.

Christopher has one of the most extensive private collections of collectible "modern" electronic music gear on the west coast which includes the following instruments:

• Access Virus Ti (desk/rack mount)
• Akai MPC-3000 (upgraded, pimped by FORAT)
• Akai MPC-4000 (extensive S1000/S3000 library)
• Alesis Andromeda A6 (keyboard)
• Clavia Nord Lead 3 (keyboard)
• Dave Smith Poly Evolver (8 voice, keyboard+rack)
• Ensoniq Fizmo (keyboard, with chip fix)
• Haken Continuum (half sized, custom white)
• John Bowen Solaris (S/N 0043)
• Jomox SunSyn (desk/rack)
• Kawai K5000s (keyboard, with memory upgrade)
• Korg Poly-800 (keyboard, "Moog slayer" mod, VCF in)
• Korg EX-800 (rack)
• Korg Triton Extreme 88 with MOSS (Z1)
• Kurzweil K2661 (keyboard)
• Novation SuperNova II (rack, expanded)
• Open Labs NeKo TSE (keyboard/DAW)
• Oberheim Matrix 12 (keyboard)
• Oberheim Matrix 1000 (white and black models for L/R)
• Hartmann Neuron (keyboard)
• Moog Voyager Select Series (keyboard)
• Roland V-Synth XT (rack)
• Roland XV-5050 (with SRX-07, SRX-09)
• Studio Electonics CODE 8 OD (formerly Omega 8)
• Studio Electronics SE1-x with OD mod
• Waldorf Q (rack, original yellow)
• Waldorf Q+ (keyboard, original, not "Phoenix")
• Yamaha FS1R (rack, 8op FM + formant)
• Yamaha Motif ES (with PLG150VL and PLG150AN)


Studio:

• Yamaha O2R96v2 Mixing Console
• Event 20/20 and Yamaha monitors
• Blue, Shure and Rode mics
• Quad Core Vista 64 DAW PC
• Gigastudio PC with vast library
• Various effects pedals, rack gear

Needless to say, you should be expecting to see some very interesting sound sets coming from Mindstock® in 2009, based on sampling of the above instruments!

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