[ WM ] Hey Jim , it ' s great to sit down and chat with you . Thanks for joining us !
[ Jim Daneker ] Great to spend some time with you !
[ WM ] Music has been your life for the past 40 years or so . Where did you start , where have you been , and where are you now ?
[ Jim ] Man , it ’ s been a lifelong journey . I started banging on the piano as a toddler , and by the time I was 6 or 7 , I was picking out melodies by ear . That got my parents ’ attention and they figured I should have lessons , so a family friend who went to our church started trying to teach me . She ’ s going to have extra stars in her crown I think , because I must ’ ve been a royal headache ! I just could not grasp the written page , but I could play anything by ear ; she put up with that for 5 years and I made zero progress . Once the lessons stopped and I began listening and learning on my own , I really took off .
Funny thing about that : my piano teacher ’ s sons were in a rock band , and their basement was packed with gear . One night they hosted a church youth group hang , and we all ended up down there . Right in the middle of it all was a Yamaha DX7 and a Prophet 5 - the two “ superstar ” synths of the early-mid 80s . They let me loose , and those few hours were like a visit to another planet . I was mesmerized , and I will never forget that .
Being a kid in the 70s and coming of age in the 80s - THE decade for synth pop - I was completely obsessed with synthesizers . I was constantly listening to pop radio and reading Keyboard Magazine cover to cover , over and over again . That was my education .
At the same time , Dad was a pastor so I was raised in the church . I had a front row seat to the birth of “ contemporary Christian music ” and while I didn ’ t listen to a ton of it , there were two artists that really got my attention : Amy Grant , and to a much bigger extent , Michael W . Smith . They wrote incredible pop songs that happened to have positive , inspiring lyrics from a Christian perspective . Michael ’ s music was very progressive and full of creative synth work , so that also hooked me right away . I was a massive fan and dreamed of working for him someday , but that felt like a pipe dream for a teenager who lived 800 miles from Nashville .
Fast forward to May 1995 : I took a big leap of faith and moved to Nashville . My first job was driving a truck around the country and setting up gear for DC Talk , who was huge at the time . All the while , I was sending demos to Michael ’ s management , hoping to get a shot at his next tour . The phone rang six months later , and I was asked to build the elaborate computer / keyboard system that ran the show - a huge responsibility for an unknown 22-year-old kid . A year later , I graduated to the band , and I ’ ve been his keyboard player / musical director for 26 years now . The other 270 days a year , I ’ m quite busy with my own music and software projects .
[ WM ] Incredible . So from the DX7 and Prophet 5 in the basement , you ’ ve surely expanded your gear collection over the years . Can you give us a studio rig rundown for your go-to instruments for sound design and producing ?
[ Jim ] The studio is an ever-changing synth paradise : there are usually 15 to 20 synths in here on average . I have my “ 80s icons ” - my original DX7 and a DX7IIFD , a pair of TX802s ( DX7II ’ s in a rack ), a Roland D-50 , and an Ensoniq VFX . The rest are a mashup of vintage and modern analogs like the Sequential