MajorOscillator was originally a SynthWave/RetroWave alias of producer and sound designer James High. But the focus shifted to sound design for hardware synthesizers in 2019, and the name was shortened to MajorOSC.
James' love for sound design and synthesizers dates back to the late 80's. Even though he chose drums as his primary instrument throughout childhood and adolescence, he was never without a synthesizer growing up. In high school, he formed a Jazz and Funk band called the Funk'oNauts. After graduating, he played in various college bands and professional Jazz combos and toured the Midwest. With the increasing popularity of Napster however, music was not looking like a stable path. James decided to put music school aside and try something completely new. He served 6 years in the US Navy, based out of San Diego. The Navy allowed him to financially support his love of music production. He invested in recording equipment and several synthesizers, spending countless hours of his off duty time reading books, composing, producing and learning the intricacies of sound design on a synthesizer. By 2008, he was on beatport with his first release, "balance point" with remixes from Hernan Cerbello (Anjunadeep) and Art Patrice (Synthetic Arts Records). James' music was focused primarily in genres of electronic dance music, having scattered releases in the mid 2000's on numerous progressive house labels based in the UK and other parts of Europe.
These days, James is settled down and married with 2 kids. He works a day job, but still finds time to push his sound design and music forward. (Being married just means he's limited to owning only a few hardware synths at a time, to prevent his wife from killing him). In 2019, James launched his website MajorOSC.com, a site dedicated to providing highly polished and stylized patches for popular hardware synthesizers for aspiring producers and synthesizer enthusiasts. His first patch collection, Shockwave, for the Novation Peak, was released in July, receiving praise from the likes of GeoSynths, Calc, from Novation, as well as Dave Spiers, co-founder of Gforce Software (Minimonsta, Imposcar). James' current project is a follow up to the PULSE patch collection for the DeepMind 12. MajorOSC will also be releasing patch banks for the upcoming ASM HydraSynth, as well as a specialized edition of ShockWave, for the novation summit.
James still manages to find time working with Plus Plus Records as a consultant, providing sound design assistance as well as occasional remixes for the Label's lead artist, Jason Bay, aka Garden Party.
2019 has shaped up to be an exciting year for James and MajorOSC.com. Lots more to look forward to.
