My name is Paul McCabe. I’m a family man, musician, composer, sound designer, and technologist. Professionally, I’m SVP of Research & Innovation at Roland Corporation Japan, where I lead a team called Roland Future Design Lab (RFDL); R&D with a horizon measured in decades, not product cycles.
“Thoughts from the surface…” takes its name from the photo above: an astronaut standing on the moon, filing a report from somewhere far enough removed to see things at a different scale. That’s the vantage point I’m aiming for here: thinking about where music, technology, and culture are headed from a bit of distance, rather than reacting to whatever’s loudest this week (although I may drop to near-earth orbit from time-to-time!).
The site is organized in two directions. Music & Technology is where I write about AI, music tech, provenance, and the future of how we’ll create; the throughline of most of my professional life. Sidebar is everything else: Star Wars, hockey, gear I’ve tested, whatever else has been on my mind. I don’t see much reason to separate them entirely, as the same curiosity drives both.
Posts show up when I have something worth saying, not on a schedule. I always welcome other perspectives — thanks for stopping by.
Paul