With a heavy heart I learnt about the passing of my friend, the legendary sound designer Stephen Howell this morning. I first learnt about Steve’s existence through his sterling contributions to Alesis’s ill fated Fusion synthesiser that he virtually transformed with his exacting and inspiring sound sets and sample libraries. I was surprised to then discover that he was a fellow Welsh man and had formerly lived next door to my good friend and long term collaborator Tim Lewis aka Thighpaulsandra in Cardiff way back when.
Steve’s legacy stretched way beyond software and into hardware with his long term involvement with Akai Professional and their esteemed sampler line. He worked on the interface design for numerous models throughout the 1990’s and was even involved with the stupendous DPS24. Steve also had a hand in inventing pedal based looping with his idea to utilise available memory in Akai’s groundbreaking Headrush delay pedal. Steve wrote an interesting (and sad) blog entry about the death of his friend and collaborator Jack Sugino of Akai in which he explains much about his involvement.
His Kontakt based sample libraries released under his Hollow Sun moniker were an astonishing collection of innovative and unusual instruments that we used extensively in the rock opera Pop’pea. You can read about that crazy show here.
I had communicated with Steve numerous times over the internet before our first physical meeting at a gig by my band Rocketgoldstar at the tail end of 2012 in Cardiff. Steve wrote about that encounter on his blog here. From that point on, we regular communicated and we spent a fabulous and silly evening back in January this year that Steve blogged about here.
I’m so sad to learn of Steve’s untimely passing and I extend my heartfelt sympathies and love to his friends and family especially his wonderfully talented 17 year old daughter Alice. I would also like to thank Rob Puricelli (aka Failed Muso) for letting me know about Steve’s sudden illness and for keeping me informed. Rob has also opened a book of condolences on his site here.
Gaz Williams 
Lovely words, Gaz, and it truly is a terrible loss, to his family and the musical community. I’m still in shock and can’t quite believe that he’s gone.
I remember him speaking fondly of you and I’ve not met a person yet who had a bad word to say about the man, such was his personality.
He was so amazingly proud of Alice and she will be his ultimate legacy.
Gaz this is a very touching eulogy. Thanks for sharing.
Steve was a gentleman who gave freely of his time and expertise. I remember I wanted to experiment with Kontakt scripts once and make a few basic instruments and he very kindly set me up with an entire starter’s kit ready to go, making my job easy.
Always a positive contributor, always happy to share knowledge online for the good of all. He’ll be greatly missed.
Paul
Yes, thanks. My contact with Steve was quite brief but I have passed on your good words to others who did work with him over the years on the amazingly successful Akai designs.
Yes great words Gaz! Steve stayed with me, slept in the studio complete with dog each night:-). while we were making some samples for the yet to be launched S3000. Glad to have sampled a small part of your life Steve. R.I.P. No excuse for the pun, we were both from the same region, there I go again…
Thanks Blue, it is a great loss indeed. I’m sure Steve would appreciate any dark humour at his expense though!
Hei Gaz, want to invite you to watch this video … With kind regards – Ina
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