Steelpan for the digital age.
Johann Chuckaree's Indigisounds redefines the national instrument!
At the age of 29, Johann Chuckaree, runs different businesses and juggles that with a demanding performance schedule.
His advice? Surround yourself with the right people and learn from your mistakes.
A well-known pannist, Chuckaree does not have a business background but, in addition to his career as a solo musician, he is also the co-founder and business development manager at Indigisounds, and the founder of JC Networking and Security Ltd.
“I’m still learning as I go along to make the right decisions. A lot of the successes and a lot of the good came from failing because of poor choices due to inexperience but, as I go further in all the businesses, I’ve started going on the right track,” Chuckaree told Business Day.
His most unique business was Indigisounds, an online company that digitises acoustic instruments and creates production software that allow the instruments to be played on a computer or keyboard.
“Once you get the library or the samples on the computer you can plug in any instrument that can be plugged into a computer and actually manipulate the tones. So, for example, the keyboardist or producer can use the keyboard to trigger the notes so authentic pan notes are coming out.”
If you’ve ever used a keyboard you may have noticed several buttons labelled with different instruments that, once pressed, allowed the user to press a key to get the sound of that instrument. However, sometimes the notes sound wrong and Chuckaree and his business partner David Chow, refused to let that happen to local, indigenous instruments.
By Janelle DeSouza
Trinidad and Tobago Newsday Newspapers
