Daniel Sofer

Daniel Sofer was a producer and keyboard player from the West Coast. He worked for Oberheim Electronics where he wrote the manual and recorded the drum samples for the DMX drum machine. Daniel Sofer's first productions were made in the electronic music studios, first at Paul Beaver's studio Parasound, then at the Mills College Tape Center in Northern California where he studied with Robert Ashley and Terry Riley, but mostly just experimented with electronic rock music. There he had access to large modular Moogs and multi-track tape recorders so he would just record everything by himself. One of these pieces ended up in a Laserium laser light show, the same people that later toured with Tangerine Dream. He ended up working for Laserium and programming several light shows. He did a piece for Laserium called Silk Aurora. He also played with several electronic bands in Los Angeles at that time (1976-1981) including LEM and another band called Radience with now famous new age synth musicians Steve Roach and Richard Burmer. He had an Oberheim synth and ended up working for Oberheim as well; there he wrote owners manuals (OB-8, DMX Xpander), did demos, and made the drum samples for the DMX. His muscial influences at that time can be found at the German Electronic Music (Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, etc.) and of his previous synthesizer band, LEM. Somewhere around this time he met Cletus Anderson from Saturn Records who heard one of his demos. He did some sessions for Saturn with his Oberheim gear and was the musical mastermind behind Ice T´s "Coldest Rapp" , "Scratch Motion" and Unknown DJ´s first 12inch "Rhythm Rock Rap" and "100 Speakers" He invited Unknown to Oberheim´s studio to record some scratches for the DMX. Unknown and he ended up doing a bunch of tracks together like "Beatronic" and the West Coast Classic "808 Beats" on the Techno Hop Label. He also met Lonzo Williams through Cletus and worked with him on productions like "Surgery" and "Juice" for the World Class Wreckin Cru. Daniel Sofer typical DMX electronic Sound and his musical creativity shaped the early West Coast Rap Scene in a unique manner. His nickname "Perfect Tommy" he get from Unknown were based on his "Perfect Timing".