profile

My name is Silas Reinagel. I'm 24 years old and currently I reside in Northern California, very close to San Francisco.

My artist alias "TheoConfidor" is a compound nickname combining the Greek word Theos, with the English word Confide. When put together (Theo-Confidor) it basically describes me a person who trusts in God. God is the center of my life, both in the fact that I depend on Him for life and provision, and also He is the guiding force for almost everything I do. It's because of Him that I became a musician, and gave me a passion for art.

Though I dabbled with music as a child, taking the obligatory piano lessons and playing in a handbell choir with my family, music didn't come alive for me until I picked up a guitar after graduating from high school. One of my best friends in high school played guitar at my church's youth group, and I wanted to be able to play and lead worship songs, as well. I received an acoustic guitar from my parents for my graduation present. In September of 2004 my journey as a musician began in earnest. Little by little the world of music began to unlock itself to my receptive mind. Chords and scales, combined with rhythms and timing all came together in way that I had never understood before. The more I learned, the more I realized how much I didn't know, and since then I have been passionately pursuing musical arts. In August of 2005 I began playing bass guitar, which has now become my primary and preferred instrument.

My interest in video game remixing and instrumental music is not coincidental. Though my youth and teen years, I was an avid gamer, playing whatever I could get my hands on. There were many tunes that were very catchy and stuck in my head for years. In high school I discovered OCRemix, a site dedicated to arranging or "remixing" various video game tunes. Slowly I began to see video game remixing as a way to pay tribute to tunes that I know and love and as a way to build my skills as a musician. My first real remix was entered into a music competition called Dwelling of Duels in November of 2005. Looking back, it was a very amateur piece of music, but slowly with time, the help of other artists, and lots of hard work, I've been getting better.

As a person I love variety and complexity, which you will see very clearly in listening to some of my music. When I began, I rarely wrote any two pieces that in a similar style back-to-back. Now, I've found more a coherent style that expresses my taste in musicality more precisely. While my pieces are still widely divergent, most of them fit with the genre of progressive rock. I enjoy employing a wide range of instruments, fusing rock music with orchestral elements and synthesizers. Keys changes, time signature changes, complex rhythms and prominent melodic lines are all staples of my present style. My music is both accessible and complex, simple enough for an average listener to enjoy and yet nuanced enough that experienced musicians will have plenty to figure out.

gear

Computers:

Studio PC

Used for all sequencing, recording all instrument tracks, serves as host for all plugins, primary machine for all mixing and mastering. Athlon 64 x2 4200+, 2 GB RAM, Win XP

Instruments and other music hardware:

  • Lakland 55-01 5-string bass guitar
  • Ibanez Artcore AFS75 electric guitar
  • Casio WK-1800 midi-keyboard
  • M-Audio Oxygen 8 v2 midi controller
  • Crate RFX30 30-watt guitar amp
  • Shure SM57 instrument microphone
  • StudioProjects VTB1 microphone pre-amp

Software:

  • FL Studio 8
  • Superior Drummer 2.0
  • ezDrummer
  • ezx Drumkits from Hell
  • CronoX3 Synth
  • NI Komplete 3
  • Rob Papen's Blue Synth
  • EWQL Symphonic Orchestra Platinum
  • Firestorm