Graduate Spotlight: Brad Giorio

Brad Giorio, who earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering technology in December 2010, can trace his career path all the way back to 1992 when the drummer of his band, Lovehammer, quit to move to Washington, D.C., Giorio, who was then studying music at Henry Ford Community College, didn't want to abandon the songs that the band - which practiced three days a week for eight hours a day - had worked so long on. So Giorio set off on a journey to reproduce the sound of the band's drummer that would take him several years and eventually lead him to the Wayne State College of Engineering.

Luckily, Giorio had recorded the band's songs on 4-track tape, so he could easily separate the drum track from the others. "I didn't know if I'd ever need them," Giorio says. "But it just so happened I did." Giorio listened to the tracks over and over and then programmed them into a sequencer in MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) format that would then be sent to a drum unit to reproduce the sounds.

Giorio and his remaining bandmates spent the next year and a half recording their music. "When I got into the studio I used this sampled drum unit with pre-packaged drum sounds in it," says Giorio. "This doesn't sound like what drums sound like. The 4-track recording sounded better because it used a real drummer. The drum sound on the CD was a real disappointment."

In search of a more authentic drum sound, Giorio began experimenting with the drum tracks he had programmed originally. He realized he could take the sampled drum unit, which produced the synthetic drum sound he disliked, completely out of the process. Giorio devised a way to send the MIDI signals directly to a solenoid (a device that can push or pull a rod up or down when a current is applied to it) which would then strike a drum head, producing real acoustic drum sounds. Giorio spent years and more than $5,000 on the Robo Drummer, completing it in 1998.

While the idea of the Robo Drummer was impressive, Giorio says it became outdated just as he finished it, because computer software came out that allowed users to record their own drum tones and make their own samples, rendering his invention irrelevant. "But," Giorio says, "it did get me into electrical engineering."

Giorio had struggled with the ear-training portion of his musical education, so he decided to transfer the electrical engineering credits he had earned at Henry Ford to Wayne State.

Giorio spent eight years earning his degree in electrical engineering while working full-time as a Web developer manager at MCM Learning, Inc. For his senior project, he revisited the drum unit, updating the micro-control by reprogramming a new and more advanced chip. He plays guitar frequently.