Adam Nelson has been playing music and tinkering with computers since he was a kid growing up in Columbia Falls.

His shop, Nelson Technologies and Support, has been a mainstay on Nucleus Avenue since 2009, refurbishing, fixing and troubleshooting thousands of computers for customers over the years. 

Lately he’s been blending both crafts together in what he calls OmniFusion.

“The idea is pretty simple: instead of deciding what genre a song is supposed to be and then staying inside those boundaries, I combine whatever musical elements serve the song — electronic, rock, orchestral, funk, world instruments, video-game influences, ambient textures, and more,” he said, “What began as an experiment has turned into an entire series of releases under the OmniFusion name, including original music, instrumental projects, and re-imagined video-game music.”

The music itself ranges from pop to heavy metal. He does use some artificial intelligence to create some tunes, but many are wholly his own creativity, he said in a recent interview.

Like his passion for computers, Nelson began his musical career back in high school, where he learned to play piano, drums, bass and guitar under band director Jeff Sizer.

He graduated in 1996 and turned to his expertise in computers to make a living. At first he fixed computers at people’s homes and businesses back in ‘99 as a part-time gig, but it grew and grew and he went into the computer field entirely in 2003 and has been fixing and refurbishing machines ever since.

In the budding age of AI, he’s been working with that as well. He recently used AI to program his business phone’s answering service. The system does a great job at screening out robocalls and other unnecessary fluff. AI helped him write the code for the new system, he said.

He sees AI largely as another technological tool, kind of like what computers were years ago. There were naysayers back then, and there are naysayers now. But AI isn’t going anywhere, he notes.

“We need to use it responsibly,” he said. 

He is concerned about AI’s use in things like autonomous weapons in warfare and the possibly of creating diseases that could wipe out much of humanity.

His philosophy  circles back to his own music. He recalls one song he recently wrote called “Loudest is Right” which is a take on some current falderal in society that suggests the person yelling the loudest is the one who is correct.

He rejects that notion.

“Let’s listen and be honest when we don’t know something,” he said.

As for the computer shop, it’s stacked to the gills with refurbished machines, both Apple and PC. He has computers that run from entry level to higher-end gaming machines. One Mac tower he has would make a great independent AI server—one that doesn’t rely on the Internet to work, he said.

He said he’d rather work on PCs than Macintosh, because Apple’s computers are almost impossible to fix — everything is soldered on the motherboard, with few user-replaceable parts.

PCs on the other hand, can still be taken apart and individual components can be replaced or upgraded.

“That’s the one thing I love about them,” he said. “You have a bad part you can swap out that part.”

His favorite operating system?

Windows 7, he said.

“It was pretty solid,” he said. “Quick to install.” 

You can check out his music at: adnmusic406.com or if you need a computer repaired or replaced, stop by his shop on Nucleus Avenue. He’s open Tuesday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.