Magazine Archive

Home -> Magazines -> Issues -> Articles in this issue -> View

Article Group:
Frankfurt Mix

Roland Orzabal

Tears for Fears

Article from One Two Testing, February 1985


What was your favourite instrument of 1984?

"I find it hard to pick one thing. But I suppose my favourite instrument last year was the guitar. I actually used it last year, I worked on getting sounds out of it which is something I'd never really done before. It's The Strat that I've become attached to, and it's probably been the instrument I used most in '84. I don't think guitar technology has stopped, I think they're still working on that, but I'm quite happy as far as guitars go.

"Keyboard-wise, well, we put in an order for the Emulator II which will probably be our keyboard of '85 if not '84. We're getting it for the quality, better than the Fairlight: I think it's the best, apart from the Synclavier, but it's much less expensive, and it'll be great for live work. We can't use our Emulator I's discs on the II — you can copy discs, but you probably wouldn't want to, you'd probably want to start all over again. Having said that, the I is still good because it distorts things. You can get away with stealing other people's records on the I, like we did on 'Empires Dance', because it makes them sound like something else. The better sampling gets, the less you'll be able to do that.

"And the Linn 9000 sounds incredibly exciting — to have it all there, a drum machine and a keyboard recorder. Live, it's going to make things much easier. The Linn's our main drum machine at the moment anyway, so the 9000 will become, I expect, the main drum machine and the main sequencer, in one unit. We used a Linn Drum live last time just for percussion and our drummer used to play along to that, but now we'll be able to run sequences without any worry about dragging around computers or weedy little leads that might go wrong.

"At the moment we use a UMI for the sequences, and we used to use an MC4. It's easy to write into the UMI in step time at the moment. When you play things in it corrects it, but sometimes it misses things off like first notes. Editing in step time is a bit of a nightmare, too: you can't 'see' the sequences to edit, you have to sort of flick through and take notes off if you want to. But it is otherwise quite easy to use."

And what would you like to see developed in 1985?

"It's ludicrous the amount of keyboards we have to use in the studio. Things are becoming modular, that's exciting, and I'd like eventually to have just one keyboard there and a bunch of rack-mounted stuff. I'm not into a lot of equipment taking up all the space in the control room: all this rack-mounted equipment worked from a central controller should be developed in '85.

"The obvious thing to have would be a digital desk, one big, basic, main frame that was in the control room and would have keyboards on it as well. That is being done, and it could be good. Our engineer's got an idea for one, but I don't know whether he'll do anything with that. I haven't a clue how you'd actually use it. I suppose everyone wants to get more from less space."


More with this artist



Previous Article in this issue

Adrian Belew

Next article in this issue

Sequential Circuits Max


Publisher: One Two Testing - IPC Magazines Ltd, Northern & Shell Ltd.

The current copyright owner/s of this content may differ from the originally published copyright notice.
More details on copyright ownership...

 

One Two Testing - Feb 1985

Frankfurt Mix

Artist:

Tears for Fears


Role:

Band/Group

Interview

Previous article in this issue:

> Adrian Belew

Next article in this issue:

> Sequential Circuits Max


Help Support The Things You Love

mu:zines is the result of thousands of hours of effort, and will require many thousands more going forward to reach our goals of getting all this content online.

If you value this resource, you can support this project - it really helps!

Donations for November 2024
Issues donated this month: 0

New issues that have been donated or scanned for us this month.

Funds donated this month: £44.00

All donations and support are gratefully appreciated - thank you.


Magazines Needed - Can You Help?

Do you have any of these magazine issues?

> See all issues we need

If so, and you can donate, lend or scan them to help complete our archive, please get in touch via the Contribute page - thanks!

Please Contribute to mu:zines by supplying magazines, scanning or donating funds. Thanks!

Monetary donations go towards site running costs, and the occasional coffee for me if there's anything left over!
muzines_logo_02

Small Print

Terms of usePrivacy