A Roland Rhythm machine underpinned his classic song, but for this writer, keyboard player and producer Roland products do much more than provide the beat.

Not many people know this but the average number of Roland products owned by Paul Hardcastle is... well, perhaps after nine months of '19' based celebrity, he's about ready to move on.

When Newslink spoke to him he was working in his 24-track home studio set-up where for a long time he has written all his material and even recorded some tracks for release. This is the creative hotbed of Paul's work and, like many committed songwriters he relies heavily on Roland equipment.

'It's funny the way I get to use equipment' he muses: 'Like I really loved Let The Music Play by Shannon. And what I loved about it was the drum sound and pattern, so when I found out it was a Roland rhythm machine it was straight up the old music shop.'

Synthesizers, too, are chosen strictly by ear and Paul decided upon his trusty Jupiter for similar reasons. 'There wasn't one specific record I'd heard it on. But every time I heard a good string sound and found out what it was, it always seemed to be the Roland. So I got one. I still haven't heard anything to get near the string sounds on the Roland stuff. All the string sounds on '19' were JP-8. I put one side through a phaser and left the other side pretty well straight and it sounded great, I'd be interested in knowing how they came by that sound — it's really great for what I do.'

Paul has not yet acquired the latest package for those famous sounds — the rack mountable Super Jupiter, but his experience of working with Roland strings goes from some of the earliest to some of the most recent products.

'I remember the first time I heard the Roland string sound. I think it was on one of those RS-09's which were almost like organs but they had this really amazing string sound. It was great when the JP-8 came out because it had that fantastic sound I'd been after for ages and loads of buttons and I'm a real sucker for buttons. Specially lots of different coloured ones! The other Roland sounds that I think are really excellent are the brass sounds. You get a really great stabbing brass sound. The filters help a lot there. You can take all the bottom out and get a really trumpety stab and you can adjust the resonance to get it as sharp as you want. That's a sound that crops up a hell of a lot in dance music.

'It's also very handy having two sets of envelopes for one group of sounds because you can switch them around. I tried out the JX-8P at the British Music Fair, which I opened last year. That was very impressive. It seems like a logical extension of the Jupiter 8 in a way. That said, I've got a mate who got a JX-3P and stopped buying gear after that — he reckoned that was the ultimate synth and he didn't need a better one.

'I'm not like that though. As long as Roland keep bringing out new gear I'm certainly willing to go with them!'

With his appreciation of classic Roland sounds and the facility to do interesting things with filters and envelopes, Paul's reaction to the newly announced Alpha Junos is awaited with interest. In the meantime, two very important and comparatively recent additions to the Hardcastle recording system have been the SDD-3000 rack-mounted digital delay and the somewhat revolutionary SRV-2000 reverb. His interest in these devices was simple: he saw them as transforming his home set-up into something capable of competing with the major studios with their many thousands of pounds in rack-mount peripherals.

'These two are really great: I'll be able to do at least the B side of my next single here now. That'll save tube fares! Thing is, I can produce very high quality records here in the 24-track and these products put the icing on the cake. Make them high quality records as opposed to high quality demos. As it stands I've done stuff that's as good if not better than some of the digitally recorded stuff I've heard. The tape might be a bit noisier but there are such things as gates you can use to clean it up.

'I think the SDD-3000 is very, very useful. This one's got a slightly longer delay time, I think it's about 4.5 seconds. When I record I like to make things as big as they can possibly be. These are excellent for really beefing things up and doubling. Look at all those facilities! I can't think of a machine that offers all those facilities for less than a thousand pounds. I can't wait to get the old TR-808 through this. It's going to sound magic!

'It's funny how a bit of gear can inspire you. When you've gone I'll very likely get all this going and who knows it could inspire a track for the album or something. It extends your sound vocabulary which is something I always find to be very productive in the way of writing new material or even re-mixing someone else's stuff.'

Paul's attitude to the SDD-3000 and the SRV-2000 is indicative of the way Roland's technology — and pricing policies — have changed the role of these devices. Such processors started off as an engineer's technique for solving problems, then became a producer's trick for producing special sounds, and are now seen — at least by Paul — as a composer's tool as well. His practice is to keep the two machines constantly close at hand 'to use when I feel a song coming on...'

This application is particularly favoured by the ability of the SRV-2000 to be 'played' from a MIDI synth: reverb parameters can be written into the patches so an outboard effect can be used without the distraction of having to twiddle an extra set of knobs. Or in Paul's words 'It's just great that it's got MIDI — I'm going to be producing some BIG sounds with this!'

Paul's biggest sounds so far, however, have not only made creative use of outboard effects but also relied heavily on the classic TR-808 and TR-909 rhythm machines, with the rhythm technology also used in the TR-707 and very recently the TR-505.

To listen to Paul Hardcastle talk, you'd think that the charts would have been pretty empty over the last five years had it not been for Roland TR series drum boxes.

'Seriously' he says 'I think they've made a massive contribution to dance music — and dance music is the common ground for everyone. That has always been my main area — when I started to play in bands and stuff I always wanted to make it funky and danceable.'

To dance you need a beat: not only solid and at the same time interesting but also distinctive with its own special character. Roland provided it.

'Take Electro' Paul offers: 'Look how many Electro records use the TR-808 for example. Electro was pretty well based on the sound of the TR-808.'

As indeed much of Paul's own music has been. 'Personally I'm in love with the machine. For the music I play it's ideal. There's something classic about it — modern, but classic. It's been used on more records than any other drum machine and it's easy to see why. It's been used on some absolute classics: Sexual Healing by Marvin Gaye and (modesty for a moment takes a backseat) '19'.

The song that changed Paul's life actually started with a TR-808 rhythm machine. He had, up until then, played keyboards in two Brit-Funk outfits and worked on several remixes and production jobs, the most successful of which was Third World's Now That We've Found Love.

But the moment Paul heard the historical news bulletin on Vietnam he felt immediately inspired and dashed into the spare bedroom which he has converted into a home studio and 19 began to take shape.

'The first thing I did was get out the old 808 and set up a sort of dance rhythm. A lot of snare and bass drum. Then I added the voices off the video and built it up from there.'

So the TR808 was used as a guide?

'No!' he exclaims, 'that's the really good thing about it. You can use it almost like a click track but you can keep all the feel of the original recording and use it on the actual record.

'Basically, all the drums on 19 are 808. We beefed that snare up using an AMS but things like the bass drum and all the rest we just used straight 808 and beefed everything up on the desk. A lot of people from studios and technical magazines have all said, 'Christ, it must have taken you ages to get the drum sound together.' But to tell the truth it didn't take a terribly long time. We had all the basic sounds we wanted in the 808 and it was just a case of mixing them.

'They're really good for just tweaking a pattern up a bit and they also make a really good click track. If I'm drumming on a normal kit which I do from time to time it makes a really clear click. It kind of cuts through everything else. I've found with some other clicks that the sound isn't sharp enough for you to hear it all the time. But the cowbell really rings out!'

'Another thing I like about the Roland is its timing. It's the best I've ever come across in a drum machine. I've actually got very good timing. I got it by playing hi hat overdubs for a couple of producers I know. It's a surefire way of getting your sixteens perfect. Then when I started messing about with drum machine I noticed that some of them weren't quite sounding right. I never actually tested any of them but it was just a feeling that told me they weren't quite in time. But when I heard the 808 I got the same feeling but in reverse, I knew it was right'.

This time was a feeling shared by Depeche Mode who went a little further than relying on intuition and put several of their favourite drum machines including some rather famous computers through an oscilloscope. Guess which machine fared the best?

'I can believe it,' enthuses Paul, 'maybe I should get a job as an oscilloscope! No, something was not quite right. It was very much a gut thing and I guess that's why I stuck with it'.

Roland, incidentally, stuck with it too — the circuitry of all the Roland rhythm machines is designed on similar principles to that of Paul's 808 and 909. And, like Mussolini's trains, they run on time.

Roland rhythm machines, like the rest of his Roland gear, are not only part of the 24-track home installation. Even after establishing himself as a songwriter in his own right Paul is still widely accepted as the master of the remix. When Paul goes into someone else's studio to work on other people's songs, the drum machines, the synthesizers and the outboard gear go with him. Luckily all are sufficiently compact, robust, and simple to set up to be suitable for this treatment.

At the time of writing Paul is working on new material of his own with hopes of a new release of the stature of 19 for 1986. He has also recently taken time out to get married, though not, despite the impression conveyed by some remarks in this interview, to a TR-808. He is, however, keeping a very careful eye on new development from Roland Japan and has also contributed some of his own ideas for the kind of product he would like to see the company build next.

Watch this space, Paul!