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Clarke Techniques | |
ErasureArticle from Making Music, May 1986 |
Computers have made Vince Clarke a different Keyboardist. And you'll never guess why.
Erasure has made Vince Clarke a changed man. He's gone off sampling, he's abandoned expensive computers for cheaper ones, and he likes gigging. What's happened to this man, and is singer Andy Bell to blame?
"Eight synths. You don't get many bands with eight synths. You don't get many bands with eight instruments..."
They're giving the whole lot to an outsider who'll write the rhythms.
"I'm not a drummer, and I already know all the drum programs I'd be able to come up, so we're giving the tapes to another drum programmer to work on, Chris Brigden."
Have you given him any instructions, or even suggestions? "No. None. I think that's good. All we've said is make it groove. Towards the end of the last album Andy and I were listening to more and more dance and funk records, so I suppose that's the direction we're going in. We'd like the next album to be a dance album.
"We may have a song with an eighths feel, and want to make it jump a little bit. It's knowing where to put those extra beats in, and only a real drummer knows that. Chris is a drummer, a percussionist, and he knows instinctively what to do. We could mess around for ages and still not hit it."
But there is a real problem and that's locating a bass player to complement the jobbing drummist. Where are all the computerised rhythm sections we wondered, trying to come up with a Sly and Robot. "That's our stumbling block. We've asked around but there doesn't seem to be anyone. We may get a bass player in, see what he can do, and copy his parts down onto the UMI.
"The reason there are drum programmers around, is because drummers got worried about drum machines taking over. Bass players never had that worry."
But let's go way back in time to events actually taking place at the moment. The release of "Wonderland".
It witnesses the dying throws of the Roland MC4 Microcomposer, an old and faithful sequencing tool, finally overtaken. "After that album was finished, I had to reprogram the whole lot to get it into MIDI."
Recording was carried out at Livingstone and the Power Plant, but principally Trident, the HQ for their producer, Flood. Andy, who has just arrived following an encounter with the dentist and an upwardly mobile nerve ending, takes up the story.
"When I met Vince last year, he had a lot of material already written. Some of the stuff we did over and over again, and still had to remix it, but some worked out straight away.
"I was a bit wary of my voice being weak. People are always saying 'he sounds like Alf, and stuff like that. I think she's got a really good, gutsy voice, but my voice box is not made that way at all. It's more warbly, So I thought, how can we bolster it up... by double tracking the voices. But in the end it drowned, rather than strengthened."
When Erasure laboured away, they generally co-operated over the studio piano - Vince enjoyed the "physical" presence. There's always the danger, when writing on synths, that you'll never be able to think of the song with any other sound than the one you first punched up. The piano is "anonymous".
How did the synthesiser instrumentation divide up? Vince takes a glance around the workshop and begins to tick off the gear racked across the walls.
"The Pro-One (an old monophonic synth) for the bass, I still haven't found anything to beat that. At least it makes sure your bass sounds are varied - it's never the same when you turn it on. Something to be said for not having a memory. The Kobol (a French made monophonic) also gets used for bass and then there's the Syrinx which reminds me of the Oscar with that really clean square wave sound. It's got an interesting filter and modulation section, "If I want weird sounds, then I'll go for the Oberheim... I think I understand how it works... but not why." The Oberheim Xpander is a complex but vastly versatile beast. Erasure's stage act usually has three different sounds coming out of it once. The six voice package is semi-digital, with a waveform creation system akin to Yamaha's FM technique on the DXs, but offering greater control over every step in the chain.
Then there's always the Synclavier. It's actually the property of Mute man Daniel Miller who's toying with the idea of upgrading it to full polyphony: "he was asking me how much I use it, I think he wants something to justify the expense to himself." But if, through some mischance en route for the forthcoming American tour, Erasure did the-bit-with-the-desert-island, which one keyboard would you take with you down to the beach, waiting for the passing freighter?
"The Casio CZ5000, the one with the sequencer built-in. That would serve me well." That, and the Calor gas fire, maybe.
A Clean Slate (Erasure) |
You And Me Both (Erasure) |
Downstairs At Erics (Vince Clarke) |
Reset For Success (Vince Clarke) |
Sounding Off (Vince Clarke) |
Waiting For The Perfect Song (Vince Clarke) |
In Clarke's Shoes (Vince Clarke) |
Vince Clarke’s Wall Of Sound (Vince Clarke) |
Home is where the art is (Vince Clarke) |
Interview by Paul Colbert
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