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Apple Mac G4
Apple Macintosh 7100 Computer
Pro Tools (program na Macintosha)
Propellerhead Reason
Ableton Live
Apple Mac G4
What computer are you running onstage, a Mac G5?
Liam: Mac G4 laptops, two of them! I use them in the studio and it's what I use onstage. It
represents the kind of throw-away, punk spirit of the band. You just plug it in and go.
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Apple Macintosh 7100 Computer
Typ: Komputer
Opis: Liam używa na nim programów Steinberga "ReCycle!" i "Cubase". Na "jabłuszko" przesiadł
się dopiero podczas pracy nad The Fat Of The Land (a dokładniej przy "Firestarterze").
Komp służy mu przedewszystkim jako sekwencer.
Używany w: Studio (utwory z The Fat Of The Land)
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Pro Tools (program na Macintosha)
Typ: wielościeżkowy edytor
Opis: Howlett korzystał z Pro Tools'ów przy produkowaniu 'The Fat Of The Land' oraz w okresie
post-AONO (przy produkcji albumu Howlett używał Pro Toolsów jedynie do ostatecznego wykończenia utworów).
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Propellerhead Reason
Typ: zestaw wirtualnych syntezatorów, procesor dźwięku, sequencer, mixer
Opis: Howlett używał Reasona szczególnie intensywnie w czasie produkowania AONO
Utwory: płyta AONO
Liam (2006): "Reason is good for getting shit happening quickly, but it doesn’t sound like Logic or Protools,
they sound better."
Liam (2004):
What got you back on track again?
- I bought myself a laptop, which completely reanimated my creative process because I was able to write
anywhere I went. At one point someone told me to check out this program Reason, "it's really back to
basics, you should check it out just for fun, you know?" So I did - I started out just writing beats on
it and approached it in a sort of recreational sense, like you would a computer game. Then I'd go off
somewhere like Scotland or New York and I'd take my laptop with me, with all my samples on the hard
drive... and then it all just started happening. Reason was just like... it totally refreshed me, it
was just amazing. It was like going back to how it was in the beginning. All of a sudden I was writing
two or three songs a week, just messing around and having a laff again. I started something with it and
got it rocking in ten minutes. That took a lot of pressure off of me. So, to summarize: What got me back
on track was A) the laptop, and B) a program that let me feel I've gone back and taken all the complication
out of writing music.
A lot of people feel that way; Reason is like a lifesaver for the bored gearhead musician. You?
- Yeah, I couldn't live without it. If Reason hadn't come along I would probably still be in my studio,
depressed, going "aww bloody 'ell, don't know what I'm gonna do", you know? I don't want to pat Propellerhead
on the back too much, but... Reason has literally changed my life, getting me back in the studio and
enjoying it all again. It's taken the monotony out of music making and put it into a format where music
should be these days - no big deal, just something that should be fun to do. Creation is always painful,
but this is the least painful way I know of.
What do you think it was in the old days that ultimately sucked the life out of creativity?
- It was all so time consuming back then, we were all bogged down in cumbersome processes. I'm not very
technical - I come from a hip hop sort of cut-and-paste background and I'm not this big studio guy, it's
just all in my head. The technology available now frees the mind in the creative sense; I'm able to think
about the actual song a lot more, rather than just going "it's gonna take me an hour to do this or that".
Music for me these days is quite punk rock, it's very DIY, very throwaway. I know I'm not creating
something that's gonna be around forever. For me and for Prodigy it's all about the quick punch in
the face, you know?
So, Reason is pretty much the meat of the sound on the new album?
- Literally everything you'll hear on the new album has been written on Reason. Everything starts
there. Eventually we get to a stage where the song is written, and then we - that's my producer Neil
McClennan and I - move it into 'Tools where we finish off everything, and that works great since
Reason integrates with ProTools really well. Everything that comes out of Reason sounds really
good, it's got this sound, I think - a kind of certain... everything sounds like it "locks in"
really good, you know? And that sound we got out of Reason is something that we now and again had
to go back to Reason to duplicate; sometimes we'd do a thing in ProTools and it just didn't rock
it like Reason did, so we'd take it out of ProTools and try to duplicate it in Reason instead.
What are your favorite Reason devices?
- That would have to be the drum machine and the Dr. REX. I use the REX player all over the place
and I just love the way you can mess around with a loop, and I love the way you can sync the LFO
to tempo and route it to the filter, we use that on the album a lot. As for the effects, the Scream
4 unit is just the best thing for the type of music I'm writing. Definitely the high point of
version 2.5 for me. The tape distortion is very good for bass, to give it the edge, it's warm...
What, specifically, don't you use Reason for?
- When it comes to bass sounds, I'm pure analog and I don't use soft synths for bass at all.
There's just no substitute for analog. Instead, I'll take an Oberheim, Moog, Korg MS-20 or
something, sample a sequence of it playing, rex it up and then bring that back in Reason and
lock it in there. I do occasionally use the softsynths to put melodies down - I'd say maybe 50%
of the synths, the top line and high end stuff, is Reason. I can't as of yet use it for everything -
obviously you can't record vocals into it - but ultimately, what Reason does have by way of
limitations is also one of its strong points. It forces your imagination to be more on the board,
you have to dig it out of your head rather than just going "well, I just can't do that in there".
I never saw it that way, I mean if something you want to do is completely off limits then just use
another program, no big deal.
Liam has a wish list for things he'd like to see in future versions of Reason. One would be the
ability to automap non-tonal samples to individual key zones in the NN-XT, for creating drum maps on the fly.
- My end note on Reason is, it's got this humour about it, it's like - when somebody showed it
to me the first time and said "you can keep on building the rack up..." I was all, "what rack,
what're you on about?" I couldn't believe it, it was just such a simple and genius idea. It's so
obvious now, isn't it? Love it.
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Ableton Live
Typ: sequencer
Opis: Howlett używa programu podczas trasy, pozwalu mu on na szybkie manewrowanie loopami.
Utwory: Trasa AONO i poźniej
Liam (na oficjalnej stronie): "4 all u teckheads im now running ableton live on stage and its an
amazing program,v easy to fuck with stuff as u go along."
Liam: What gear do you use onstage today?
Onstage, we run two computers with Ableton Live, and we have various old analog synths from the ?80?s
all hooked-up together. We have the Roland SH-02 analog synth, some old Korg synths, and generally
things that give that really fat sound. There?s also been a couple of software plug-ins that blow my
mind recently, like [MOTU?s] ARP 2600 plug-in; I can?t tell it from the analog one! It?s on the new
record. That?s it for the stage setup. Basically, I try not to make it too complicated. Ableton
Live?s an incredible program and it?s revolutionized how this band plays live.
That?s quite a statement!
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Yeah, well?I discovered Live only a year-and-a-half ago after a long break. I was like, let me just
try one set with this and see how it happens, and it made the whole set really spontaneous. At any
moment, I can fling things around, and?Ableton Live?s the best thing that?s happened to the band in
the last few years.
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