Streamline
-Chris Randall

The first issue of Keyboard Magazine I bought was the May '85 issue, with Howard Jones on the cover. That summer, between my junior and senior years of high school, marked the beginning of my decision to be a professional musician. (Little did I know that in a short while, I'd be in that same magazine myself, but that's another story.) It may not be the case now, but at the time Keyboard didn't have a picture of a piece of gear on the cover of each issue. Rather, they had a picture of a prominant player, usually on stage in front of an audience. Those were the days. The eighties may not have been kind to songwriting, but they sure were good for synth players.

Anyways, to the story at hand. I don't have the particular issue I bought in front of me (17 years of touring and moving keeps one from collecting a large amount of magazines, to be certain...) but I remember it well; at the time, Jones was given praise for taking his show on the road without a band. Everything was sequenced live, and he drove the show and sang. A short while later, I had a chance to see the show in person, and I noted the significance of the fact that just one guy (and a hell of a lot of gear) could put on a pretty good performance. (Of course, I'm no longer the type of person that would listen to, or even own, one of Howard Jones' records, but people change, right?)

I reference that cover picture as my genesis as a gear whore. I'm not too proud to admit that every single time I've come across a synthesizer (or their somewhat less capable cousins, an organ or electric piano) that peaked my interest, providing I had the fiscal means, that instrument came home with me. I'm never too attached to any particular piece of gear, prefering the initial inspiration that a new instrument gives to the more drawn out task of actually learning to utilize the power that might be hidden behind the factory patches.

But be that as it may, I don't get rid of those synths the moment the transient pleasure diminishes. To the bemusement of my spouse, I have owned at one time or another 43 different keyboard instruments. With  keys. I'm not a big fan of tone modules, as I like each piece of gear to be able to stand on its own four little rubber nodules, without needing an intermediary. This annoying personality trait of mine leads to a desparate need for space, to be certain. My current herd consists of 18 keyboards, including several completely ridiculous instruments, up to and including a Moog CDX (yup, the White Elephant) that I rarely play and can barely move. I don't even want to talk about my alphaSyntauri, as that's a whole other article in itself.

But an interesting thing has happened. Lisa and I moved in to a loft space large enough to have a smallish studio at home. This was a hard decision for me, for a couple reasons. In the "for" department, we had the fact that I didn't have to pay for (or drive to) my studio space any more, and could basically roll out of my bed in to work, thus increasing my productivity. In the "against" column, it would have to be a stripped-down version of my work environment, which I felt would actually decrease my productivity. Plus the fact that I like to be alone and uninterupted when I work. (I take this a little far, I'll admit. I had no phone in my studio, and would turn off my cell phone.)

We decided that the benefits outweighed the detriments, and built a smaller studio at home, and got rid of the old space. So the problem for me was what to bring. I needed to shoehorn as much of my equipment in to the space available, so as to have options when creating; by the same token, I needed elbow room, as I had a feeling that if I made the space too claustriphobic, I wouldn't want to work in it. I decided that I would use one (and only one) full-size keyboard. After going through my inventory, I decided on my Korg Z1, which I thought had the broadest palette of sound of the instruments I own. I also needed a sampler, so the K2500 came along. Of course, the console (a Soundcraft Digital328). And I absolutely had to have my modular (a medium-sized Blacet plus DIY modules.) And some basic analog stuff (Prodigy, MS10, Six-Trak) and some drumming (ER-1, RM1x) and I thought I had a pretty well-rounded rig that would fit in a tight spot.

Add to that the three computers I'd need (a dual-monitor base station for Logic, a laptop for softsynths, and a laptop to master to) and keyboard stands, a desk for the computers, a couple mic pres and compressors, MIDI interface, analog sequencer, mics, mic stands, and about 20 miles of cable (lightpipe, MIDI, 1/4", XLR, plus a pile of 1/8" for the modular) and there you have it .

After getting all this stuff set up, I buckled down to write the next Micronaut album. And got nowhere.

I must've started 50 different tracks, and never got past the first 8 measures on any of them. Maybe it was my workspace change? Maybe my head wasn't in the right spot? Who knows. I decided that more drastic slashing was in the offing. The first thing I did was dust off my copy of ESX24, the emagic soft sampler, and get rid of the K2500. That was cathartic, as the Kurzweil samplers had been my instrument of choice pretty much since ol' Ray started making them. A paradigm shift of no small means led to some (but not enough) movement in my creativity. The next thing I did was buy Native Instruments' Pro52 and the Waldorf PPG softsynth, and put the Six-Trak back in the storage space. (That thing didn't stay in tune too well, anyways.)

I was getting somewhere now. Native Instruments Battery was my next purchase, which had dual benefits. It allowed me to drop the ER1 and the RM1x, and also gave me a reason to get my gigantic collection of drum samples in order. This further proved my wisdom in getting rid of the K2500.

At this point, I should mention that the modular, its Mobius sequencer, and its little buddy, the modded Moog Prodigy, were completely exempt from this operation. You can take my Blacet modules away from me when you pry them from my cold dead fingers.

So, what was I left with? The Z1 (which was acting mainly as a controller at this point), the computers, the modular, the Prodigy and the console. I sat down and started again at making the Micronaut album, using the then-new Logic 5 plus my newly aquired softsynths. I did the entire thing, soup to nuts, in three weeks. And in my opinion, it is one of my best pieces of work. (In other people's opinion too, apparantly; my wife was able to license the entire album to a TV series before it was even released, which is unusual in the extreme.)

The new working environment was pushing me to be imaginative with my sound creation, which in turn made me be creative with song structure and programming. I was (and still am) something of a stick-in-the-mud as far as soft-synths go. Reaktor will never take the place of my real modular, for me. Pro52 is a long way from having a Prophet 5, and the Waldorf PPG plug-in is not even close to a placebo for having a PPG Wave 2.3. But the people listening to the record don't know that; they just want to hear a good song. Would I be more creative if I had all my synths around me? I don't know. Probably not. This new system forces my imagination in to working harder, and the benefits of that are boundless. For now, all the other synths are in storage. I could be talked out of that Moog CDX, probably (got the B4 plug-in...) but the MS10 and the Trinity with the cigarette burn in its screen are staying.

And Howard Jones? He tours with a laptop now.

Chris Randall, leader of the bands Sister Machine Gun and Micronaut, really wants an alphaSyntauri that works. Please help him. You can reach him at chris@smg.org. You can buy the new Micronaut album, Ganymede, from Positron! Records (http://www.positronrecords.com)